Gamestop Makes the Worst to Work For List

Karloff

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Gamestop Makes the Worst to Work For List



Business analysts put Gamestop at the 10th Worst Employer spot, citing pre-order woes.

The worst job ever story; everyone's got one, and far too many of them are inspired by people's experiences in retail. The business news site 24/7 Wall St - a Delaware-based internet news company financed by institutions like MSNBC and The Huffington Post - has collected employee review data and, from that data, extracted a list of the worst employers in America. Gamestop made the list at #10.

24/7 Wall St only considered those companies with 300 or more negative Glassdoor [http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm] reviews, looking specifically for the bottom 10% of the total pool. That gave them a pool of 19 companies to examine, and they eliminated 8 straight away as those weren't publicly traded companies. That left 11, which 24/7 Wall St then examined to see why they had attracted such high levels of employee dissatisfaction.

Gamestop, according to 24/7 Wall St, is a company "under pressure." It owns too much brick-and-mortar and its digital distribution platform is small compared to the rest of its operation. But the big sticking point was sales. "Employees appear to regularly complain that the company privileges sales above customer service," according to the report, with preorders - trapping customers into paying in advance for an unknown quantity - attracting the most bile. "Likely adding to poor customer service, reviews point to high turnover," the report goes on to say, which basically means employees are deserting the company in droves. Poor leadership was also cited as a general factor affecting all the companies on the worst employer list. "Notably, almost all of the CEOs of the companies on our list get very low ratings from employees."

Not that this will come as much of a surprise to Gamestop customers, or former employees. It's not as if Gamestop has been having a great time lately, [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117313-GameStop-Sales-Slide-Into-2012] and it's true that some of its economic problems are as much to do with the market as they are with the company. Still it does beg the question; will Gamestop change and, if not, how long can it last with its current business model?

Source: 24/7 Wall St Wire [http://kotaku.com/5934095/report-gamestop-is-one-of-the-worst-places-to-work-in-america?popular=true]


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Fappy

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I've known a lot of people who have worked for Gamestop and all but one of them hated it immensely. You'd think it would be a pretty sweet retail gig. Apparently not.
 

Comocat

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The weird thing about Gamestop is how a business dedicated to my most favorite thing in the world makes me feel so terrible. I love just looking at games but I just get a weird vibe everytime I walk into one of their stores.

There actually used to be a really awesome Gamestop I would visit and the employees and I would just chat about games, then they closed it down. It would be nice if gamestop would become like starbucks, overcharging you for coffee, but making you feel awesome while they did it.

Edit: Just fyi

10- GameStop 9- Rite Aid 8- Hewlett Packard 7- Robert Half International 6- Sears 5- Office Max 4- Hertz 3- Radio Shack 2- Dillard's 1- Dish Network
 

Redingold

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Mar 28, 2009
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GenGenners said:
Who was #1 on the list I wonder......
Just check the source article.

http://247wallst.com/2012/08/10/americas-worst-companies-to-work-for/
 

Jhooud

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The gamestop near where I work actually seems pretty decent. The employees are polite, fairly well informed and don't seem particularly prone to pushing anything that doesn't interest me. Luck of the draw I suppose.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
The ones around here that I regular tend to have employees that stick around for awhile so I guess they just have a good regional leader or something. It would be a shame to see gamestop go down, that would mean the only places to buy physical games would be best buy, target or *shudder* walmart.
 

fix-the-spade

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Fappy said:
You'd think it would be a pretty sweet retail gig.
I'm not sure such a thing exists.

It's Python-esque that Gamestop's solution to dropping footfall and sales is to force the staff to behave aggressively towards the customers. All the hard selling of a spam bot without the instant convenience and orifice enlargers, grand!

Smith, sale are down! Shout at the customers louder!

Bbb...but sir.

LOUDER!
 

Sarah LeBoeuf

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Pretty much all of the problems I've experienced at GameStop (including while working at several) have been on a managerial level. Poor store management leads to poor employees.

That's not to say I don't have horror stories from my time there, because oh boy, was there some drama. I know some former GameStop employees who won't set foot in the store again, but I found a store with a great staff and enjoy being a regular there.
 

Baldr

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When they started requiring quotas on Gamestop club and Game Informer magazine subscriptions they lost a ton of good employees and potentially good managers. The bad employees filtered up into management and reinforced the cycle.
 

Berithil

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Hmmm, thats kinda interesting. I actually might be getting a job at the local Gamestop here. However, whenever I go in there, I have never had a bad experience. I've never felt like they try to pressure customers (at least not me) into something I don't want. I actually usually get caught up in conversations about various games with the employees, and they're all super friendly. In fact, not all that long ago I had bought fallout 3 there, then soon after they got the GOTY edition in for just a couple dollars more. I took F3 in to trade for in-store credit and pick up the GOTY edition. But instead of just trading it in, the employee returned it, giving me a full refund on it. I ended up paying four bucks for the Fallout 3 GOTY edition :D

Maybe I'm just lucky to have a good Gamestop here in town. All these horror stories about GS kinda go over my head.
 

Noble_Lance

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I was friends in high school with a guy who became the assistant store manager that they opened about a 1/10th of a mile from my house and I've gotten into 45 minute discussions about the store.

He told me a few horror stores, basically its a good ole boys club. His manager refused to give him a recommendation when he tried to apply to be a full manager, despite being one of the top rated employees, he was actually getting paid less as an Assistant Manager, than a game adviser in his store he had to hire. He would tell me that the management would want to go for resales for bonus money. His store did better than most in the state, but the management higher ups, would set outrageous standards. So for example, it didn't matter if he moved [example numbers] 6000 regular game sales in a month, they wanted either more, or they wanted say 12,000 resales.

But he was set up to leave the company and in his last week I saw the real bad service people usually experience. I got a phone call, from an idiot about a game I preordered, she said it was in the store waiting for me. [I got it for PC, and it was delayed] I said it should have been impossible to be there, because it hadn't been released yet, she said no it was and that I should come get it. So I went the next day and found not only that it wasn't there, like I thought it wouldn't be, but that the store didn't even order it yet because I was the only one from that store that ordered a PC game hard copy.
 

major_chaos

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I will never understand the Gamestop hate. I have been to something like 6 different stores over the course of the last ten years and never ever had a bad experience, unlike just about every other place I have tried to buy videogames. That combined with them being the best place to get console games without spending much money means that if they close I'll be done with console gaming forever, and that would be a shame because there are some thing I really enjoy about consoles. (inb4 "use E-bay" no, all of the fuck E-bay)
 

Shoggoth2588

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I hated working at Gamestop: it was the only place I worked where my supervisor told me straight up that I could be replaced within the day. When I worked for Gamestop I was thrown behind the counter with no training and like the article said, it was all about the pre-orders followed by used game sales. Once while looking through a pile of stuff for trade-ins, my manager grabbed up the boxes and manuals the person brought in and threw them away in full view (more of a personally issue for me).

Anyway the point is that no matter how many horror stories the 20-somethings have, there will always be a gaming 15 year old who doesn't care and wants to work at the place that sells him/her their games.
 

RooksEye

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As a current employee of GameStop, I must have gotten lucky, cause I love my job. It really comes down to who you work with. Yeah, we get grilled on pre-orders and such, but I've worked retail for 4 years now and this is by far my favorite job.
 

Cobalt Lion

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I had a friend who managed a GameStop. You've never seen somebody so stressed all the time about their work. He left not too terribly long after starting to work retail management for a Radio Shack
 

ecoho

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Fappy said:
I've known a lot of people who have worked for Gamestop and all but one of them hated it immensely. You'd think it would be a pretty sweet retail gig. Apparently not.
its great till you do something they dont like. then it doesnt matter if youve been a modle emploey or that you helped build the store sells up 50% they will go after you like a rabid dog........ long story short guy comes in to sell a 360 cant get what he wants so goes to pawn it i catch him at the pawn shop (i was clocked out) and pay him what he wanted. Little weasal of an emploey saw me reported me, was fired.

Edit: ok how the hell is walmart not number 1?! they openly misstreat their workers and they have a 90% turnover rate!
 

natster43

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I had a job at a gamestop and really enjoyed it, I even reapplied there recently. I guess I got an okay one.