My life working in a shit second-hand game shop

[Consignia]

Alright, I'm sorry, I wouldn't usually bother posting but I was having a little mind block on my work. I'll stave it off by posting puns in the politics threads rather than Gestapoing the place in future.

[madhair60]

Why must we know you were having a flat white at the time?

what the nun's cunt is a "flat white"?  i'm not fucking googling

[Hank Venture]

Enjoyable read. Anyway, reported to Neil. See what happens to your account.

[popcorn]

Why must we know you were having a flat white at the time?

Look at the dialogue immediately preceding that detail.

Though obviously if you didn't get that then the joke probably just didn't work.

[Hank Venture]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_white

[madhair60]

i'm not fucking clicking that.  i want to be spoonfed.

[popcorn]

It's a kind of milky coffee I have never been able to distinguish from a latte.

[touchingcloth]

Alright, I'm sorry, I wouldn't usually bother posting but I was having a little mind block on my work. I'll stave it off by posting puns in the politics threads rather than Gestapoing the place in future.

Nah, you're in the right. Popcorn shouldn't have dared to dream that anyone would be interested in something that happened to him as a minor over a decade ago. Cunt can get to fuck far as I'm concerned.

[thugler]

Look at the dialogue immediately preceding that detail.

Though obviously if you didn't get that then the joke probably just didn't work.

Don't know the character who's just been introduced so not sure what relevance it is him being hypocritical, so presumed it was a bit of minor detail

Good article mind

[Steven]

i want to be spoonfed.

Fack it, get me a pint.

[Paul Calf]

I thought it was genuinely touching when Frank

Spoiler alert

gave you the guitar, and when he died

[close]

.

[Goldentony]

The best thing I ever saw in a CEX which is to say it was also the worst was when I was trading in a Friday the 13th box set for a few bob because I hated the fucking films and wanted the first volume of Kissology on DVD more on a day that looking back felt like it was about 300 . It was in the last days of my being able to wear a white tshirt freely without looking like someone had bandaged up a load of bacon misshapes and then pissed on the result. Anyway,

It was the start of the university year and while queueing up a girl had wandered in with a stack of paper, politely handed a sheet over to one of the horrible staff and told them if there's any vacancies coming up please give her a call. Aye will do, no harm done, ta love. Walks out. That's all.

Guy behind the counter has a quick look at the CV, doesn;t say much but then i'm guessing he doesn't have much say in the process. Manager walks in, guy hands the CV to the manager and explains what's just happened. Manager puts his hand to his head, barely glances the CV and theatrically TEARS THE FUCKING CV UP AYE FUCKIN' HAVE THAT RESUMÉ YOU GOBSHITE CURRICULUM VITAE WANKER FUCK OFF and lashes it in THE BIN and then turns to all of us queueing up and goes

"THE FUCKINNNNN SHITE PEOPLE GIVE US!!!!!!!!!" as if we were all going to go AYE MATE RIGHT ON AYE KIN SHOW HER TAKIN THE PISS LOVE THIS IS A RESPECTABLE ESTABLISHMENT LOVE KIN PILES OF FIFA 09 TO SORT OUT HERE KIN DVDS OF SCRUBS SEASON 7 rather than sort of look at this sweating demented mess and hope we can all leave quietly without being put in the fucking FUJIWARA ARM BAR and submitted into explaining why we're fucking off out of the shop.

[Utter Shit]

Linking to personal off site blogs is.

Who cares, he's not selling anything and it's a good read.

EDIT: Missed second page where you backed down, sorry.

How come every CEX around the country has the same pungent smell? I know why they all smell (customer base of teenagers and obese geeks) but why is the smell EXACTLY the same wherever you go?

[Nowhere Man]

It was a bloody good read, popcorn. Love the writing style, i'll definitely check out more of your blog from now on.

I don't see why we're not allowed to share blog stuff anyway, CaB is surely more of a community of like minded people rather than just another forum on the internet to discuss mundane things[nb]although that happens a lot too amiright?[/nb]

[madhair60]

Who cares, he's not selling anything and it's a good read.

EDIT: Missed second page where you backed down, sorry.

How come every CEX around the country has the same pungent smell? I know why they all smell (customer base of teenagers and obese geeks) but why is the smell EXACTLY the same wherever you go?

Because gamers are social misfits who don't understand how to bathe correctly.

"Ooh, no time to shower!  I need to get the last Jiggy to fight Gruntilda!"

Fucking idiots.

[Utter Shit]

It was a bloody good read, popcorn. Love the writing style, i'll definitely check out more of your blog from now on.

I don't see why we're not allowed to share blog stuff anyway, CaB is surely more of a community of like minded people rather than just another forum on the internet to discuss mundane things[nb]although that happens a lot too amiright?[/nb]

If it's unarguably self-indulgent and unlikely to create discussion I can see why people might complain, but something like this is both interesting to read and likely to lead to discussion. If a long-term poster with an unblemished record posts something like this it's reasonable to assume they haven't posted it for self-serving reasons.

[Goldentony]

Presumably it's because posting whatever's in the blog as a post generally has a better chance of kicking off a better discussion rather than posting a link and going EE AR LADS. I did read popcorn's blog and i'm glad I did because it was v interesting and obviously a lot of other people have too but there's points when you see a link minus description like in Oscillations or something and you just go I'LL BE DIPPED IN DOGSHIT IF I'M CLICKING ON SOME MYSTERIOUS LINK which stunts discussion

[popcorn]

If a long-term poster with an unblemished record posts something like this

I've got -9 karma :(

[Dex Sawash]

what the nun's cunt is a "flat white"?  i'm not fucking googling

Latest steamroller atrocity craze from ISIL

[Small Man Big Horse]

I too liked the blog, made for a great read.

As for linking to off-site blogs, I guess it should probably be done in h.s. art, but popcorn's a proper VW and everything. And we let that guy who blogged about his addiction to Babe Station get away with it!

I missed that, any chance of a link?

Here's my blog of working in Gametron.

Kid: How much will you give me for this shrink-wrapped copy of Fifa with a Game pricetag on it?

Me: (playing Garou: Mark of the Wolves on imported PS2) Fuck off.

Kid: I'll kill you.

Me: I'll kill you mate.

(The kid leaves)

Me: Kill you mate.

Here's my blog of working part time on Sundays in a second hand console games shop in the early 90s.

Me: Right, have opened up the shop, wonder if they'll be any customers today.

Nine Hours Later

Me: Ah, guess not.

Three Months Later:

Manager: You're fired.

Me: Fair enough.

[Nowhere Man]

I've got -9 karma :(

to be fair karma gets handed out both ways like pigs heads at a Tory initiation ceremony.[nb]snort, eh readers?[/nb] I've got half of mine for posting about Christmas too early.[nb]In hindsight probably deserved[/nb]

[gib]

That was a great read and i'll be sharing that around next.

The only irk is that i would have liked to hear more about Freedom.

[Goldentony]

Oh aye I was in charge of the recruitment process for one of these types of shops once with a superior who'd been overseeing the whole thing for an amount of time that had annoyed the fuck out of him, so when the opening was finally looming they handed me a pile of CV's as tall as a bloody big spinning kebab and went "right, just pick 10" in the sense of just pick any 10 of these titheads rather than go through these and find out who'd be most suitable. In the end I went with either the stupidest email, because all these kids were about 16, or whoever had the stupidest hobby section.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Here's my blog of working part time on Sundays in a second hand console games shop in the early 90s.

Me: Right, have opened up the shop, wonder if they'll be any customers today.

Nine Hours Later

Me: Ah, guess not.

Much cheaper if you were a kid back then (which I was) just to get your hands on some dodgy copied Amiga games and pass them round.  We used to go into a grotty local shopping centre around '92-'93 where a couple of shifty blokes had set up in a large cupboard under some stairs flogging Amiga games copied onto generic floppy disks for a couple of quid a pop.  Almost as classy a set-up as popcorn's shop.

Ah, the nineties - if you weren't engaging in illegal activities in a cupboard with a couple of middle-aged men, you weren't there.

[garbed_attic]

I too liked the blog, made for a great read.

I missed that, any chance of a link?

Sadly the blog in question seems to have gone the way of dust in the wind.

http://thurstonroll.blogspot.co.uk/

A shame - one of those cases where I couldn't decide if it was all just a put-on or actually rather genuine...

[Small Man Big Horse]

Much cheaper if you were a kid back then (which I was) just to get your hands on some dodgy copied Amiga games and pass them round.  We used to go into a grotty local shopping centre around '92-'93 where a couple of shifty blokes had set up in a large cupboard under some stairs flogging Amiga games copied onto generic floppy disks for a couple of quid a pop.  Almost as classy a set-up as popcorn's shop.

Ah, the nineties - if you weren't engaging in illegal activities in a cupboard with a couple of middle-aged men, you weren't there.

Yeah, for a short while there was a local car boot where a bloke had massive trays of copied Amiga and PC games for sale, charging a quid a disk. He was blind in one eye though and when he was concentrating on serving a customer I saw a lot of people just walk up and steal a fuck load of games (sometimes even taking a tray with 50 or so disks in it) without him ever noticing it, so he stopped doing it after a bit. But the whole Amiga copying thing was all a bit ridiculous looking back, I had hundreds and hundreds of games but half of them had been played for only about five minutes before I got bored and played something better. The same thing happened when I bought a SNES and this device which let you copy the cartridges to disk, it cost a fuck load but saved me thousands of pounds. Those indeed were the days...

[Nowhere Man]

One thing I'm curious about now, did you get a manage to get a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga in the end?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sadly the blog in question seems to have gone the way of dust in the wind.

http://thurstonroll.blogspot.co.uk/

A shame - one of those cases where I couldn't decide if it was all just a put-on or actually rather genuine...

Thanks for the info, just found it via the wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20131101031129/http://thurstonroll.blogspot.co.uk/ - seems genuine, but it's hard to know for sure... Edit: Hmmm, reading more of it, I'm not certain he isn't taking the piss, or at least making some of the stuff up for comedy reasons.

[popcorn]

One thing I'm curious about now, did you get a manage to get a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga in the end?

I'd had a copy of disc 1 by that point for ages, because it came free with an issue of Sega Saturn Magazine as a demo. That spoils the "not even enough to buy disc 1" line so I didn't mention that. At some point early on after getting the job I got a copy off eBay - also not mentioned because it ruins the quest of the whole thing. It remains one of my favourite games. And the only JRPG I've ever truly loved.

An earlier draft of the story had a long bit actually discussing the games I liked as a kid, how I had dreamed that the shop would be a gateway into loads of rare gems and nerdy game chats, but how few customers actually liked anything other than GTA and Fifa. I deleted it because the story doesn't actually have anything to do with games, and also it came off as sneering.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I've got -9 karma :(

Now you've got -10, you whinging git. I hope I've taught you a valuable lesson here. "Tough Love", they calls it. I bet Frank would have done exactly the same in this situation (you can fuck off if you think you're getting

Spoiler alert

a guitar

[close]

out of me, though).