I think I finally get it.

It’s not that I didn’t already appreciate the benefits of caffeine.  Many an all-nighter was powered by energy drink after energy drink, the empty cans counting off steady two hour increments.  And I’ve grown fond of the frilly drinks, Mochas and such; along with muffins, the perfect excuse to eat dessert for breakfast.

But this eight to five grind, day in and day out?  There’s an espresso machine here in the break room, and all you can drink free soda.  But none of it compares to the cheap, low quality java.  It is like unto the holy nectar.

ca·si·no [kuh-see-noh]
–noun, plural -nos for 1.
1. a building or large room used for meetings, entertainment, dancing, etc., esp. such a place equipped with gambling devices, gambling tables, etc.

It conjures up a solid mental picture, or opulence and luxury and a lack of responsibilities. Vegas has rooted itself firmly in the collective subconscious, and has warped the very words we communicate with. Funny that the word was once literally Casa and -ino, meaning a little house.

The Bodega Casino is what the word once meant; a small house for gatherings. Since Megan is now living in Bodega rather than at the Bay, this place has become her regular haunt. Good food, alcohol, and pool tables. Simple and excellent.

The superlative touch on this, the one thing that will drag me on a half-hour drive to visit over and over, is the pinball. They have a pristine copy of the Rocky & Bullwinkle pinball machine. Joy!

I will be the first to admit that I don’t like change.  I like my comfort food, my comfort cloths, and my comfort zones.  Not that I can’t venture out occasionally; I enjoy trying a new dish, a new club, a new friendship, or a new pastime.  But there is something comforting in the solid certainty that, if I want it, I’ll be able to order the same meal, come home to the same bed, and talk to the same friends.

All of which has my current life situation leaving me with the low-level heebie jeebies.  In a very short period of time, I’ve ended a a serious personal relationship, ended a long-running job, changed homes, and so forth.

In a time period that is indefinite but long enough to train the replacement, I’ll be done at the game store.  For most people in my age group, this would be a fleeting bother, hardly worth mentioning.  Perhaps a bit more frustrating, as the type of store is certainly more interesting than, say, a clothing store (of course, your opinions may vary).  Most people in my age group wouldn’t have been at a job for as long as I’ve been, either.  I’m currently working on my eighth year of employment for the local game shop.  Eight years.  That’s pushing a third of my life that I’ve been doing this job, longer than the time i spent in Middle and High school combined.

It’s no wonder, than, that a large portion of my self-identity is tied so closely to the store.  My friends are gamers.  My road trips are for tournaments.  My internet history is CCG forums and industry publishers.  And added to that is the fact that I am, for many, the face of the store.  I am, in a serious way, this store.  Ending that connection is an odd feeling, leaving me questioning not only the change in employment, as any job change would, but questioning also who I am without this community.

My living situation, as of now, is in a big house, hippies included.  This could certainly be a worse situation.  The food is, if odd, at least healthier than three day old pizza.  The public spaces are mostly clean.  We have from veggies from the garden, hand-made clothing, and interesting guests.  Sure there are annoyances; I lost an argument about a dryer, and instead a laundry line is used.  But there will be annoyances anywhere, and the ones at this household are on the minor side.

I have history with one of the housemates.  Such a loaded phrase, that, but one best able to simply sum up the multitudes of give and take that come with exposure over such a long period of time.  This is a person who, at one point, I reasonably expected to spend the rest of my life with, in one form or another.  Someone whom I’ve watched grow into the person they are, and who has helped me grow.  But the relationship, as perhaps all relationships are fated to do in time, has strained, and stretched, and broken.  I speak not of the lack of passion or the sharp pains or anger and regret that come with any argument.  Those feelings faded to background noise long ago.  No, I talk about the sharp break that happens between any two people when disagreements become too much.

Any relationship, romantic familial or otherwise, is based on a certain amount of give and take.  You’ll accept being wrong, being used, or being needed, because you know that the same thing could happen in reverse next time.  But what happens when one is no longer willing to suffer that inequity?  Pain, and change.

And with the ending of that, so too am I moving to a new home.  Those who know me well know how much I despise moving.  Aside from the comfort zone issue, the actual moving itself is a hassle.  My bibliophile nature means that packing and unpacking is a monumental chore, and the actual moving is back-breaking labor.

Finding a new place to live is proving more difficult that I had anticipated.  Although I had originally discounted living alone as an unfeasible plan, and expected to move cities, my best bet right now is looking to be staying in Santa Rosa in a single room.  Santa Rosa itself is, oddly enough, cheaper in rooms for rent than any other the other local suburbs.

But do I really want to stay?  With age comes wisdom, and a certain sense of self-knowledge.  I know that I’m making choices based at least in part on emotional responses.  I’m staying in Santa Rosa because, even with all the changes, it’s familiar.  Why not just pack up and go?  Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Paris, London, Madrid, Tokyo, Dubai?  I have no obligations, and a billfold that could conceivably see me comfortably settled in such a new place.

Perhaps no obligations is an overstatement.  I do have employment at a more than reasonable wage.  But it’s as a part-time contractor, and it has been very precisely explained to me that the position I have is subject to abrupt evaporation, based upon corporate events that are in their entirety beyond my control.  And I have family a short distance away, in Bodega Bay.  But Bodega Bay is not Santa Rosa, and though an hour’s travel is different than a day’s, they are more alike that a five minute hop, skip, or jump.

For the time being, this will remain Confessions of a Game Store Clerk.  Consider me ronin, perhaps.  A clerk with no store to serve.  But my psyche grasps for identity, and I continue to find it in this community.

But I’ll not be surprised if more things continue to change.

I have an October birthday. With a little bit of wrangling, I was registered to vote, and did so for the first time a scant month after I turned 18. I have voted in every election since, even those little tiny ones that don’t really seem to matter and only affect a tenth of one county somewhere out in rural hell.

I voted in the 2004 Presidential election. I did so even though I had no real belief that my vote would count, or even be counted. And though I do have a sense of idealism buried somewhere in my psyche, I forwent the idealist green ticket and through my lot in with the “Lesser of Two Evils” ticket.

I’m voting in the 2008 election. And I’ll be spending my own time and my own money to help others vote in the election, making sure that the just-18 gamers are registered and have transport to the polls. It’s a little thing to do, hardly any effort on my part, but the results could be incalculable.

Sixty-four percent of the US population voted in the 2004 Presidential elections. That means that, even in this time of strife, one out of every three people simply didn’t care enough to make their voice heard. I out of three people is complacent to let anther person lead them through life, peacefully free of the dread that comes of making a decision.

You’ve all heard the call to action. Perhaps you’ve even argued with your activist friends. If you’re serious about being the change you want to see in the world, and you just don’t know how to do it, here’s your wake-up call. Register to vote, and get others to register as well. Offer rides. Volunteer at the polls. It’s one day of your time, and you’re done. As far as world-changing goes, that’s a pretty affordable investment.

I understand that randomly packaged packs of cards/minis/whatever… aren’t.  There’s a very good reason for this; true randomness would be prohibitively expensive to assure.  Then, when the truly random packs got to the customers, there would be complaints that people weren’t able to build the full set after so many packs.  Getting the same rare five times in a row does in fact sometimes happen with a truly random distribution.

You can also read this as “people are bad at math.”

Still, some attempt at randomness should be made. For a couple of years, AEG’s CCGs were not randomized in the box, and so one could go through a box and pull out every foil and chase rare, leaving the chafe behind.  This is a bad thing.

But the collation for the new D&D minis set?  Way beyond that.  Our first two cases opened, for a total of 12 packs, were identical.  All 8 miniatures, supposed drawn from separate groups, were identical. There is simply no excuse for that sort of laziness.

Then I won several drinks by betting gullible customers that I could call all the miniatures in pack 12 before opening it, so I suppose it could be worse.

The page trackers tell me that Google views this as a good site to get advice on “jobs at game stores.” One of the oddities of having the domain be WordPress, I suppose. Still, it implies that I might want to put some actual solid advice out there. So…

First off, and far and away most important: You are applying for a job. In many cases, a rather hard job with rather poor pay. You are not applying to get paid for reading comic books. You are not applying to get paid to play Magic. You are not applying to get paid to paint miniatures. You are not applying to get paid to talk to your friends. And you are certainly not applying to get paid to do nothing.

This is, unfortunately, a common attitude among applicants. If possible, I would choose to hire someone who has extensive retail service, because they are more likely to understand what a retail job entails than someone who simply thinks that it’s cool to work at a game shop. There is tons and tons of work to get done in this kind of store, most of it in the nickel & dime categories. For example, bagging comic books. OUr weekly comic order averages just under 1000 books (we’ll call it even for the simple math). Say it takes you five seconds to insert a board into a bag, insert a comic into said bag, and tape it shut (it takes that long, provided that you don’t get one piece caught on something, or the comic is thicker than average, or your hand cramps, etc.). At peak efficiency then, you’ve spent 5000 seconds, or 83 minutes, or an hour and a half bagging comics, each week. A little job, that no one thinks about, and yet so much time spent. If you apply to work here, you’re gonna end up doing that sort of job with the majority of your time.

Next, look presentable and professional. Now, I’m not saying wear a suit to the interview (although, honestly, it can’t hurt). I am saying that you need to be able to sell yourself as a product. That’s really what you’re doing. You’re coming into the store, looking to convince us to lease “Bob” for a few years. We’re gonna ask the kind of questions that any prospective buyer will. Does Bob get good gas mileage (how efficient is he at getting things done)? Are other customers satisfied with Bob (references and review in order)? How does the crash safety stack up (….actually, that one already translates pretty well…)?

If you don’t have these things in order, don’t expect to get a job. In retail in particular, image is exceptionally important. You end up putting your image to work, every day, in support of the store. If your image isn’t consistent, or lacks certain qualities, than the store cannot rely on it, and you won’t get hired.

I’ve been talking about oversights here, but I suppose I should also mention the obvious. If your image is bad, you won’t get a job, period. Bad images can come from negative reviews, or other application specific data. Bad images can also come from your behavior in the store previous to the interview. If you neglect to shower regularly, we’ve probably noticed, and you’re not gonna get hired. If you’ve been consistently rude and/or abrasive when playing with other, we’ve probably noticed it, and you’re not gonna get hired. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with these traits; we’re not judging you as a person, we’re judging the suitability or your image for the store.

Third, knowledge of the products helps. Sure, we can teach you about the various merchandise we have, and selling stuff is a skill all on it’s own. But it’s ten times easier to sell a game if you can say “Sure, I’ve played it. I thought…” Not every product line, of course. But applicants that are familiar with two or more or our product groups (Mini, CCGs, RPGs, Comics, Board Games) get a fast bump to the top of the list.

Forth, bribery is not a dirty word. Yes, it may seem a little unfair, but that’s what makes the world go ’round. Sometimes this is on the up and up; volunteering to DM a game, run a demo, cleaning up, convention freebies, and so on into the multitudes. Sometimes this is illicit; juicy gaming gossip, home-made cookies, and that sort. In either case, the act shows not only that you are willing to help the store already, but that you can be a friendly, nice guy (which ties back into point two).

Fifth, don’t bank on it. We’ve got five employees right now, and there are a bunch of stores smaller than us. We get about ten applications each month. No matter how cool it might be, do not put all your hopes in one basket. Odds are, even if you’re perfect, we’re not going to hire you. Sorry.

And a final word on gender. If you’re female, do not expect to get a job at a comic or game shop. I know that sounds sexist. It’s also the way the world works. There’s a multitude of factors against you. Many gamers are, let’s be honest, intimidated by females. Even if the hiring manager isn’t one of that sort, that fact affects your salable image poorly. There’s an automatic assumption that women are less knowledgeable about this hobby than men. Again, even if the hiring manager doesn’t buy it, he has to consider it, since it may mean that customers will not purchase from you. And you will be weirded by the all day long stares from the regulars. By all means, take the time to apply if you’d really like a job. But point five goes doubly or triply for you.

We’re a reasonably large store, as far as small businesses go. But we are still, in fact, a small business. There are currently five employees for the store.

We get all sorts of people looking to work here. After all, who wouldn’t want to get paid to read comic books or play games. Many of the people who apply simply don’t understand that this is a job like any other, and work does in fact need to get done.

But sometimes, there are highlights to the crowd that we will certainly not hire. As a word of advice to the potentials out there:

If you’ve given us an application, we know you’re looking for a job. Checking back once is fine. Checking back every week is not.
Calling one of our product groups (i.e. comics, minis, etc.) “a crappy hobby” is not a good start.
Asking for a job is OK. Demanding that you get one, or you’ll never shop here again, isn’t.
Just because you’ve got boobs doesn’t mean that we’ll give you a job. The employees here are not the socially akward type (…mostly).
If you need to have you’re friend ask for you, we won’t have much faith in your ability to talk to customers.
If one of us tells you we’re not hiring, you’re not going to get a different answer from someone else.
Muttering “I can’t believe to lame-ass fucking comic book store won’t even hire me,” on your way out pretty much kills of any lingering doubts we might have had towards your suitability for the store.

To balance this out, here are some things you can do to be considered hiring material:

Be helpful. Volunteer to DM, answer questions, help tidy up after yourself or others.
Bring us food. Especially when there’s only one person on shift.
Talk with us. Not to us, and not at us.
And if all else fails, defeating one of us in one-on-one combat to the death will ensure you the spot of the defeated, Highlander style.

Games Workshop is releasing the latest edition of their 40K rules set this weekend. (That’s 5th Edition, for you folks keeping track at home). In celebration of this (arguably) momentous event, they’ve organized a tournament to be run simultaneously at a bunch of independent stores, in addition to the official GW Battle Bunkers.

I have no problems with the Games Workshop product line. Their casts tend to be clean, and are interesting and complex. Their costs are reasonable, even if on the high end thereof. Their rules set caters well to the type of gamer that makes up their market.

No, the problems I have with GW are with the company itself, and some of their absurd policies. For example, making certain pieces available only direct from them? Equivalent to flipping the bird at local retailers. Limited release items that are “out of stock,” but that individuals can still order? Requiring retailers to order from all three product lines, including the sells-about-as-fast-as-a-space-heater-in-the-Sahara Lord of the Rings line, in order to get free shipping and event support? More spitting in the face. These types of decisions are why I dread dealing with the company in any capacity.

Back to the events. GW has gone all out on this weekend: We’ll be giving out $430 retail worth of Games Workshop products this weekend, at a series of free events. GW will be reimbursing us for this support.

That’s absurd. That amount is just slightly under what we’ve sold worth of GW products for the past two weeks. And GW is simply handing it away to people.

So, either I’m doing something very wrong here, or they are. If (…when) we only get two people showing up this weekend, I’ll be pretty comfortable in assuming that it’s them. But in the meantime, hey, free GW stuff if you come play.

There has been an abnormally large number of people in the store this weekend.  As I take a moment to hack this out, there are 20 people playing Yugioh, 12 people playing in the Pokemon League, a couple of L5R games, and several customers browsing. (I am happy about the number of Pokemon people, as it’s something we’ve been working on heavily recently).  That’s about what it’s been for the entire weekend.

Despite this, sales the weekend have been very poor.  People simply aren’t spending any money.  Why is this?  Perhaps it’s that the majority of the people in here right now are kids, and therefore do not have jobs.  But this rings false, as kids in this town receive absurdly large allowances, and the gamers tend to spend all of it here in the store.  Perhaps it’s the general heat, oppressive as it is.  But we’ve got the AC on, and people are braving the sun to get here at least.  Or perhaps it’s that no one has been ab;e to cash their paychecks yet, because of the holiday.  That’s the answer I’m leaning towards, and if I’m right we’ll see a pickup of sales next weekend.

But for now, it’s a mystery, and I’m stumped.

I’ve coined a new term – Omega Testing. This is the testing that is done after a product is live and in the field. Omega testing is what gets products recalled, or, in my world, errata-ed.

Learn it, use it, love it.