Hello, this is a letter I sent to GameStop’s District manager and area manager. It also went to the human resources department (so I was told by the managers) at GameStop. I wrote this because of the horrible conditions at the GameStop I worked at. The article explains all but I have some extra information about GameStop that I might not have gotten to. First of all, it is a fun place to work at if you love video games. That quickly leaves you and you’re stuck in a bad place. I know there has to be GameStop’s that are operated by competent employees, nice customers, and good hours. But from what I’ve experienced and read other peoples comments on the internet, it’s kind of really sucks. The pay is unbelievable horrible! I mean for a company that gets billions of dollars of revenue, why does it feel it necessary to pay minimum wage. If you are not a Manager or Assistant Manager, the hours are horrible. So everything underneath those are just time fillers. Let us do the math, the Manager and Assistant Manager get around 80 hours of the allotted company time. The worst part of that is that GameStop shaves off hours as much as possible. The do this to save money and generate more money to line their already fat pockets. So it’s not absurd for a GameStop to give a store maybe 100-110 hours a week. My store had around 8 employees at the highest point from what I remember. So how can a person divide equally 20-30 hours for 6 freaking people!?! The worst paycheck I got for 2 weeks of work was around 30 dollars! There are some more practices that I don’t like that they do. When they take in bad games or accessories, they don’t take them to their corporate office to get them fixed. They actually take the merchandise in the back of the store and destroy the products. Some of the items were not so bad but they destroyed it anyway for two things. The first reason was that it was cost effective to not send it. Why in God’s name is that cost effective if you’re destroying thousands of dollars of merchandise??? The second reason was that if they destroyed it and threw it in the trash; no one could take it and use it. In my book, trash is trash. If you throw it away, maybe someone can recycle it and by doing so can create less trash in the world. But no! They must do that because they can’t let people have stuff for free! I’ve seen this done multiple times. The games that are traded in to get money are bad policy too. You trade in your expensive game to get credit for another game. Usually they offer you little to next too nothing on a video game. Than they go around your back and sell it for 3 to 4 times the original amount. That is how this company can make so much money. I hate this practice and also that they opened new games and sell them as “new” games. I can go on and on but I just wanted to say this before the main article. All these accounts are 100 percent true and they come from my time working there. I feel sorry for the people that work their and take so much abuse from a company that can offer them better compensation for their hard work. I try to avoid shopping there because of what they do and the injustices that were done to me. Thanks for reading and make up your own mind about this place. Let us see if you can see this place in a new light!

To Whom It May Concern:

Hello. My name is Cesar Ruiz from store 3850 on 79^th and Harlem in Bridgeview, IL. I am a student and an aspiring writer. I am currently unemployed. I was an employee at GAMESTOP for about 10 months. I couldn’t make it to one year and maybe something higher than a lowly game advisor. Sadly, my time was short and eventful. My dreams for working a game store is squashed now, it’s a real shame. Why did this happen you ask? I will tell you why with one simple word. And that one word is, Colleen. My manager’s name was Colleen. I want to let some steam off. I left that store that I enjoyed working so much very sour. This sourness was created for no reason, just because of one person’s incompetence and abhorrent treatment of people, including me and coworkers. I write this letter as an employee AND as a customer. I say customer because, if you care to check the records from employee transactions, you will find that I spent a good amount of my money there. Money I made working at Gamestop, I spent lots of it buying video games and whatnot. Mostly at my store I spent money but at other Gamestops as well. I want to write this letter to let you know that Colleen is a terrible person to be put in a manager’s position. I will list past instances that came to my attention while working there that even I knew were wrong. If I can find these mistakes, hopefully you will take notice and maybe rectify these problems before they get out of hand. IF you don’t than that’s no skin off my nose, but I truly believe that she is costing customer and employee satisfactions and losing money as well. I heard stories about her being mean for no apparent reason. I could hear the hate for her coming from other people’s voices. I reserved judgment but it was crystal clear when she came to my former store as the new manager. All the horror stories were true and she made new ones while I was there too. I don’t mean to sound so dramatic but it was pretty bad over there. The next paragraphs are recollections that I either saw or heard from reliable people and even sometimes corroborations from many people on the same thing. These are 100 percent true, to the best of my memory and the fact that my sources are very reliable. I will give names but these people helped me in finding the truth, I am not trying to get them in trouble. I hope this makes a difference and it is not a waste of time but I need to let you know what happen. I will list the past instances where I caught Colleen doing something that was either negligence, rude, incompetent, shifty, and just plain dumb

Colleen doesn’t know how to talk to people is a good start to begin with. I am a quiet person; I don’t like attention to be put on me. I’m respectful and descent. Colleen is the complete opposite of me. She is loud and disrespectful. I remember one time near the Christmas holidays. We just got new temporary help. One of the peoples name was Raphael (a new game advisor). He was a nice guy, nothing wrong with him. I remember one time that he didn’t put up a sign correctly. The first words out of Colleen mouth were to call him an idiot. He wasn’t there but he said it in plain sight where people could hear. I was there and I heard it and I also had to fix his mistake. But I understood that he was new, Colleen did not. Many times she has given either the employees or customers wrong information. Plenty of times I’ve heard customers complaining of her that she gave wrong info on games being at our store or a wrong release date for a game and them expecting it to be their for purchase. The worst time I remembered of her talking before thinking was a very specific thing. I was with Ken, he was the 3^rd key at the store and still is today, and Colleen one day. She had been working there for a couple of months. She and Ken were making some rather unusual comments towards each other; this was because they were friends. These sometimes boarded sexual comments. When it was time for me to leave, it was in the morning and my time had come for being a game advisor. She asked me to show my pockets and what not, very standard. She tells me to turn around and show her my butt. I guess this meant she wanted to see my back pockets. She said these things while laughing at me while the 3^rd key was there. They both thought it was hilarious when she said to spin around and make gross noises at me when doing. Like a frat boy howling at a party. The problem is that she thought this was ok and funny. She even looked the other way when Ken would talk like that. He would do that around the store and to other people. I found this very wrong and I felt abused sexually. To tell you the truth, I was going to talk to a lawyer because of all the libel and the sexual comment Colleen gave me. She ruined my reputation in front of many people and for that I cannot forgive, as the other paragraphs will show. I know my rights. I still haven’t decided on what to do. This is one of the main reasons I quit. I felt very uncomfortable and it haunted me until the day I decided to quit.

She wastes company time. Her biggest time waster i have seen in the past was when her boyfriend came in. She would talk to him and do things other than work. She will talk to him on the phone for much time as well. The most peculiar thing that she’s done was when the boyfriend was there. The guy would actually do work that needed to be done at the store. I felt like he was taking the very reason I was there. He was doing the work that the company paid me to do. He would put games back and do other stuff that he didn’t need to. And she would either help him or just watch him do it. The most alarming thing I heard someone say about her that sometimes she would let him in the back office. That is unacceptable. She can’t be doing that because he might be helping her steal. I found that very bizarre.

We weren’t allowed to rent out video games from the store. Her reasoning, from what I heard from the 3^rd key, was that because she didn’t rent games, no one should. This is completely ridiculous. I am not a rich man but if I was I would buy all the games that I wanted. Since I am not a millionaire, I was very grateful for the game rentals that came with the job. It is asinine that we weren’t allowed to rent game. How can I tell customers about video games that we have if they ask whether it is good or not? I have had many a time that people has asked but I couldn’t give them a review. Many of those times, they walked away without buying the game they asked about. I bet that was a lot of money lost because of that dumb rule.

A big grievance I had with her was that she lied! She would make up stories that weren’t true. I know that you might have heard some of these lies and even believed them. One time she accused me of talking on the cell phone in front of her and customers. Another time, I was complaining about a new hired person. Her name is Jen and she wanted to train her to become 3^rd key after 2 weeks of being hired. I got mad about this because I asked her that I wanted to be trained for 3^rd key but she gave it to Jen. I talked to her normally but she blew up on me. She yelled at me when I was talking in a normal manner. She even said that I wasn’t good enough to be 3^rd key because of my stuttering. That really hurt my feelings because I cannot control that part of me. After that day, I heard from the assistant manager that she said I yelled at her. She made it seem, by his story, that she was the victim and I was the aggressor. The last thing that made me really angry was that she would talk about me to other people. It got so bad that even a customer came in and was talking about things she had said about me behind my back. She would tell the new seasonal people about how I wasn’t a good employee, how my numbers sucked, and just random made up things. Who knows what else she might have said that I didn’t hear! I was very disgusted with her mannerisms.

The other employees didn’t think much of her either. Ken would get harassed by her to either quit or transfer to another store. When the guy was caught stealing from the Ridgeland mall, he was told by Colleen to go over there. He didn’t want to because he liked it at the Bridgeview store. But she kept on trying to make him go and transfer over there. The reason that she did this was she wanted to give Ken’s position to Jen. The seasonal people would actually groan and moan at the thought of working with her. Even when they see their names on the schedule and they have to work with her, you can sense their displeasure. Tom, a seasonal employee, would complain that sometimes he would not be allowed near the registers. Ken would complain that he would get yelled at for things that he didn’t do. Chris, the assistant manager would even complain about her treatment of people. This dissonance that she creates can come back and cost the company people and money. People might stop caring and cause trouble for GameStop in the future.

Another big grievance was that she wouldn’t be fair with people’s hours and played favorites. A big thing that she did was that she didn’t distribute hours properly. She would give more hours to the girls than the guys. She would give them to this girl named Angie (game advisor) and Jen. For the most part, except in some times and around Christmas time, I would get good numbers. These included RES, used sales, items per transaction, and SUBs were always high for me. I can remember the first time Colleen transferred to the new store; I had her beat in RESs and SUBs the first 2 months. I always did good by what the assistant manager (Chris) and the 3^rd key (Ken). I even got good marks with Greg, the area manager. I did well against Angie for all the time I was working there. The thing I will admit was that I got bested by Jen when she did come, for the most part. Even though I have over Jen is seniority and Angie I had were sales. Those two where my main opponents for hours at that store. So why did I always get the left over hours like my accomplishments meant nothing. For Angie, Colleen would always say she had sonority over me. That’s fine and all but she really didn’t do as much as I did. I sold, cleaned, helped customers, acted nicely, and many other things, I feel. With Jen, she would say that she sells more. Again, that is fine but that wasn’t always the case and I had seniority over her. Her big problem was that she left the store in disarray. I was taught that a person will get more hours if they work hard enough for them. So why was I always felt stiffed with the hours to people that didn’t deserve them. It got so bad that I would only work 3.25 hours PER WEEK. Raphael would get more hours than me and he was a seasonal employee!

Colleen had a big problem was with discipline with some of her employees. Her biggest problem was with Angie. Angie was a wild one. I remember one day I was working with Colleen. All of a sudden, this customer walks up to her and says you “should really fire that girl.” Colleen said she was sorry and sorry again but the man was still man. Found out that he was a police officer that comes in once in a while. The reason he was so upset was what had happen the day before. It seemed, by what he was telling Colleen, that Angie would not get off the Guitar Hero 3 demo for the XBOX 360. He said that he felt dumb waiting there for help while Colleen was running around doing her work and doing what Angie should have been doing. Another more serious thing that happen was with some Arabic customers. It was around a holiday for them. Apparently, they try to haggle for prices on this certain time. This is fine; I know we can’t haggle because these prices are set in stone by the company. I would have said no and explain we can’t do that in a polite manner, even if they persisted. It happen that way with Angie but she didn’t react the same way. She gave them attitude and did something very mean to them as they were walking out. She said “I hate these F#&king people as they walked out, something to that matter from what I heard. They got angry and said they would call corporate office, which I think they did. Chris would also tell me that she would refuse to ask people if they wanted to get a SUB or RES. Even when the customer had over 100 dollars in trade in and it would be wise to ask them so they could get more, an easy SUB right there. No, she didn’t offer it so Chris would have to step in to get the SUB or RES. I ask myself this, “Why does she favor her.” She would get more hours and just be treated better than me!

There is a certain feeling you get around her sometimes too. I asked other people and they felt the same way. You would get the feeling of being unwanted. She gave off this feeling many a times. She would talk to you in a condescending matter. I always thought she thought she was better than people. Honest to God, I thought she was a racist. That feeling was eventually replaced with the feeling of her being a sexist. Than my final answer to why she acted like that was that she was an elitist. That meaning if I didn’t belong to her either age, wealth background, or whatever that I wasn’t worth getting to know and shown respect.

The last thing that I took that made me mentally and physically upset was that Colleen thought I was stealing. Now let me get this clear, I HAVE NO REASON TO STEAL PERIOD. I wasn’t brought up that way. My grandfather was a religious man and I try to model my life like he would want me too. A very nice man that the community looked up to him, may he rest in peace. I swear on his name that I never stole video games. Colleen seemed to be hell bent that I was stealing video games. At first, it was other people but than it came to me. She told everyone that I stole; it got to the point where some customers knew about this. She said I stole some PSP game, god knows what the titles were. I buy my stuff; I support the companies that make these games. She wouldn’t allow me to go in the drawers. Plus, they drawers were under surveillance, so there was never proof that I stole something or I would have been fired than me quitting myself. THERE WAS NO PROOF BUT SHE STILL SPREAD LIBELOUS MATERIAL! She first told someone to tell me that it was because I didn’t know how to put things in order and she was tired of seeing things out of order. I am a writer for god sakes; the alphabet is the crux for a writer. How can she insult my intelligence like that? She crossed the line when she thought I couldn’t tell A is after B! Another thing is that she had no proof that it was me. It could have just as well been someone else but she picked me to pin it on and that isn’t fair. Making up the truth is NOT the truth. The thing that would make me supremely angry was that she would tell others to tell me what I can or cannot do. She would never tell me directly. She would always talk in front of me to other people about things around the store that involved me somehow. She would word it enough so I knew what she meant but didn’t talk to me directly. This is a real bad form of shadiness. That and Tom getting more hours that week got me to want to quit. He has another job with his father. He showed me a wad of money and he wanted to buy a car. So Colleen gave him more hours. Around this time, I was working 1 day a week and getting 40 dollars a paycheck. I have no other way to support myself. When I got home, I was physically and mentally disturbed. Thinking about it know makes me angry. I got really red in the face and had a headache because of that. Couple of days later I went to see her and I told her I quit to her face. She almost smiled and she was happy too. Didn’t ask to please stay or do nothing to make me stay. I was basically forced to leave because of her plans to get rid of me. This was the last straw and the other reason why I quit the job.

I truly do miss working for Gamestop. To me, it was my dream job. I wished that I wasn’t forced to leave. I had to leave because she made me that uncomfortable and unwanted. I wrote all what I could say. I know this letter is long and I know that I missed saying some things too. I am not kidding when I can say that I can write forever about what she did. Colleen is a terrible manager with no proper manners on treating her employees with equality and respect. I really feel like I was discriminated against. For some reason, she hated me enough to try to get me fired and you know what she did get her wish. I heard unbelievable accusations that as soon as she came there, she wanted to replace people and get new people in. As you can see today, she did what she sought. I am not surprised if all of the old regulars are gone now and replaced. You lost a good employee in me and to me that is sad. You lost a dedicated person that served in Junior Reserve Officer Training Course, J R O T C for 3 years. I took this in school and if I entered the military, I would have gained the rank of Corporal automatically. I was an Honors and Advance Placement student in High School. I had Honors English, Spanish, Chemistry, Earth and Space Science, Biology, and Physics student and also Advance Placement English. So as you can see, I have the right qualifications of an astute and scientific man. The things Colleen did to me where neither smart or made sense scientifically. Losing me won’t make mathematical sense either. Than why was I treated like I was treated! I hope this was not a complete waste of mental energy. I really hope someone listens to me and does something about this. I can not express the love I had working at GAMESTOP. I sought help from higher powers than Colleen but I felt they didn’t help me in resolving this problem. I am a writer and I could have been working on a story than doing this, so I hope this is taken seriously. I could be writing for my school news paper than pouring my heart out but it needed to be done.