Monday, May 18, 2009

Video Store Blues

Many of us have worked at a video store (myself included), and it's safe to say that after a while, getting free movies doesn't escape the fact you have to deal with smelly kids getting yelled at by their zebra-leotard wearing mothers who want to know if Terminator 2 is safe for their 5 year old to watch on a Saturday night. However annoying this can be, however, there's a great way to deal with this line of work, and anyone whose worked at a movie store knows exactly what it is.

Name: Long Dong

Job: Blockbuster

...I made it up to assistant manager and quit/got fired/mutually agreed to quit and get fired because I was trading goods. We had a place we were getting food from for giving one of their cooks free rentals. Everyone knew of it from part timer to district manager. I was just the one who took it a step further and gave free rentals to friends and swindled free rentals from the other Blockbuster down the road because they got a Playstation game in before we did and I wanted to play it AND AND AND I was having a bad day. I hated myself for months over that one. Once I was promoted I spent most of my time sitting in the manager's office watching movies while I fixed bad movies. These were the VHS days, so if the tape got messed up I just cut out the bad part and taped it back together.

The worst part of my day? Customers. I remember having a 20 minute argument on the phone with a lady over a $4 late charge. You don't argue with people over their late fees or their early return $1 credits. I'm hard headed as hell, so it took me a while to learn that lesson.

It got worse. A friend of mine forgot to bring movies back in that I had manually checked in off of her mom's account, so when they did inventory it had my name and her name written all over it. They thought I was stealing and even came to my job at the time and threatened to sue me. They honestly have no idea how much I got away with there and I was probably the most honest. I might have taken a movie or two off the shelves, but I never touched the money unlike some people and the movies usually went back unless something happened that I couldn't control (destruction, getting fired before I could sneak something back on the shelf, etc...)

Its amazing how many friends you can make when they realize you can hook them up with a free rental.