Yes, I once owned an Atari Jaguar...
So in May I began looking for a summer job, but wasn't having much luck. There was a staffing agency called Solutions that had put out an ad in the newspaper about summer jobs for college students, starting at $6 an hour. At that time, minimum wage was $4.25 an hour, so $6 was certainly appealing. Unfortunately, they weren't much help. There was a telemarketing job opening and the location was within easy bicycle-riding distance if I wanted to. Heck, even walking to work could have been feasible (although rather unpleasant in the hot Arizona summer). The problem with that is that I hated telemarketing. I hated it so bad, and I hated telephones in general. For a shy introvert as myself, the thought of bugging people to get them to buy stuff they may not even need made me uncomfortable. However, they were hiring for $8 an hour, which was even better money. So on Thursday, June 6th I had an interview with that telemarketing business. I learned that they do telemarketing for Fortune 500 companies and that I'd only be calling pre-existing customers, which put me at ease a bit. I was hired on the spot, but I wouldn't start working until the end of the month. I wanted to start working immediately and not wait to start weeks later. Plus, the whole telephone thing made me feel uneasy...
There was a video game store called Gamers that was hiring. Of course the pay wouldn't be as good as the telemarketing job, but it's a video game store. How could it not be fun to work there? ...Or so I thought. So on Monday, June 10th I went there with my resume and talked with the hiring manager named Mike. It went well, and in fact he said that he wasn't used to people applying for the job with an actual resume and who made the effort to dress nicely when showing up for an interview. I think he would have hired me himself, but I first needed to have an interview with the district manager, a woman named Marty. The job was $5 an hour, but still that was better than minimum wage at the time. Plus I'd be able to borrow game consoles and take them home to try them out for free. Plus, I would've been able to buy used games and game systems at cost, so in other words, however much the business paid to buy the items from customers! So for a video game enthusiast such as myself, that alone would help make up for lower pay! Plus I'd only have to use a phone when a customer calls. I figured that since I made a good impression on Mark that surely Marty would like me too. I mean... RIGHT?
So on Wednesday the 12th I had an interview with her. It didn't go so well as I had hoped. Marty was asking me what the technical specs were on the upcoming Ultra 64 console. For those who may not know/remember, the "Ultra 64" was the working development name for the Nintendo 64. At the time, I had a subscription to Next Generation Magazine, so I knew about the upcoming console from Nintendo. All I told her is that it was a 64-bit processor, while other consoles like the Saturn and Playstation were 32 bits. That wasn't good enough for her. The darned console hadn't even been released yet at that time, and she was expecting me to know technical stuff about its processor or whatever.
I hadn't even bought my Super Nintendo until 1994. I used my graduation money to buy it that summer, and that's what I liked the best. I was happy with that 16-bit console and I was not very interested in the upcoming 64-bit Nintendo. To be honest, I was not at all impressed with the Panasonic 3DO and I hated how sprite-based, 2D gaming was increasingly being ignored in favor of 3D games and gimmicky FMV crap games. I was into 2D shmups, RPGs, and action platformers, and frankly to this day I never bothered owning a Nintendo 64. The console seemed to avoid 2D gaming at all costs. What did we get with the N64? Mario running around in fog. Star Fox flying around in fog. Link running around in fog. That's never excited me.
Despite this, I got the job. Mike told Marty that he really wanted me, so I started the next day. Thursday the 13th was my first day on the job. I got along greatly with Mike. It was a fun job, and I was learning so much. I was very excited to work there. I worked with him again Friday evening and had a lot of fun. I used a shrinkwrap machine for the first time. I learned what a POS device was. I'd only know that acronym to stand for "piece of shit," but he said it stands for "point of sale." He said it is a POS though because at times the thing didn't work properly. He was a cool guy with a good sense of humor. I ended my second day on the job in a good mood.
Then came Saturday evening, my third day on the job. It was busy day at the store and I did not work with Mike. Instead, I was with Carrie, his frumpy, dumpy, mouth-breathing assistant manager. She was cold to me. For example, that evening she mentioned that this was just her second job. Since she had opened herself up with that information, I just asked her where else she worked. I mean, she mentioned it, so I just asked in order to be conversational. She acted put-off. "Well, if you must know, I work as an admin at a law firm..." Yikes. I actually couldn't care less what her other job was; I was just trying to be conversational since she had told me that she had another job. It's not like I was prying into her personal life. She mentioned it, so I asked about it. What's the big deal? It's this sort of frivolous banter that I always felt I had to engage in, in order to convince people that I was a normal person. This was an unpleasant young woman who couldn't smile. I wasn't looking to be her friend or anything. But she had volunteered that information, so it's not like I was interrogating her. Crazy.
So unlike Friday evening, Saturday evening was very busy. Carrie just stood back and made me do all of the work. It didn't seem very fair because I was still in training, but I tried my best. I did worse that day. I made mistakes, but at least I admitted to my mistakes and apologized. Carrie kept telling me not to worry about it, you learn from your mistakes etc. Despite her being a dumpy, mouth-breathing chick I thought maybe she wasn't so bad.
This family came in to buy a Playstation for their son's birthday. The kid wanted to buy Sportsball '96 for his Playstation and picked it out. It was a new game. The mom asked me if our store had a used copy of the game. I pointed right at the selection of used Playstation games on the wall next to the front door. They were separate from the new Playstation games, and each section was clearly labeled USED and NEW on the walls. So the mom bought the Playstation console and a used copy of Stupid Jock Shit '96 and off they went.
Later, while I was busy with other customers, being a brand new employee while my assistant manager just stood behind me breathing through her damned mouth like a cave troll, the phone rang.
"Gamers, this is Greg."
"You sold us the wrong damned game!" She was shouting at me over the phone.
"What damned game, ma'am?"
"I told you my son wanted Sausage Fest '96 used for Playstation, but you sold us the Saturn version instead!"
Oh good grief. First of all, I had pointed directly to the selection of used Playstation games. I did not point at the selection of used Saturn games, but that's where they went to look for the game and found it used for the Saturn instead. It's not my fault she couldn't understand simple instructions. Secondly, how am I to know if the boy didn't also have a Saturn console? Have I been to their house? Holy crap! So, they came back to the store. We refunded the purchase of the stupid used Saturn game and she bought the new Playstation game instead. It was a football game or something... I couldn't care less. But obviously it was available for both the Saturn and Playstation. The mom was acting all crappy towards me for what was clearly her fault for not knowing the difference between the Sega Saturn and the Sony Playstation. At the time, Playstation games were in those long jewel cases, the same size as the Saturn jewel cases. I can understand that confusion, but even her son didn't realize that it clearly said "SEGA SATURN" on the game. Carrie said to not worry about it.
Then later that evening, the mom called again. This time, the disc was not in the case. The game discs were kept behind the counter, and I was flustered by how that woman was getting on my case for her (and her son) making that stupid mistake. So the mom drove back once again to get the game disc. Carrie gave her a discount voucher for their next purchase as an apology. Of course, since Carrie was just standing there breathing through her stupid mouth while I was doing all of the work, she could have at least been watching what I was doing and she could have caught my mistake of not giving her the game disc. In the end, she told me not to worry about it.
I didn't work Sunday. Mom and Dad left that morning for their annual trip to Laughlin, Nevada. I went to church and after the service I met these two brothers from Germany, Mark and Andre. It was their first time attending. I was talking to them about having lunch together at the nearby Chinese buffet when Lisa came to give me a card, congratulating me on starting my new job. I thanked her for the card and gave her a hug and she left. She was so thoughtful. Mark and Andre could tell that I liked her and they asked me if she was my girlfriend. I said no. She'd declined my invitation to have lunch with us, so it was just me and the Germans who had lunch. (I was disappointed she couldn't join us not just because I liked her, but also because I was always so nervous when meeting new people because I was so shy.) After that we went to see the new Tom Cruise movie, "Mission Impossible." What a weird movie. Yeah, like who doesn't keep a mask of their boss handy just in case he turns out to be a traitor to his country? That night, I went to the park with Lisa and some others and watched her play tennis with them. The events of the previous evening weren't bothering me because I was told that it wasn't a big deal.
So I showed up to work at Gamers on Monday at 9am. Mike told me that he unfortunately had to let me go. Carrie had told me that she'd made such mistakes on her first day working retail, and said that I was doing fine. But that's not what she told Marty. That conniving chick bypassed Mike and talked directly to Marty! Marty already had her doubts about me during the interview because I didn't memorize technical aspects of Nintendo consoles that hadn't even been released yet. Mike wasn't happy about what had happened. He wanted to give me one more day to work with me to see how well I was doing, but Marty said no. She wanted me fired. Mike liked me, but her decision was final. Thanks a lot, Carrie. You inspired me to re-write the chorus of that Hall & Oates song.
Whoah whoah, here she comes.
Watch out boys, she'll get you canned!
Whoah whoah, here she comes.
She's a mouth-breather!
So after only three days working for a video game store, I was fired because an unpleasant cretin with a malfunctioning olfactory system went behind the manager's back to get rid of me. I'm sure that if I had worked with Mike that Saturday night instead of Mouth Breather, I may have been able to keep that job. Maybe. So by the end of the month, I began that telemarketing job as scheduled and later that month. Carrie probably did me a favor as I was making at least $8 an hour for that first 30 days on the job. Then later that summer I helped Lisa's friend Margaret get hired there too and thanks to her lovely Irish accent, she was making plenty of sales and I made commission on all of her sales through the referral bonus program.
I didn't walk away empty-handed, though. I had discussed with Mike already about my intention to buy an Atari Jaguar console. They had paid a customer $10 for that console, and since I was allowed to buy stuff at cost, I walked away from that job with an Atari Jaguar. I had been able to borrow the console along with Tempest 2000 and Alien vs. Predator. Besides those two games, the Jaguar was mostly known for its snotty, condescending and obnoxious commercials. It was a failed console already by June 1996, and Mike couldn't understand why I wanted to buy it. Really, I just wanted to play Tempest 2000. It was the only reason to own a Jaguar, as far as I was concerned. Eventually I bought Raiden and maybe one or two other games for it, but eventually I sold it and got rid of it. I sure did enjoy playing Tempest 2000 on it, though.
So that summer, I ended up not going to Anime Expo, and in fact I never was able to attend that con. I didn't get a girlfriend that summer either. I did play a lot of Tempest 2000, though.
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"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other." ~Jack Handey
mail: greg -atsign- stevethefish -dot- net