Ohmigosh a TRG blogpost!

So it would seem my profile has been getting lots of attention since Ask the Mods started being listed on the frontpage. I'm also getting folks PMing me beleiving I'm "the" admin of all of GameSpot. While its true I share in the duties of the administration of our beloved home, I'm just a small part of a very cool team of people, including lots of cool folks in California that work for GameSpot, and a team of volunteers scattered all over the globe.

My time at GameSpot has been pretty sporadic lately. Aside from my job, my personal life, and other worldly responsibilties, I'm trying to spend more time gaming. I spend a fortune every year on this hobby, yet the past four years I've spent more time on here talking about it than actually playing my games. Forums can be quite an addiction. On top of that, I have responsibilites when I am here, and as much as I like to help out, sometimes its overwhelming.

Case in point, GameSpot has an article on Wikipedia. For those of you who don't know, Wikipedia is an online community-written encyclopedia in which anybody can contirubte to and edit anyy article. Anyone who doesnt see the inherant problem with administrating such a endeavor just may not have brains at all. In any case, our article was ripe with vandalism and other things that had nothing to do with GameSpot. There was even some Nazi talk. So, being a bastion of goodness that I am, I cleaned up the article, only to have some jerk with a vendetta against GameSpot re-edit it. I made an entry on the articles talk page (a place where contriibuters talk about the article, how it can be improved, and changes that may need to be made). I then reverted the persons edits, and commented that he was being counter-productive. This went back and forth and back and forth, and even though everyone agreed with me,. Wikipedia saw it fit to block me from editing (oh the irony) and revert all the edits I've ever made to Wikipedia. I then found myself a bit ticked off that I wasnt even heard out, but quickly got over it. Its just a small corner of the internet, and theres no need to get all upset over it.

I don't dislike people with opinions, I just duslike people who mask their biases and shortcomings as opinion. The person wrote this as a parting note (seeing that I had been blocked) - "Since you are obviously on Gamespot's payroll and thier bastion of good, remember that everything I said is the truth. Sleep with that at night pal.". It makes me wonder how this guy sees himself. In his eyes, he is the ultimate patriot. The bringer of truth in this rainstorm of lies and deceit. It makes me wonder is he's ever even seen the sun, much less had his skin darkened by it.

Work is starting to suck. GameStop and EB merged, and the resulting company is the worst ****ing thing I've ever worked for. There is apparently all this pressure now on them to show good results for this fiscal year since the merge, and they are really taking it too far. For example, we are now required to greet incoming customers thusly: "Welcome to GameStop. Where are your trade-ins?"

I couldnt make this crap up. This is what GameStop wants us to say. When I worked for Circuit City, I read a book about sales techniques, and its actually a very popular book among salespeople. It teaches that building a culture of positive answers usually results in higher success rates. For example, you start with questions that the customer will says "Yes!" to. Like, "Do you like to save money?", "Do you wish you could afford this?" things like that. Then you pitch whatever you're selling. However, what GameStop has us doing is inviting the customer to say "no" as soon as they hit the freaking door. Regardless of sales techniques, this is poor service, and it also doesnt make any freaking sense. If they have trades, they will be in an accompanying box, bag, or in-hand. The very question itself, "Where are your trades?" is insulting to the customer's intelligence. As if they forgot them in the car.

Oh, and then theres the Xbox 360. We received an email over the holidays instructing us to direct customers who inquire about the out-of-stock Xbox 360 to a PSP, and try to sell them one. Does that even make sense? To GameStop, they both posees "cutting edge technology". That just goes to show you that these people are video game virgins who run our company if thats how they think gamers shop. On top of that, they encourage us to push Activision published games since apparently GameStop gets some perk from it. If you're going to ask me to do something immoral, you very damn well be giving me a reason to do so. Near-minimum wage with no bonus is not the incentive I had hoped for, nor is the "please buy us a trip to the bahamas" approach.

I'm convinced the ultimate goal of GameStop is to make it where we dont talk to the customers at all. We just have a series of signs pinned to our chests with phrases like "RESERVE THIS HOT NEW GAME" and "SUBSCRIBE TO GAME INFORMER" that we just point to. This of course is the result of our refusal to read scripts (which is essentially what is happening now. They actually email us scripts every week for how to "handle" situations the "GameStop" way.)

I don't dislike the people I work with, nor do I dislike the job itself. I hate, instead, the entire retail industry. Its run by morons who have never stepped foot in a store, have no idea how things actually work, and are completely naive to their customers wishes. I'll be so glad when I get out of retail, which is hopefully sooner rather than later. Retailers dont want smart, reasonable people working for them. They want brainless followers who will never question them and their stupid policies. This industry is not for me, no matter how good I may actually be at it. (Seriously -- sadistic, angry me gets lots of positive customer comments. I've gotten good marks at every sales job I've ever had, yet I get treated like ****)

If you're reading this and you havent already, add me to your Xbox Live friends list. Gamertag: RagingGamer. I promise I wont rant at you too much.