This story takes place during the end of my tenure with a game store chain, after I’ve settled into a familiar groove of thirteen- to fifteen-hour shifts, six days a week — also known as “absentee coworker syndrome”. I’ve also gotten a chance to get to know all the regular customers.

One of my regulars is in the store checking on the stock of our Nintendo Wii units, wanting to know when we’ll get more, etc. The guy easily drops $300 a week in my store and has two adorable, well-behaved kids, so we’re on fantastic terms.

Unfortunately, our district manager is visiting our store and brought her friend [District Manager #2] with her for advice on how to run our store.

It’s worth noting one more fact. I am the sole white employee at this store. The neighborhood in question is predominantly filled with those of darker complexion than myself (African, Latino, etc). Both of the district managers in my store are, you guessed it, whiter than new-fallen snow.

I’m chatting up my regular when I get pulled over by the district managers to a corner out of earshot, where the following exchange takes place.

District Manager #1: “What the h*** do you think you’re doing?!”

Me: “Um, my job? What do you mean? Did I do something wrong? He already has the Premium Membership card…”

District Manager #2: “Not that. Why’d you tell him when you’re getting more Wii consoles?”

Me: “Because he asked? I don’t get it.”

District Manager #1: “We don’t give that information out to people like that!”

District Manager #2: “Exactly. When you give them that kind of information, you either get robbed or you get more of them. That’s not the image we’re trying to cultivate here.”

District Manager #1: “Yeah, we’re trying to bring in more… profitable clientele.”

Me: “I don’t… I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘them’?”

District Manager #1 & #2: *In unison* “Blacks.”

District Manager #2: “We want bleach-white soccer moms, not a bunch of sooty street rats.”

My eyes must’ve popped out of their sockets in horror at what they just said, because my district manager immediately begins trying to backpedal.

District Manager #1: “What he means is that middle-class people tend to spend more money.”

The incredibly racist conversation continued for a few minutes before I promptly excused myself back to my store and helped my customers. Still, that little bit pretty much eroded any respect I had for Senior Management. 

Luckily, the parent company — which controlled two video chains and my game chain — went belly-up a month later, and both district managers lost their jobs overnight.

Me? I went on to a data center internship that paid more and was a ton of fun.

We buy used games cheaply and resell them. I’m standing by the counter and I can see a woman walking angrily towards me. Once she reaches the counter, before I can say anything, she throws a game onto the counter, shouting.

Customer: “You scammed my kids!”

A bit taken aback by this, I pick up the game and ask what she means.

Customer: “You sold my kids a broken game!”

I look at the game and see that it is a pre-owned copy of FIFA 09 for Xbox 360. This took place in 2012, so these older versions of the game are sold for half a dollar. I am prepared to give her a refund or a replacement with or without a receipt, but just to investigate how this might have happened, I take a look at the disc.

The Xbox 360 is notorious for causing circle scratches from even small vibrations to the machine — even just walking past it while it is on the floor could cause the laser to kill any disc inside — and it is one of the first things we are told to look for when purchasing pre-owned games from customers. This disc has a clear circle on it, so I get a pretty good idea of what has happened.

In order to calm the woman down and avoid this happening again, I start explaining:

Me: “Oh, I see what has happened. I will help you, but you see this scra—”

The woman explodes, out of the blue, grabs the game out of my hands, throws it onto the floor, and spits on it, giving me a death glare before running out of the store.

Stunned from the sudden outburst, I stare at the spit-covered game case and slowly start picking it up. As I stand up, I see the woman rushing toward me again.

Customer: “GIVE ME BACK MY GAME!”

Confused, I hand it over and watch as she rips the disk out of the case and starts trying to break it in two.

Customer: “I AM GOING TO BREAK IT SO YOU CAN’T SELL IT TO ANY OTHER KIDS!”

After a few moments of effort, she only managed to bend the disk, gave up, and threw it on the floor again, storming off a final time. All the while, I was trying my best not to burst out in laughter over the ridiculous scene.

I guess she just had a lot of pent-up anger she needed to vent, embarrassingly so, at someone she didn’t know.

I work for a popular video game shop where you can bring in games to trade for cash or store credit.

Our particular location is in a somewhat seedier part of town, so everyone that works here is very used to people bringing in bottom-of-the-barrel, often dirty stuff to get a couple of bucks. Thus, I’m not surprised to see a strung-out woman pace up to the counter with a heavy-looking paper bag. I put on my best customer service face and get started.

Customer: “Just seeing what I can get for this stuff. It’s mostly my boyfriend’s so I don’t really know what’s in there.”

Me: “No problem. Go ahead and set the bag up here and I’ll start sorting it out.”

She seems either too distracted or reluctant to hand the bag over, but she finally does so when she hears her boyfriend calling from the door. While she heads back over to talk with him, I start unloading the bag. Predictably, it’s mostly titles we barely pay a quarter for, as well as some DVD box sets and such that we don’t take.

She comes back about the time that I’m getting to the bottom of the bag, so I look up at her as I try to finish.

Customer: “He just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything in there he wanted.”

Me: “Well, you’re free to take back the DVDs and any of the games so far he’d rather keep—”

I pause because my hand has touched a fairly large cylinder. I look into the bag. She looks into the bag. What I have touched looks like an old-style flashlight, just a little bigger, with the wider “light” end capped. The woman starts giggling hysterically and my stomach turns as I realize what I’ve just put my bare fingers on.

The customer turns to my coworker, who has seen none of this.

Customer: “Oh, she knows what that is! She knows what that is.” *To me* “Bet you didn’t expect to see that, huh?”

I am too shocked — and frankly nauseated — to even respond, so I just silently go to the register to ring up the offer we can make on the games, which is only a couple of dollars in the first place. She accepts cheerfully enough, stuffs the DVDs back in the bag, and then heads out laughing. I IMMEDIATELY run to the restroom to wash my hands, and believe me, there is no water in the world hot enough to make them feel clean again. 

When I come back, my coworker is still agog. 

Coworker: “Was that a prank or did she seriously think we’d be interested in her boyfriend’s sex toy?!”

I STILL don’t know the answer to that question.

A woman comes in to get a refund on three video games. She hands me the receipt and I instantly know this is not going to go well.

Me: “Ma’am, you got all three of these games for free during our buy-two-get-one-free deal. I can’t process a refund for free games.”

Customer: “What are you talking about? I spent $30 on these games, so I should get a refund of $10 since I brought back a third of my purchase.”

Me: “If you take a look at the receipt you gave me, it shows the exact price of each game you purchased. See, these three games are here, here, and here. They all have a zero next to them, meaning these were the games you did not pay for due to the deal. There is no money to refund to you since you did not give us any money for these games.”

Customer: “Are you calling me a thief?!”

Me: “Let me call my manager.”

She did not get a refund on her free games.

Related:
Refunder Blunder, Part 56
Refunder Blunder, Part 55
Refunder Blunder, Part 54
Refunder Blunder, Part 53
Refunder Blunder, Part 52

My local game store has special sales days for loyalty members. The deals are usually pretty good, like buy-two-get-one preowned, or sometimes buy-three-get-two. Plus, I can usually load up on T-shirts, cute pins, and the occasional decoration for my gaming corner. 

It’s one of those sales, and I’m walking around with several T-shirts and packs of Pokémon pins in my arms. I stop by the PlayStation 4 games, because it’s a great time to load up on games I’ve heard good things about but wasn’t sure about paying full price for. I’m browsing along when some random dude decides to talk to me.

Customer: “Hey, you have a loyalty card, right?”

Me: “Uh, yes.”

Customer: “Can I use it, too?”

I will totally let my close friends use my account, but I don’t feel comfortable letting some random dude use it, especially as it’s tied to my phone number.

Me: “Sorry, no.”

Customer: “Come on. It’s not a big deal.”

Me: “I don’t feel comfortable giving out my phone number, so no.”

I grab my games and go up to the counter. Rando follows a few steps behind. I’m an extreme regular, so the main employees know my phone number by heart. So, thankfully, I don’t have to say it out loud, but rando dude is trying to see over my shoulder.

Employee: “Hey, sir, I’m going to need you to stand over there in line.”

Customer: “I’m with her. She’s my girlfr—”

Employee: “I know her boyfriend, sir.”

I’m single, but thank God for good people!

Customer: “Brother?”

I shake my head.

Employee: “Behind the line, please, sir. It’s store policy, as a lot of our customers pay with credit cards.”

Customer: “Come on!”

Employee: “Sir, step behind the line.”

Rando finally steps away, and the employee rings me up. I pay, take my bags, and head for the door. As I do, rando steps up to the counter and puts the games down with a half slam. I kind of decide to be nosy and see what happens.

Customer: *Points to me* “She said I could use her account.”

Employee: “No, sir.”

Customer: “It’s like, c’mon, it’s like five bucks.”

He’s holding several pre-owned games that have been recently released, where the free one would be around $50.

Employee: “I can sell you a membership and you’ll still save money.”

It’s $15 for the membership, which would mean he would essentially get the third game for $15, which is still a $35 savings.

Customer: “No, that’s too expensive. Just put in yours or something.”

Employee: “I can’t do that. I can only give you a discount if you have your own membership.”

Rando knocked the games off the counter and stormed past me, tossing out a slur that implied that I could be paid in exchange for sexual favors.

Dude, just buy a membership.