Posted
by
Bob Mackey
Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.
I don't shop at GameStop, mainly because of their policy of treating customer like pieces of human excrement who deserve to be murdered on the spot if they don't happen to want a magazine subscription. The last time I wandered into a GameStop was out of necessity; I wanted to pick up a Game Boy Player for my GameCube, and was promptly treated like the biggest asshole on the planet for assuming one existed in the store--even though one did. My constant mistreatment at the hands of people stuck in terrible retail jobs (I speak from past experience) has made me a devoted Amazon.com customer, but more importantly, it's also made me wonder how retail monoliths like GameStop treat their casual customers when they show such contempt for devoted nerds like you or I. Thankfully, a GameStop training video recently leaked to the Internet may just provide an answer to this query.
Behold, GameStop's "Understanding and Selling to Our Expanded Audience," or, "What to Do When There's a G-G-G-G-Girl in the Store." Like all employee training videos, it's extremely patronizing, both to the intended audience and the subject itself. Most of the advice is just common sense, though it all comes packaged in a glorious corporate creepiness that involves tapping into the deepest fears and insecurities of your customers. Let's watch.
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About Bob Mackey
For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's
Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's
The Jambar, Kent State University's
The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on
Something Awful. I've also blogged for
Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM,
1UP,
GameSpite and
Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.
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