Bravely Default is here!

HOORAY!

A picture of my cat, posed with my copy of Bravely Default. She's very photogenic.

Everyone at the store has been playing the Bravely Default demo for weeks, because we're those sorts of people. We've also been telling everyone to pre-order it, because both Nintendo handheld releases and JRPG* releases in general are usually a nightmare of underavailability.

I still have lingering trauma from the Fire Emblem: Awakening release.

Anyway, I wasn't working today, so I made a super special trip to the store to pick up my reserved copy. Sure enough, the store was already sold out, because we only got enough copies to cover our reserves. As I was standing in the store, a frumpy JRPG nerd stomped up to the register.

"DO YOU HAVE BRAVELY DEFAULT!?"

"No," said bossbro. "We can order it for you, or you can download it from the eShop."

Frumpy JRPG nerd stomped his way back out of the store.

What follows is an open message to my fellow JRPG people:

Hey, ladies and dudes. You know how every time a new JRPG comes out, none of the stores have it in stock? That's because demand for these games is super low.

STOP WHINING ABOUT IT AND DO SOMETHING INSTEAD.

The stock that stores order for low-demand games is directly based on the number of reserves they get for it. My store was the only one of my chain in the entire district that got any copies of the new Project Diva game, because we were the only store that had reserves on it.

We had one reserve. We got two copies. The second one sold to a walk-in on launch day, and I haven't seen another copy since.

And don't give me any of that crap about "WELL, I WASN'T PLANNING ON GETTING IT" or "WELL, I'M JUST MAKING AN IMPULSE BUY." If you went out to buy it on the release day, then it wasn't "an impulse buy," and you are a dirty, dirty liar.

If you want more Japanese games to come to the United States, and in greater numbers, you need to commit to buying them on launch day.

Now, I know not everyone can afford to buy launch-day games. This rant is not for you. This rant is for the swarm of people I see every launch day who refuse to commit even one day ahead of time to buying a game on day one, even though they were clearly planning on doing so anyway, and complain when we don't have a pile of extra copies waiting for them.

Every retailer does pre-orders now, as do the manufacturers, typically. It's not like you don't still have a choice of whom to give your money dollars to. Most places (Amazon, StameGop) don't charge extra for pre-orders, either.

PRE-ORDER YOUR SHIT instead of complaining to me about lack of availability, for a market the manufacturers didn't know existed. With the onset of downloadable games, manufacturers have basically no reason to print physical copies at all outside of consumer demand. It's still hard to find physical copies of Fire Emblem, a year after launch. Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi barely had a physical launch at all.

I'm sure Bravely Default will be the same way. 

*Today, someone asked me what "JRPG" stands for, and I said "Japanese RPG." Then Ladyboss stepped in and added "...role-playing game." I forgot to translate that part. Whoooops.

Merry Christmas Eve!

This morning, on my way to work at 6:30 AM, I accidentally shut my hand in my car door. Now it's starting to show bruising.

"My poor fingers are bruising," I said.

"Do you need to put something cold on it? asked Free Shirt. "I can get you some snow and a paper towel."

No, I mean that literally- they will not pay us to keep the store open late

I have HAD IT with these customers, loyal readers.

Today, as we were closing up the store at 9 P.M., A Customer came in. He saw Free-Shirt pulling the gates closed (yeah, our store has metal gates in the front, we're classy) and asked,

"When do you guys close?"

"9 P.M.," I said.

"Your website says 10," he said. I pulled out my phone and checked our posted hours. Sure enough, Thursday says 10 AM to 10 PM, even though every other day of the week is correctly marked at 10 AM to 9 PM.

In the meantime, the guy and his girlfriend are looking at the wall and whining about how Skyrim is still $50.

"That's the legendary edition with all the DLC," I said. "The game by itself is $20."

"I ALREADY HAVE IT," he snapped at me.

This week of all weeks, I don't have time for people to be rude to me for trivial bullshit.

"Yeah, the website says 10 PM, but sorry, it must be a typo," I said. "Every other day is correctly marked 10 to 9."

"WHERE IS FALLOUT," he snapped.

"In the "Under $10" bin," I said. He managed to find it and bring it up to the register as Free-Shirt is locking the door and beginning to clean up customer mess.

"I'M FEELING RUSHED RIGHT NOW," he complained.

"Sorry," I said. "We don't get paid to stay open late."

Now, I am aware that mentioning your shitty working conditions to customers is The Biggest No-No Ever In The History of Corporate Retail, but I've had it with this guy.

"WELL, THAT'S A GREAT ATTITUDE."

Ain't nobody disses my attitude.

"I mean that literally," I said flatly. "They will not pay us to keep the store open late. We're restricted in the number of hours we can have employees scheduled, and we're already over our allocation for this week." Of course, legally, they have to pay us for hours worked, but there are all kinds of tricks corporate can use to "make up" the over-used time, the most common one being slashing hours for the following days and weeks, which hurts the store long-term.

(By the way, we're over on hours because our district manager came in, moved everything around, made a huge mess, and we had to bring in an extra employee to clean it all up.)

"WELL, THEN, IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEBODY MESSED UP THE SCHEDULE."

"We have no control over the number of payroll hours we get. Feel free to take it up with our corporate office."

"MAYBE I WILL."

Seriously. Customers are not Delicate Flowers who can't bear the effects of Reality interfering with their Happy Shopping Time. Stores, particularly small specialty stores like mine, have closing times for a reason. Even if I didn't have a life outside of work and was totally happy to wait around for him to finish picking out $5 PS3 games, I would get punished by corporate for going into overtime.

Of course, I'm going to get reamed by corporate anyway for telling a customer THE TRUTH OF RETAIL, but at least I get to watch my DM flounder when I ask him how much overtime pay I can get.

Encouraging people to complain to corporate totally takes the wind out of their sails, though.

Cogs in the machine, bro

Some corporate rich people are in town today, and they might visit the store, so we have to be all clean and presentable. Which means we have to wear our name tags, which I usually don't do because I'm a rebel. Unfortunately, I have no idea where my name tag is, so I just put on AsS's instead.

Let's mention here that AsS is an adult man, with an adult man name.

No one noticed I was wearing some dude's name tag for hours.

GUESS NOT WEARING MY NAME TAG ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL AFTER ALL, HUH, CORPORATE

There's a website called Black Friday Death Count

Black Friday Death Count

Good thing someone's counting, I guess? My job as a cashier should not be hazardous to my bodily safety, but it often is. Register jockeys get threatened with violence all the time.

And someone actually punched bossbro in the face once, but that deserves its own post.

It's been a rough couple of weeks at Blogger HQ, with the PS4 coming out. I've taken to answering all questions in the simplest way possible, because repetition is making my voice hurt.

"Do you have any PS4s?"

"No."

"Do you know anyone else who has PS4s?"

"No."

"Do you know when you're getting more PS4s?"

"No."

"Can you call me when there's more PS4s?"

"No."

The prize for "most desperate call yet" goes to the guy who, on the night of the release, called the store and asked if we could give him a PS4 in exchange for $500 in food stamps.

"...................No."

"Get out."

A normal-looking middle-aged man came in and walked to the register, where he had the misfortune of encountering ladyboss.

"Hey," he said. "Can I buy all your extra Xbox Ones? I want to sell them on eBay."

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get out."

He left quickly.

Solidarity, bro

We've recently acquired a gaggle of teenage boys from a nearby high school who come in and heckle the employees by asking a lot of questions about games that don't exist. Grand Theft Auto VI is their favorite- I pointed out that they wouldn't be allowed to buy it even if it existed- but they just cycle through fake sequel titles until they get bored and leave. Today, while they were doing their thing, a Real Customer came in and was shopping around.

"THIS IS TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE," one of the teenage bros shouted.

"You're not customers," I said.

"WE ARE TOO CUSTOMERS!"

"Customers buy things."

"WELL, I WAS GOING TO BUY SOMETHING, BUT NOW I'M OFFENDED SO I WON'T."

As they were huffing about in fake offense, the Real Customer picked out a game and came up to the register. He spoke quietly so the bros wouldn't hear him.

"I'm a high school teacher," he said sympathetically. "I know what it's like to get harassed on the job."

Thanks, guy! It's always good to have a reminder that the public isn't all bad.

On parents who buy Grand Theft Auto for their tiny children

I hate Kotaku.

I hate everyone who reads Kotaku.

I hate it every time someone mentions to me something they read on Kotaku.

The Veteran is always texting me links to Kotaku articles he thinks I'll enjoy. (And, ok, I usually do enjoy them as long as there aren't any naked people, but I still hate Kotaku.) I mentioned this to Awesome Sauce, and he started sending me Kotaku links all the time, too.

So, what happens when there's some breaking video game news that I would be interested in?

The day it was announced that Tales of Xillia 2 was coming to the U.S., this is how my morning went:

First, I get a text from Awesome Sauce, saying "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S."

About five minutes later, The Veteran texts me a link to a Kotaku article about how Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.

I walk into work, and bossbro greets me with a "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.!"

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE, GENTLEMEN, BUT I THINK I CAN HANDLE IT.

All of the above is to highlight the extreme reluctance with which I am posting a link to a Kotaku article that was recommended to me by AsS:

I Sold Too Many Copies of GTA V to Parents who Didn't Give a Damn.

The other day I mass-texted everyone I know:

"I'm really tired of explaining to parents that Grand Theft Auto is basically softcore porn."

"Just write those exact words on a sign," my friend Wolfie* wrote back.

But seriously.


The list of warnings on the back of GTA is ridiculously long. Blood! Gore! Extreme violence! Strong language! Nudity! Strong sexual content! Mature themes! Whenever I read through it for a parent who's in the store with a ten-year-old kid, they yawn and wave me through.

"You literally torture a guy. You waterboard a guy on screen."

"He's already seen all that stuff on TV." (What the hell is your kid watching!?)

"You own and manage a strip club."

"WHAT!?"

Extreme violence hasn't fazed a single person. But the minute you mention the boobies, everyone freaks out. And even then, they still want to buy the game, so we encourage them to flip through the strategy guide and see the screenshots.

And even then, literally only one person ever has opted not to buy the game at my store since the release.

Without fail, every time I start mentioning the extreme violence and sexytimes, all of these people ask:

"They can put that stuff in a game!?"

"It's not designed for kids," I say, every time. "The average gamer is in their 30s. And the people who played the original Grand Theft Auto are in their 40s now."

I think some people hear the word "game" and immediately assume "children's toy." People who ramble about games like Grand Theft Auto V ruining kids are missing the point that there are games that are not meant to be played by children. After all, it's impossible to get access to an R-rated movie or an M-rated game without parental consent.

If you buy something that says "Strong Sexual Content" on the packaging, you should also be prepared for your child to come up and you asking what "pimps" and "hos" are.

I understand that children are different, and what's appropriate for one child might not be for another. I played Grand Theft Auto III when I was ten, and I turned out ok. It was my 17-years-old-at-the-time-now-he's-old brother's game, and I would play it when he wasn't around. I would drive around in the cars and follow traffic laws. I was a well-read child, with two older siblings, and I wasn't unaware of the existence of sex workers, nor was I ever really taught to demean or dehumanize them, so I wasn't confused or bothered by what was going on.

Extreme torture, though? That would even bother me now. There were several parts in my first playthrough of Borderlands 2, which I loved, where I had to stop playing because it was too intense. (Maybe I'll write a post about that someday.) And that's sci-fi/fantasy, not true crime. And I'm almost 25 years old.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been about pushing limits, both in game design and in storytelling, for years. It's supposed to be edgy and controversial. And even if you find the story trite and silly (ahem), you can't deny that GTA is a poster franchise for Games As A Grown-Up, Edgy Storytelling Medium.

Controversial entertainment isn't typically accessible or appropriate for kids.

For example, this one time, a dad and a little boy, no older than six or seven, came in looking for a game.

"He likes playing Grand Theft Auto at his uncle's house, but we don't want to buy it for him, so we're looking for something similar but not as... bad," said the dad. "He likes having a big open city to run around in."

"Ok," I said. "How about Batman: Arkham City? You have a pretty open area to explore, and it's Batman, so you still get to beat up bad guys."

"Does that sound interesting?" the dad asked the kid. And the kid immediately turned to me, and asked, with a perfectly serious face:

"Does Batman shoot cops?"

I was so taken aback by the question that I just squeaked out:

"Batman doesn't shoot anybody."

Kids who play games like Grand Theft Auto are, at best, the equivalent of a kid bragging about how he watched all the Saw movies and didn't get scared, and at worst, miniature sociopaths who like to shoot cops, with a lot of poorly delivered sex ed in between.

Please, people. Listen when some bitter, disillusioned register jockey is telling you that what you're purchasing might be a bit too much for your kid.

Because when you're furious that your 8-year-old suddenly knows the meanings and usage of a dozen different racial slurs and the term "Dirty Sanchez," well, you've got nothing to blame but your own hands-off parenting. 

*My only friend who had the decency to already have an internet alias before I started blogging. Seriously, my funny nickname muscle is tired. 

Today, I crushed a man's dreams

Some guy in his 20s was just in here looking for a job application. I told him we were going to be hiring seasonal employees soon.

"What's the pay like?" he asked.

"Minimum wage," I said. "You'd be making minimum wage."

"What's minimum wage now?"

"$7.85 per hour."

"Wow," he said disdainfully. "That's bad. That's really bad." As if I have any control over what the pay rate is here.

Sir, you are applying for a temp cashier job at a corporate retailer. It's not exactly an entry-level career position.

Minimum wage isn't there to encourage corporations to pay us more. It's there because said corporations would pay us even less if they were legally allowed to.

It's good he left before I could tell him that he'd only be working maybe six hours a week, or that he'd be better off looking for a job in a call center.

REALITY: IT'S HARSH

I'm a rebel

I put the F7 keys back on the keyboards.

Don't tell ladyboss.

I wish I were making this up

So, like many other stores, ours uses a regular computer for the register, with a regular keyboard. The various F# keys correspond to different menu options. Apparently, a bunch of people don't know how to correctly process preorders, so there was a rash of firings around the region for street date violations on Grand Theft Auto V. To solve this problem, our corporate stooges came up with an awesome idea.

LITERALLY REMOVE THE F7 KEY FROM THE KEYBOARD.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE.

It didn't stop there, though.

WE GOT A FOLLOW-UP E-MAIL TELLING US TO ASK FOR HELP FROM OUR DISTRICT MANAGER IF WE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO REMOVE THE F7 KEY.

OUR DISTRICT MANAGER CALLED EVERY STORE TO VERIFY THAT WE HAD REMOVED THE F7 KEY, INCLUDING ASKING US TO SEND PICTURES.

And maybe the best part- there are a whole bunch of menus that can only be opened with F7, so now we need to KEEP A PEN AT EVERY REGISTER SO WE CAN POKE THE NAKED F7 KEY JUST TO BE ABLE TO DO OUR JOBS.

This is my life. This is my reality.

Hey, I haven't mentioned the white board in a while

Lately, grubby little kids have been ruining my drawings.

A bunch of LEGO Marvel characters, drawn by moi.

The LEGO Marvel Super Heroes crowd lasted a surprisingly long time. Part of LEGO Hulk's face got erased, but other than that, it all stayed more or less intact. Ladyboss even went out and bought new dry-erase markers for the store, hence the glorious return of the color red.

I got bored of that, though, so I moved on to a title that's not on the board and never will be:

Tidus and Yuna, from Final Fantasy X, drawn by moi.

If I could draw characters for the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 re-release, why not Final Fantasy X and X-2? Mere days after I drew this one, though, poor Tidus and Yuna were completely destroyed due to the actions of an aggressively unsupervised child who ladyboss named "Captain Destructo."

I didn't want to do anything complicated to replace it, so:

Now it's a piranha plant! Hooray!

As of this writing, Mr. Piranha Plant's pipe and stem have been almost completely erased by little kid fingers.

Why, children!? Why!?

Blogger links other, funnier website

Hey, readers! If you're in the mood to read someone openly mock the entitled asswipes who shop at video game stores, why not check out actsofgord.com?

He smacks around people in his store, though. Like, a lot. I've never struck a customer, though we do have a running joke that one day I'm totally going to lose it, go full-on feral rage monster, scream blood fury, lunge across the counter on all fours, and gnaw off someone's thumb, Gollum-style. It'll be all over the news when it happens.

"Crazed Game Store Employee Gnaws Off Neckbeard's Thumb."

Watch out.

Doctor visits

A while back, I was having a gyno exam.

(Yes, I am a Responsible Adult who gets her junk checked out when she's sexually active. I promise that's not what the post is about. Bear with me, here.)

I was having my unmentionables checked as part of a general physical, so I was with my primary care physician. As she's you-know-whating my you-know-what, things got awkward, like they always do. Without even thinking, I blurted out:

"I'm sure this is exactly why you wanted to be a doctor. You know, it's such a glamor profession."

She burst out laughing.

"Oh, god, no," she laughed. "This is nothing. I could never be an eye doctor. I hate poking around people's eyes."

Fast forward several months, and I'm at the optometrist. We're making small talk.

"Last time I was getting a physical, my doctor and I were talking about what kind of doctor we could never be. She said she'd never want to be an eye doctor, because she thinks eyes are gross."

"I actually saw a bunch of funny videos someone made about a bunch of different professions," he said. "The doctor one was great. You know, the mom shows up at 11 when her appointment was at 10:30, and she wants to know why the doctor's not ready for her, and we'd better hurry up because Timmy has to be at practice by 11:30, and then she refuses to pay the copay, because she insists her husband gets professional courtesy because he's a doctor, too. Of philosophy." 

"Yeah, that sounds exactly like the people we get at my crummy retail job," I said.

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. Why don't I get a discount, and why are you closed, and why can't I wait in the car while my 5-year-old buys Grand Theft Auto, and can't you just spot me five bucks. All the time."

He was boggled.

"People act the same way at the video game store," he said.

"Yep. I mean, I'm sure it's the same people who act like jerks at the doctor's office, but yeah. We literally sell fun, so it makes no sense to me." 

"That's just... wow. We're always getting people who don't show up for appointments and then demand for refunds outside of the refund window. I mean, we give you all the paperwork up front."

"Oh, I couldn't make it during the return period because we were on vacation in Aruba. Like you really need those forty bucks back, lady."

"Right!?"

Shitty customers, man. Bringin' people together.

This is news to no one who's been paying attention

Turns out, it's basically impossible for someone to survive on minimum wage. I think my favorite is that this spreadsheet is for McDonald's employees to use to budget their peasant wages, but the budget includes income from a second job. 

Really, bro?

I make above minimum wage, but only because I'm a manager. I'm almost 25, and my parents still pay for my insurance and my phone. And then, of course, my job cut my hours down to less than 30 a week, because they were worried they might have to pay for health insurance for me.

When I confronted my district manager about it, he told me it was Obama's fault, and that I was welcome to look for a second job.

True story.

Yes I have, and thanks for noticing

Yesterday while I was working, a customer came in and started talking to me. He wasn't even really a regular. At least, not anyone who I recognized.

"Wow," he said. "You've been here for forever!"

"Yep," I said.

"I remember seeing you at the release for Modern Warfare 2!"

"Yes, I'm sure you did."

"How many years is that?"

"Three and a half, sir,"  I said.

"Wow," he said.

My first day at my job was Halloween, 2009. I wore an Aerith costume to work. No one recognized me. That's when I realized that my sort of gamer isn't in the mainstream anymore.

My only consolation is that The Veteran worked the release for the original Halo.

My life

I just found an e-mail my brother sent me that I missed. All it had was a link to the following image, and the text:

"You."

A Craig Would Be So Happy meme. "If I could just get a job where I didn't have to deal with customers, I would be so happy."

Took my nose piercing out again

IF THE BIG BOSSES DON'T SHOW UP THIS TIME SO HELP ME

Reality

Retail the Comic:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An installment of Retail the Comic. by Norm Feuti.

BOSSDUDE (JOSH): Has it ever occurred to you that the mediocre effort you put into your job affects your yearly review and pay increase?

DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE (COOPER): The maximum raise an employee can get without a promotion is 3%. For me, that makes the difference between "stellar" and "mediocre" about 10 cents an hour. Has it ever occurred to you that it only costs me a dime to phone it in?

JOSH: It occurs to me that you're not worth reasoning with.]

Read the comments, they're great.

Retail workers are not fairly compensated for their time and effort. I do make more than the U.S. minimum wage, but only because I'm a keyholder, which at my job makes me the cashier, salesperson, customer service rep, loss prevention lady, maintenance chick, and stock person all at once, often while running the whole store by myself for hours at a time. Corporate slashed my hours, too, because they're worried I might hit full time and be eligible for benefits. So, I just took a huge pay decrease, despite being a pretty stellar employee.

"Wait a minute," you might be saying. "That's not a funny retail story at all! That's actually super depressing!"

Yeah, well, retail sucks. At least I'm a supervisor, so my résumé isn't totally pathetic.

"OMG, back up," you might be saying now. "Crazy blog lady is someone's boss!?"

Damn straight! And I'm the best boss ever!

(Subordinates reading this blog: shhhhh.)