Any Gamestop Employees Here?

[2HF]

My primary job is at The Home Depot, working the garden center. I recently started working at Gamestop as a second job. I am still in training. I can't imagine a more fun job short of actually working for a game developer. I know developing games is actual hard work and everything but I mean the environment.

I've heard people all my life say "Find what you love to do then find someone who'll pay you to do it" or "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life". I believe they apply here. Getting to be around games and people who love them is something I'd do for free. Getting someone to pay me to do it is just delicious frosting on my already yummy carrot cake.

Has anyone else worked at a store of this type? Any stories? Tips? General thoughts?

 

[RaNDM G]

I dislike carrot cake. Other than that, congrats on getting two jobs.

 

[Pirakahunter788]

I've noticed a trend with Gamestop employees.
Many of them believe that if they work at a Gamestop, they have the ability to play any of the games for free, in the store. Sadly, they don't get to play the games. EVER. Not to mention a good portion of the managers have a tendency to be extremely controlling.
Out of the people that I've met that worked for Gamestop, only 2 of them actually liked it there and stayed around for more than a year.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

I've noticed a trend with Gamestop employees.
Many of them believe that if they work at a Gamestop, they have the ability to play any of the games for free, in the store. Sadly, they don't get to play the games. EVER. Not to mention a good portion of the managers have a tendency to be extremely controlling.
Out of the people that I've met that worked for Gamestop, only 2 of them actually liked it there and stayed around for more than a year.

Really? I visit one near my house quite frequently and they say they do get to try out most of the new games. I can't remember if they were managers though. They were behind the desk and seemed like general help.

EDIT: Forgot to give my Kudos to the OP for landing two jobs. Tell me how the Gamestop job turns out! I'd really like to know.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Um.. Gamestop isn't a game developer nor does it make games. It's a retail store that sells games, though.

Just remember, lay off the acid, kids!

 

[Project_Xii]

EB Games employee here. Been working there for about 5 years, love my job. All those Gamestop horror stories I hear and read... never really seen anything like that over here. I think it really dependant on the manager and his choice in staff, and I'm just lucky to have a great boss and great co-workers.

I've noticed a trend with Gamestop employees.
Many of them believe that if they work at a Gamestop, they have the ability to play any of the games for free, in the store. Sadly, they don't get to play the games. EVER. Not to mention a good portion of the managers have a tendency to be extremely controlling.
Out of the people that I've met that worked for Gamestop, only 2 of them actually liked it there and stayed around for more than a year.

Errrmm... I have no idea where you got that theory. We play tons and tons of games at our stores. We sit around and discuss games and theory during quiet times, and often customers will join in, helps build rapport. The 7 day return policy makes it super easy, and we get first dibs on any rare pre-owned stock that comes in (hey, we're employees, but we're also customers. In some cases, the best customers). I have roughly 300 console games, and I had 0 when I started working there. You'd be surprised how quickly your collection builds up when you have such easy access to everything. We don't get THAT much of a discount, but we do occasionally get staff incentives that help out, like 50% extra for staff trade ins.

Again, I think it's boss-dependant on whether you enjoy the job or not. The company itself and it's policies aren't too bad.

 

[Aetera]

I've noticed a trend with Gamestop employees.
Many of them believe that if they work at a Gamestop, they have the ability to play any of the games for free, in the store. Sadly, they don't get to play the games. EVER. Not to mention a good portion of the managers have a tendency to be extremely controlling.
Out of the people that I've met that worked for Gamestop, only 2 of them actually liked it there and stayed around for more than a year.

I worked at a GameStop years ago, and we were allowed to play any of the games for free. Our manager let us borrow any games in the store for up to three days. We also had a drawer just for employee reserves, which automatically gave us reserve/pre-order priority over non-employees. Add in the employee discount, and it was awesome.

They might have changed the policy, though. It was years ago. It might be just the one store, too. I never asked the employees at the other nearby GameStop if they had the same policies.

Our manager was awesome. Our GameStop was in a mall, so he regularly sent one of us on Dairy Queen runs at the other end of the mall to get Blizzards for everyone else. He always paid, too. Little stuff like that. It was a really fun place to work, crappy pay and hardly any hours aside.

 

[Project_Xii]

I remember seeing these Gamestop employees bored to their living minds because the store is in one of the most random unfitting places. This one employee was building a tower of consoles...

Oh this happens for sure. 5 years ago there was like 3 stores in the area. Now there's about 15. They just open them up in every centre, no matter how quiet the area is. Over saturation. Some places are so dead they're lucky to make $100 on a weekday. It's a nightmare, I try to avoid working in those places as much as I can unless I have a good book handy. Good employees will always find something to do though, like cleaning, creating new martketing, "researching" the game magazines, and yes occasionally, playing games on the big screens. It draws people in.

To clarify on before also, when I said we play games I meant we play games in our own homes. Playing games at work rarely happens cause its... you know... work. There's paperwork, cleaning and stock to do, not to mention selling and remerchandising. Those quiet stores are an exception when there's literally nothing left to be done, and playing a game on a big screen becomes the best way to sell things.

 

[2HF]

Um.. Gamestop isn't a game developer nor does it make games. It's a retail store that sells games, though.

Just remember, lay off the acid, kids!

I don't believe anyone said that. What I said was that working for a game developer would be my dream job. I can't work at one of those so gamestop is the next best option.

Also, my manager is a real kool guy. Had everyone over to his place for a bonfire/cookout/party thingy a couple weeks ago, before I'd even officially started. My coworkers all seem like pretty awesome people too. We don't play games in store but we do get to check out in stock games.