store manager

retail manager

retail assistant manager

retail store manager

assistant store manager

GameStop

Let me start off by saying that working at Gamestop is pretty fun and not too hard if you're willing to put in the effort to talk to customers about products and promotions. The discount isnt bad, and of course, if you love gaming, who wouldnt want to talk video games and anime all day to like minded people right? You can even put games or other items aside for yourself to buy on pay day and rent a used game for 3 days at a time. I want to be fair in this review and say there are definitely things I loved about working for Gamestop.  

For me though, the bad outweighs the good by miles! New employees are often left only partially trained for months which makes their sales technique very poor and sets them up for failure right from the start. When left alone they constantly need to call other Gamestops for help with things that shouldve been taught and practiced during training. Instead theyre given small multiple choice quizzes on a computer with obvious answers. The information is pages and pages and pages of paragraphs long thats meant to be read in between customers so these new employees are left distracted while trying to cram this information. It often goes unread or scimmed through since the quizzes are made easy. The practice excersizes and roleplays are skipped, and important information is missed. This causes problems down the line when employees make mistakes, like the one I did, and cant remember reading these policies because their training was half assed. 

The employees that do manage to get the hang of the way things work as time moves forward often go unappreciated. The issue is that unless you're a manager, employees are easily disposed of no matter how hard or how long they have worked for the company. Sometimes even the managers are treated as disposable. If they cant work a certain day or do something requested of them every now and then, theyll be pressured into stepping down or being fired regardless of their hard work or time with the company. Personally, I worked very very hard for this company. So hard in fact that I became the employee with the most pro card(memberships) sales in the store. I always did my best to keep myself extra busy during the day and to give 110% to getting extra tasks done during closing time. 

All it took was one mistake, without even so much as a warning, to fire me despite all of my efforts. I had worked very hard for 3 years. I cant stress that enough. There was no room for promotions within the company whatsoever during all that time. No personal raises either. The reason I was let go is because I had stepped out of the store, not two or three steps max in front of the door, to confront a thief and ask him to return our products. This was INSIDE the mall right in front of the Gamestop entrance. I did not leave the store unattended, I was literally maybe 3 footsteps in front of the doors of an empty Gamestop for maybe 30 seconds max. I lost my job for trying to make sure a theif did not get away with an expensive product and for taking 3 steps in front of the store, still well within view of the entrance, in which time no other customers entered the store, and still within the mall. I recieved no warnings whatsoever for this first time mistake. The mall security cameras could back up my account. I had never made that mistake in my 3 years of working for Gamestop. I had never even so much as been written up before.

I always volunteered to cover shifts and to do extra projects to make the store look its best. I also did not like their treatment of their assistant manager that had been there many more years than I had. It isnt my place to put his business on this public review but GameStop really underappreciates all his hard work. He put in so much time and effort despite also needing to go home and take care of his children. That was never taken into consideration when he couldnt work as much as they wanted him to on just one particular day out of the week. Theyd rather take his position away from him and lower his pay rate. 

It blows my mind how little upper management cared about the most dedicated employees with the most tenure and expirience under their belts. I could go on forever about how this company cares more about doing things exactly by the book than valuing or showing appreciation towards employees who put in all their efforts to exceed expectations. Not everyone at GameStop is like this but upper management really needs to stand up for the employees who go the extra mile to do a good job. Not all the employees are willing to give that 110% so it would be nice if the ones who do, weren't treated as disposable the first time they make a mistake. Never in my life had I worked so hard, for so little pay, and felt so underappreciated. 

If you need a second job on the side, sure, go for Gamestop. Its great in that aspect. But dont waste your time trying to climb up the ladder. 14-15 an hour for an assistant manager who'd been working there for a very long time is not enough! Thats less than starting pay at plenty of other places at lower positions. Not to mention they only have room for 3 positions on the schedule. Manager, Assistant manager, and one SGA who sells the most pro cards. Maybe one GA during the holidays. Everyone else can have one 4 hour shift a week or sometimes no shifts at all. 

As the only SGA with a decent schedule, I worked extra hard to keep those hours because I knew the minute someone surpassed me on membership sales, despite my tenure or hard work, I'd go from a full schedule of 38 hours to 4 to 8 hours. Max MAYBE 16. Theyd rather hire too many employees with not enough hours to give out, than give people full time positions.  They do this to avoid giving out benefits. This isnt even the half of it. I just want everyone reading this to know if they need a good job with upper management that'll have their backs in situations like mine, or even if they need some decent money on the side, then this isnt it. This is probably perfect for a first time job for a teenager. Thats the full potential this company has to offer. Just dont get so comfortable that you waste years like I did when there is rarely an opportunity for a promotion or a raise. I'm sorry this was so long but I care about people knowing what theyre signing up for. GameStop could be a great company to work for someday if they only appreciated their dedicated employees and improved their training regimine. 

I would like to start by stating this review is location dependent, not all stores in not only Florida, but anywhere else across the country does this review reply. So please take this review with a grain of salt.
This review is going to be a bit long so if you want the short and sweet version, basically; its a very easy job and can be fun most of the time, but depending on not only your store, but also what HIGHER management (not just the store leader) you're working with, it can get a bit "ugly".

 To start the long version, I've been working for Gamestop for a year and a half as of writing this review. I started holidays of 2021 as a seasonal. The application process was, luckily, very simple for me. I got to the interview process only a couple days after submitting my application, under very lucky circumstances as a hiring event just so happened to be taking place shortly after applying. The interview was pretty straight forward and easy. Just a couple of questions and that was it. To highlight the positives, working here gave me incredible experiences with not only customers, but co-workers; some of my closest friends are customers and co-workers of mine. To add to that, workdays were very easy and daily tasks could be done with a couple hours, given the store was a slower store, at higher traffic stores, these tasks could take all day, but thats the besides the point. 

 Now onto some problems. As previously mentioned the majority of issues come from certain locations. The longer I work, the more I realize that certain locations have it harder than others. To elaborate, higher volume stores, I.E. a towncenter or mall location, can get bombarded with traffic during hours of operation and still not get anything done due to said traffic. This wouldn't be a problem if the higher management didn't push store numbers. Most days, depending on your location, hitting goals for numbers (Warranties, reserves, etc.) can be a breeze, and if your salesmanship is good enough, you wont have any problem hitting goals on the daily. In saying that, a good pitch doesn't mean you're gonna hit it 24/7, and thats where problem #1 can show. Higher management can and will make sure you know that you aren't hitting your numbers, whether it be cutting hours or even, in some cases, going as far to say you "arent trying hard enough" which can come off as very condescending and downright insulting/degrading to the employee who may be receiving such feedback.

 My second issue comes in the form of one of the interview questions. Upon making it to the interview phase, one of the questions is "If you are able, are you willing to relocate to other stores if needed?" Now granted you aren't going to be asked of this task all the time, very commonly its maybe once in a blue moon. However theres a management system in place that, if your store falls under said system, can make these relocations quite common. For example, there was a day where I opened at one store, and closed at another due to both of them being understaffed and higher management doing basically nothing to ensure coverage. 

 To move to a totally unrelated note, pay. Depending on your situation, the pay could be one of two things. #1. If you're someone fresh of your highschool, per say, its enough to have some extra cash in your pocket for self indulging purposes.
#2. If you're working to live or to make ends-meat, this job is definitely un-reliable if you aren't a manager/assistant manager, even then it wasn't enough according to people in those positions. 

 Now onto some specific problems that may or not come up in your time working for the company. Management, at times and location specific, can be very little or, in some cases, totally absent. If you're store falls under the previously mentioned system, management can fall pretty short. Most of the time when one is working, theres a chance a manager isnt on duty. Which, again, may not be an issue for some folks, as they have the ability to manage time well and effectively get tasks done swiftly. However, at high volume stores that fall under this "system" can find themselves overwhelmed with not only the amount of traffic, but also the tasks being asked of them. 

  To go to a more lighter note, store leaders (General managers) were very flexible and willing to adhere to need of the employee, I.E. time off requests (both 2 weeks advanced and last minute), physical accommodations, and overall employee wellness. Every store leader I've worked with in the area were incredible in there own ways, and always offered something great whilst still doing their own job. Co-workers were also a huge plus here. Every store I went to and my home store, was filled with incredibly vibrant and unique personalities. I never found myself bored or "against" anyone I've worked with, home store or foreign, which is a huge plus if you find yourself relocating to different stores in the area. 

   Overall, the experience was an okay one at best. There were so many great times coming from working here, I've met and worked with great people. In saying that, I want people to know like every other company out there, Gamestop isn't what we all made it out to be as kids, as I feel a majority of us who worked here fantasized working here atleast once in our lives, but I digress. Keep in mind that a location you may or may not get hired at may or may not have these issues. I think this job is great for folks who want a side hustle or are looking for a first job. For a first job, it's good at what it teaches you, and will definitely come in handy for future employment opportunities. But again please take this review with a grain of salt, I want you to know what you're getting into before jumping straight in through rose-colored glasses, like I did.

 (I would also like to add, there are other problems that may more may not come up that I'm not willing to share here as they're solely situational instances, so please keep that in mind before applying, a great job on paper but one that shows its true colors shortly after hiring)

Man, the working world is hard. It might sound stupid, but you never know how truly gruelling standing 8 hours on your feet doing something you don't wanna do is until, well, you do it. It wasn't Gamestop's fault I'm spoiled(?) and was totally destroyed emotionally and physically by their job. It was an easy job with friendly people and reasonable managers. I worked for them through Cornerstone Staffing as a temp. 

I'm a bit disappointed they let me go after taking two sick days, because that doesn't really seem fair/rightful, but to their credit, I was a temp, and the first sick day I accidentally didn't let the right person know what was going on (it was a weird sort of thing cause I went through cornerstone Richardson but my "guy to talk to" worked for cornerstone lewisville. I was unaware, however.) And maybe about half the time I was on the job, I was walking around real slow with a total straight face bc I was miserable and depressed about so many things.

Obviously, I've got a little ways to go in life, I guess. But don't let my own fault and failure be your grounds for not working for Gamestop. This was my first ever job. I had NO IDEA... Truly, patience and generosity have never known such a true test as an 8 hour standing work day.

I wasn't even physically active before the job. Maybe an hour a day. Maybe 2. Mostly walking. Certainly not standing for 8 hours. I went from having every single day almost completely free to having almost no free time at all, doing a (fairly light) physical job that taxed my body more than might be expected, being depressed about everything, including my apparent inability to be enthusiastic about something beyond 2 hours into doing something I had no desire to do, despite my knowledge that the work is worthwhile for the Lord, and having to go to sleep around 3 hours after I get home just to barely get enough sleep to wake up at 4 am to go in by 6 am. Day. After. Day. And I couldn't even sleep well because I was so strung out and depressed by everything. The weekdays became a blur of endless workplace mundane activities and late nights playing my guitar when I couldn't sleep, knowing I would pay for it come 4 am, after probably falling asleep an hour and a half before I have to get up.

And the worst part is, I know I didn't have it even remotely as bad as some. Can you imagine if I had a family at this age? Then doing something like that would be necessary just to barely scrape by. Can you imagine if I wasn't living with my parents? I don't believe there are many places around Plano that are under 700 dollars or so, and that's all just money going down the tubes to a apartment owner, not going to owning a house or anything. Can you imagine if I was even more overweight than I am? Think about all the people who need God and need a working example and need help way more than I do. And I couldn't even work the simplest of jobs with a happy smile.

I'm tempted to say I'm just not cut out for working a full time job, but I know that I will probably have to learn to, in some way, for a while. But this really brings life into perspective, man. It's easy to be positive, enthusiastic, and generous with time and money when you're only helping someone for 10 minutes, or 2 hours, or giving them money that was given to you, or you have all the free time in the world to do whatever you want. 

You think you are a generous, kind, enthusiastic person? Think again. 8 hours will literally suck the life out of you and leave you screaming in the night "Why, God, Why?!" It will be like beating a dead horse, day in, day out. It will be like someone has asked you to do them a favor, but it's entirely unreasonable, totally recks your life, absorbs nearly every ounce of freedom and time you have, leaves you aching, high and dry with nothing but a few bucks to say for it (if you're lucky enough not to have it completely absorbed by social security, taxes, and various family bills from utilities to simple every day necessities) and a weekend that you will want to sleep most of, just to get an inkling of rest before you are pounded into again and again by seemingly endless mundane tasks that are akin to a paying slavedriver deceiving you into doing him a small favor, and proceeding to work you for 8 hours EVERY DAY.

But at the end of the day, it's not Gamestop's fault. I got a TASTE of one of the easiest warehouse working jobs the world probably has to offer and while I was determined to make it taste sweet, the inane relentless bitterness seemingly would not be denied. I now understand why people struggle to be enthusiastic about work. I now feel the pain of those who had most of their money taken away from them after working harder than most in entry level jobs, and getting paid much less. I now truly more fully grasp the meaning of servitude and selflessness. And boy, am I not cut out for it. Maybe if I could just sit down... maybe if I could just meet new people every day... maybe...

God help me see how to be more than what I am. Because more than ever, now, I know. I am inadequate and cannot do this on my own. I am such a failure. 

And if you feel this way, too, just reach out to God, I encourage you. And maybe, in some way, He'll make the burden easier for you. I met a fun friend at my job. Unfortunately, not even he could prevent me from sinking into my deep depressive state during these work days that now feel like a distant nightmare of pain, after only 2 days away. 

I didn't feel like much had changed since 16 to 21. Well, needless to say... I feel 21 now.

I have worked at Gamestop for almost 4 years, between Lino Lakes and now, Mankato. I have had many different coworkers and managers come and go and have watched the business evolve with the release of the Xbox One and Playstation 4, in a first-hand view of the gaming industry evolving as well.

Recently I have become a Senior Guest Advisor (SGA) so I will detail how a day runs like that. First of all to clarify, there are 5 positions: Holiday Hire GA, GA, SGA, Assistant Manager, and Store Leader. I started as a holiday GA, then was permanently hired as a GA and recently promoted to SGA when school became less strenuous. Almost every day when I arrive in the 1 - 9:30 PM closing shift, I am usually immediately at the register helping a busy line of people. There are no chairs, no cashier mats, no resting spots. This is a job where you will almost always be busy with something and be on the run (shoe inserts are a must-have). After the store clears out from the rush (rarely ever is it a steady flow of people), I am told by the current manager working what projects there are for me to do. This often includes checking in tons of boxes from the warehouse, restocking, putting excess games in drawers, organizing the floor, putting up advertisements and posters, or finding a project that I feel needs attention to (such as adjusting prices creating art for games with blank cases, and loosening up drawers for needed space). While working on these tasks, I must drop everything I am doing to greet any and all customers that may come in and answer the phone (sometimes even while helping another customer). It is a job with a lot to do, and one where you must learn to multi-task and juggle your tasks. This cycle goes on for the entire day. By 5 or 6 PM, my higher-up will go home, leaving me to run the store by myself for the remaining 3-4 hours. Up until this point, aforementioned manager had been doing almost the same tasks as me, so the second they leave, this workload is doubled. This isn't because we are under-staffed (though that has happened before, it would be about the same) but because we are told that we "cannot have GAs more than about twice a week because we do not have enough hours". As someone who worked as a GA, I had been given at most about 10 hours a week (now I work 18-35), so GAs are in a very difficult position and often have more than one job to get by. 

As someone who has worked in this business for 4 years, I've gotten used to handling almost all of these tasks with no difficulty. However, when a customer comes in with a console trade, that is when things come to a screeching halt. When someone brings in their old console, there is a 5 minute (minimal) process that goes into it: making sure the system is in good visible shape, locating the serial number, ensuring they have all the necessary cables, testing the controller, plugging in the system to the test TV, checking storage settings to determine memory size, inserting a game to test the game reader and testing controls, and finally wiping the memory and initializing the system. This is all at least 5 minutes, and in this business every minute counts. Within one minute, 3 people can line up behind the customer, creating a huge amount of traffic and angry customers (which we are told, on all accounts, to make sure no customer goes home angry and writes a negative review, even at the company's own expense). It's a feeling akin to walking on a tightrope while people throw tomatoes at you. One wrong move and you're in big trouble, it seems.

While it is a stressful job, it is also one that can be enjoyable. On a personal level, when it comes to all of the activity, I am usually i
n favor of it being busy, just because I am the type of person who always wants to be occupied with something and can feel quite restless without anything to do. At Gamestop, I almost never have that restlessness.

In Mankato, a college town, I meet many people who are my age and have similar interests to me. I find it easy to talk to customers because of this, and can help them find what they need easily and give recommendations. It is a fantastic feeling at the end of the day when you can help a customer find just what they needed (and more) and to sell something you're passionate about and genuinely interested in. My coworkers are very similar when it comes to this, as we pretty much all enjoy video games, hence our interest in the job in the first place, and find it easy to talk to one-another. I truly believe that my managers care about my personal well-being, and they always check in with me to make sure I'm doign alright in school and that they can modify their schedule to suit mine, which I highly appreciate.

Working for this company largely depends on which location you apply to and who your Store Leader (SL) is. It's no exageration to say there's a lack of parity amonst stores even a few miles from each other.

Here are my experiances as a Senior Guest Advisor (SGA) in the winter of 2021.

The People: 
The SL was very accomodating and a great person to work with, as was our Assistant Store Leader (ASL). Both of them looked out for their employees well in what can sometimes be a hostile environment. In my few months working here, I saw a plethora of people come and go for a variety of reasons - pay, attitude, lack of work ethic, better opportunites, etc. It's a generally high turnover place to work and there was a lot of training people up, them leaving, and then training more people up; however, there was a core team that stuck with it so it never got too crazy.

The Pay:
As you'd expect, not great. I worked part time (I believe only SL and ASL are full time positions) and got paid as close to minimum wage for my state as possible. Though SGA is technically a more senior position to Guest Advisor (GA) and comes with a ton of extra responsibilities/stress (The biggest being opening/closing and handling the money safe/deposits), the discrepancy in pay was maybe half a dollar. 
I was offered an ASL position while working here, which I declined for a few reasons. The jump from SGA to ASL is a lot smaller than one might think - the responsibilities are nearly identical in fact. This is another reason why the SGA pay was quite abysmal, you're essentially doing ASL work for less pay. Even then, the pay jump to ASL was maybe $3-$4 and not worth the extra stress of having to be the fall guy for your SGAs and GAs with angry customers. It's a problem all the way up, as I can't imagine our SL made more than $16-$18 an hour. 

The Atmosphere:
I cannot complain here. The store was generally laid back. You get to talk to people about nerdy stuff and you get an easy avenue to keep up to date with video games and product coming out. At times there was a lot of work to be done and it could be extremely hectic and then other times you're standing there for hours on a dead night wishing you had a shipment to unpack. 
Don't get me wrong, I was very stressed while working here. You still have to deal with problem customers, often times corporate doesn't give the SL enough hours to distribute so you're almost always working with a skeleton crew, and at times the guidelines on how to handle a preorder, sale, or etc. can be vague. In the end you kind of learn to make your best guess and hope for the best. 
Overall, there's highs and lows. I think if you stay at the SGA level you won't have to worry too much.

The company as a whole was very scatterbrained when I was there. We would get pricing changes for the whole store one day and then have to revert them the very next day. You could get away with different things depending on which store you went to, so often customers would get angry when our store wouldn't bend the rules the way another might. The biggest offense I experiance was when they changed the monthly pro members coupon to not work on game cards - one of our main selling points - without telling anyone. So when customers came in trying to use it for the reason we told them they could, it didn't work and we all bore their wrath at the store level. As with my point above, after a certain point you just have to make your best guess with what you know and roll with it or ask your SL about everything.  

Be careful and be safe. We worked at least dual shifts for the first few months I was there, but near the middle of winter we started going to solo shifts. On my second shift solo, I was robbed at gunpoint which prompted my exit from the company. I got a phone call that night from the District Leader askming me to describe what happened and assuring me they were going to make sure it didn't happen again, but I'm pretty sure they put everyone back to double shifts for maybe a week and that was it. Everyone at the store level (SL, co-workers), were very supportive and some even drove out late at night to make sure I was doing alright, which I appreciate greatly. Had this event not occured, I would have stayed with the company for longer. 

 

A typical day at Gamestop consisted of checking in a lot of boxes, helping customers, processing trades and shipments, and organizing the store. Most of the customers were actually pretty cool, others, not so much. Management was okay there, at the store level. The District Manager had a power complex since he was new to it all. Never met the Regional Director, but anytime the big dogs were in town they liked to intimidate every employee in the district to the point where we were all afraid if everything wasn't perfect, that would be the end of our job. The pay at Gamestop is just pathetic if you're not at the Store Manager level. Even as Assistant Store Manager, I hardly made enough to live on, especially for the amount of stuff they expect from you. Gamestop started getting a little ridiculous with how much they want us to pressure customers into stuff. Most of the time, at the management of the store level, you spend most of your shift alone, as they hardly give any hours. Then they expect you to greet every customer on the floor, hand them a flyer and discuss the value of buying pre-owned. Then anytime the customer is checking out, tell them about the big titles coming out and try to get them to reserve it. After that, try to get the customer to purchase a powerup rewards card. If they're buying anything new, try to get them to buy pre-owned. At the end of the transaction tell the customer to bring in all of their old stuff to trade in and hand them a big empty bag and say to fill it up and bring it back full of stuff to trade. By this point, the customers just wanted to leave and not be bothered anymore. While doing all this, we had to check in shipments, which usually consisted of 5-10 boxes full of product, and check it all in, and after that display all the product and then file away everything.  Every Monday we would get a list of 50 customers to call to tell them about a game they had reserved, or just to tell them to come trade in all their games. Most customers would hang up on us or yell at us, as they were just annoyed that we interrupted their day to tell them to trade games. Most of this, as I said, had to be done while you are there alone.  As you can see, they do expect a lot from you, but pay you very little. If you didn't meet your goals for the week with reserves and pro cards and pre-owned and trades, you would get a "coaching" for not hitting goals. If you missed goals consistently they would write you up. BUT when you did hit or even exceed your goals, you got nothing in return! No incentive for selling everything for the company. All the district manager would say about it is, "you get to keep your job if you hit your goals, that's your incentive!" Not a very great way to keep employees happy about working there. One really good thing about being Assistant Store Manager is you get PTO. The bad thing is they promise you that if you don't use all your vacation time you get paid out if you leave the company, granted you put in your 2 week notice and finish it out. I had 16 hours of vacation time left and put in my 2 weeks and finished them with no problem, and they didn't pay me for those 16 hours even though I was promised I would be paid. What a lie that was!  The plus sides to the job are that you do get to check out games for 4 days, and of course the discount was nice, even though it wasn't too much. The bottom line is, if you're looking to get in as just a GA it can be a fun job, just don't expect more than maybe 7 hours a week. If you're looking for SGA or higher, it can be a lot of fun as well with the customer aspect of the job, just know they expect a lot from you and it's not really worth it with how much they pay, and all the stuff you have to deal with with the District Manager constantly down your throat.

For most gamers, it feels like working in a toystore! There are lots of interesting regular customers who like to come in and chat about games, and even one-time customers will often want advice and information about games, so if you'd ever dreamed about a job where your video game knowledge and enthusiasm would come into play, this is perfect!

Of course, it's not all fun and games! (Pun intended.) The work varies by position, but is usually shared. Our entry-level workers is a minimum wage position (Game Advisors) and are normally charged with keeping the games on the wall tidy and in alphabetical order, greeting, and running the cash register. This is actually surprisingly challenging, considering that most stores stock thousands of titles, and customers will often move or knock down games and sections. Overall, though, I found the Game Advisor position fun in a way that outweighed challenges, and the pay level seemed appropriate and pleasing. 
At the management level, responsibilities increase to managing the cash flow (preforming twice-daily counts of each register, making nightly bank deposits, managing cash and change amounts, and recording a logbook of daily values), managing employees (including employee training, behavioral counseling, mediating, and keeping up with each employee's productivity figures, among other things), and physical asset management (managing item loss figures, managing store locks, receiving and counting shipments, watching for theft, monitoring video logs, and - in stores with high theft ratings - individually counting each high-value item every day). While the management positions still have some fun aspects, there is significantly more to do, and the increase in pay (normally starting at $8-9, only $1-2 higher than minimum wage) sometimes seems inadequate for the workload.

That being said, I still very much enjoyed working here! The customers were almost always enjoyable to work with, and the co-workers were always fun and interesting to talk to, since we all tended to be video game enthusiasts. It was also very fun and rewarding to have first-access to information on many of the newest video games and products, and we often were visited by representatives from major franchises like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft who would usually bring free goodies like t-shirts and key-chains for the employees. We also received promotional shirts, lanyards, badges, and more from GameStop headquarters for big game releases and events, which we got to keep, and once promotions and release dates passed, we were allowed to keep the old posters from the store, which was pretty cool! We also recieved an employee discount of 15% off any preowned item, which stacks with the PowerUp Rewards Pro discount of 10%, so as a video game fan it was also great to receive an automatic 25% discount on almost anything in the store. 

Unfortunately, despite the free gear and discount, GameStop did not offer much in the way of traditional benefits such as medical or dental, and due to corporate policy wages were almost exclusively non-negotiable, so there were some drawbacks. Also, while it's a great place to work part-time, the promotional opportunity is limited, and with small, non-negotiable wages the ability to forge a career here is poor. I would say it's a perfect place to work as a student (most of us are!) or for a fun part-time job, but it's definitely not a viable long-term career opportunity.

When I started working at Gamestop in 2006, the popular trend of video games was limited to a niche market of people who enjoyed their game of choice privately. Video Games were not mainstream until the release of the Nintendo Wii, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were released, as these games allowed for people to interact with others in a more causal method than any other games in the past decade.
   I joined up, wanting to learn about the support to drive the industry and was able to do just that. I had a phenomenal nurturing boss whom I was able to learn a great many things, about Customer Service, ( How to Overcome Objections, How to Ask Open Ended Questions, How To deal With Difficult Customers, Etc.), and how to thrive in a Competitive Sales environment, ( Meeting and Improving on Sales Quotas, Inventory Control, Identifying opportunities with Profit and Loss Reports, Etc.). With a strong Store Manager, I was able to Grow from temporary "Seasonal Hire" to Middle management, "Senior Game Adviser" within a year.    
 The difficulty in a long term career with Gamestop became aggravatingly obvious, when I began to notice the turnover rate for The Store Manager and District Manager positions. These terminations usually resulted from either bad politics or not meeting ever increasing quotas. This made it impossible, on a quarterly basis, to get accurate career and performance feedback and/or consideration for promotion. This led to missed opportunities for Merit Increases, and managerial unfamiliarity for different employees.
   Eventually, I was able to overcome these things through very hard work and became a Store manager, in five years. The industry had completely changed; instead of 20% of people who would play games, the number had risen to 70% thanks to the mainstream popularity of Online Multiplayer Gaming, and the rise of "iDevice"/Android/Tablets. Customers of all different backgrounds would come in and live for talking with us, sometimes even putting us on a pedestal because of where we work, while we would do our best to sell things according to quotas. The difficulty there is finding a happy, ethical medium between giving customers what they want and being able to work them towards our increasingly aggressive quotas. Our key performance indicators went from '10% and 5%' in 2006, to '35% and 20%' in 2013, so finding this line of "Insistent, but not Obnoxious" was more and more difficult with Gamestop growing their market share of business as fast as the games industry could grow.
 The customer front was one aspect of the job, the corporate front was the other. I found the communication decreasing, and the politics getting worse the longer my tenure went. They began to hire higher management positions from outside the company and developed their current staff considerably less. I believe this happened to save money by hiring newer people in cheaply, instead of giving larger merit increases to people who had been able to adapt , survive , and thrive through the growth of the company. We were asked to work mandatory schedules for everyone on staff, but were also asked to make ourselves available on short notice. We were asked to manage our time better to limit our payroll to 44 hours a week, but were were asked to work 50-60 during the holidays. I was spread thin between home life and job obligations constantly, but was able to succeed; Despite having to do much with less and less staff and payroll.

As an SGA you have a lot of tasks that need to be done. you have to open the Registers and count the safe and registers. If it's a Sunday, as an opener you have to make sure the proper weekly signage and the planogram are up before you open the door. once everything is accounted for, you can turn on that sign, unlock the door and those customers start coming in. Customer service here is the least of your stress. The tasks you have throughout the day are. You're constantly running back a forth from one task to another. Gotta check emails you've missed since your last shift and posts on "Main Menu" you gotta get caught up on. Distro(shipments) you have to count, check into inventory, price, and find a spot on the floor or in overstock. Inventory counts are all due every Thursday so you gotta do the 2-3 category counts, 1-2 Title on hands counts, defective counts, tech counts, new/preowned console counts, and Perpetual counts.  Basically need to get at least one or two of them done a day. Oh! Have I not mentioned the store-to-store orders, defectives, and tech that need to be packed and shipped every Thursday also?   Oh! Don't forget! There are price changes that need to be done. Vacuum, put game cases back out on the floor, complete Buy online pick up in store/ship from store/Same day delivery orders. 
Make sure you're caught up on your lessons online, checking off the tasks online, and so many more I can't think of. 
You have so many tasks, and because people want to be paid more than $10-$12 and be given full-time hours. They don't stay. So the place is always understaffed. 
If you say "Well, GameStop is a job for teenagers that's why it's less pay"
firstly, you have to be at least 18 years old to work at Gamestop. 
second, everyone, teenager or not, should be paid a livable wage.
SGA's spend a lot of their shift alone. Probably on 1-2 hours of overlay in schedule with other SGAs.  Managing the store all by themselves in the meantime. Having all these tasks that need to be done. but the minute a customer walks through those doors, drop what you're doing and acknowledge them.  It gets to the point that you don't see customers as part of the job but as individuals distracting you from doing your job.

SGA's are part-time only. The only full-time positions are SL/ASL (Store leader/Assistant store leader) The only benefit you get as a part-timer here is the 15% discount, though there are rumors that is changing.  no extra pay on holidays. No PTO.  Scheduling can be pretty flexible, but they're always understaffed and will ask you on your days off to come in. 

Honestly, when we have more double coverage, Gamestop is fun and you can feel super accomplished at the end of your shift. The regulars that come in are so fun to talk to and it feels nice to help someone understand the new generation of gaming.  But corporate is so out of touch and have no idea what they're doing to their workers. Piling on tasks and then lessening the hours. Not allowing some stores, if they don't make enough money, not have more than a certain amount of employees and hours. 

I'm so done with this place. I can't wait to leave

But I think I'm also so disappointed, cause I wish I didn't feel that way. It has such great potential to pick itself up and become a great place to get the newest games and pop-culture merch. But I don't see any hope of it actually getting better. I love working there, but it's also killing me at this point.

As a GA (Game Advisor, lowest rank) Most of your workday involves tending to customer needs and maintaining the store, however the day in its self is likely to be short. Gamestop has a tendency to request their stores to overhire, and this most of the lower ranking or new employees may not get more than a 3-4 hour shift once per week

The Job its self is fairly enjoyable, if you have an interest in video games you're likely to be working with someone who you can easily hold a conversation with, so anyone who is interested in the job will likely be working with someone they can relate to. The job isn't very hard at its base level, its mostly just transactions, answering questions, and keeping the store clean, along with the occasional phone call. The only thing that gives the job any difficulty is the endless amount of semantic additions that the company insists on adding repeatedly. First its the membership, then you have to ask if they want the new credit card, pre-orders, special offers and more, if you wish to work here you should be prepared for some customers to get very bored with the transaction very quickly as you barrage them with your mandatory endless stream of questioning. The company adds more and more things for you to try and sell people per transaction, and you WILL be judged upon this, despite the insistence of the notion that its more important to give the customer what they need than to push numbers. The company WILL train you to try to meet customer needs instead of working for numbers, but customer happiness and feedback is far less important in evaluation than the raw numbers you are achieving.

Despite the awful corporate decisions being constantly implemented (constant new ideas from old men who have no idea what their customers actually want) you should rest assured that the management of individual stores also generally dislikes all of the silly requirements and ideas from corporate (Over-hiring for example) as they actively notice how much it hurts business, so at least you can relate to your managers as well.

Frankly the only bright sides of working for Gamestop are your employee discount and an opportunity to forge friendships with like-minded individuals, even your managers. All other aspects of working here may seem tolerable at first, but when the main staff of the store has to take literally 3 weeks off because corporate made your manager hire 4 more employees to a tiny store you really start to doubt how much longer you can deal with it.


TL;DR

In short, its nice to meet like minded people working here but the company has no clue what its customers want, and makes every decision in the cheapest way possible, if you're a gamer and want a discount at Gamestop, consider it, because you're unlikely to work much unless you're in management anyway, and a day of work a week for an employee discount is a decent deal, but definitely don't bother applying if you want an actual job with actual hours and actual pay, Not to mention the one day you work that week, will differ from week to week depending on when you're needed, or how many people the company has forced your manager to hire, knowing full well there aren't enough hours for the store.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Store manager 186 salaries reported	$20.59 per hour
Retail manager 84 salaries reported	$11.92 per hour
Retail assistant manager 112 salaries reported	$12.27 per hour
Retail store manager 17 salaries reported	$22.81 per hour
Assistant store manager 29 salaries reported	$14.89 per hour

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