I worked at an Indie video store for a year and half. Imagine, if you will (and I know all video store geeks will) Empire Records with early 20 somethings instead of high school students, all of which count alchohol consomption as a hobby, most of which are either film makers, film majors, film minors, or in a band. When I got hired, I was part time with another girl picking up the rest of my shifts. We were the ONLY chicks in a staff of 7. And this video store is one of the “cool” places to work in my small city. My work clothes consisted entirely of vintage clothing and Urban Outfitters wear that I had bought on the sale rack and sliced up to make it even “hipper.” That place had more drama than Days of Our Lives. Drunken hookups were the norm, as were relationships forming and dissolving. I, myself, quit in a rage as an indirect result of nookie with a manager. Inspired by SC_Wolf, here’s my list:
Most obscure request: Our store has a religious following for the obscure selection of documentaries and foreign films. One guy who split time between here and NYC would order movies to be sent to him. So there were a lot of times when someone would say “You should get this great documentary, it’s about women in the B-Movie industry and the objectification of them.” Me: “Some Nudity Required. Shelf 32.”
**Dirtiest Porn Story:**Another thing that made the store I worked at more interesting then Blockbuster: we had LOTS of porn. Real porn. Dirty, nasty porn. And we rented VCRs. This one day, a man calls up with a Southern accent. He asks if we went adult videos and asks if we rent VCRs. He then asks where we’re located. My coworker begins to tell him, but he doesn’t know the streets. “What landmarks are you familar with?” She asks. The police station and the courthouse. (no lie.) She puts him on hold, laughs her ass off, and picks up the phone and gives him directions.
An hour later, a man BICYCLES up to the store. He has a southern accent. He is a dirty man. The porn system was that customers picked out the movie they wanted based on the box art, and then carried a little blue card to the counter with a number on it. We had all the porn behind the counter, and correlated the movie with the number. This guy brought the BINDER to the counter, and pointed to some boxart which didn’t have the card in, meaning it was rented.
“I want this one.” he said.
“That one’s out. You need to pick one with the card in it.” He begins flipping through the binder of PORN in front of me. “Could you take that back to the section you found it in, please?”
He ended up renting three porns and a VCR, which requires a $100 credit card deposit. He strapped the VCR on the luggage rack on his bike, and hung the bag of porn off the handlebars.
He returned everything four hours later. EWWWW…
Of course, there was the guy who attempted to pick me up WHILE he was renting porn. Asked me if it was wierd, knowing that someone was going to go home and masterbate or have sex. I told him you got used to it and informed him he owed me $4.
Angriest someone every got over a late fee: There is a woman who’s name I still remember that called specifically to complain about a late fee. She was irate. I handed it to my manager, who went into the back office, put the phone down, did some work and would occationally pick the phone up and say “I understand.” She yelled for 20 minutes, and still had to pay her late fee.
Most Desperate Technical Support: The computers crashed constantly at this place. The worst was the day when the backup had failed AND the computers crashed in the morning. That means that we had to MANUALLY enter every transaction into the system that had taken place the day before. “Customer 43987 rented movies 76442 and 4365. They paid a late fee of $3.25.” Times about 3000. It took 6 hours.
Then there was the time that the supervising staff member who was on was completely computer illierate, and the server crashed. I happened to be in the store getting a movie for my night off. I sighed, clocked in (HAH!) and was crawling under the counters resetting the computers and rebooting the server. I just kept mumbling Dante’s line from Clerks: “I’m not even supposed to BE here today, man!”
Best “Hostage Exchange” of mis-returned tapes with competing video stores: I once went to Blockbuster and asked them if they had our copy of a movie. The clerk said they didn’t. As he said that, another clerk opened a drawer to get a pencil, and I saw MY store’s logo. I asked the clerk to open the drawer again, and pointed out the very movie I was requesting. Plus, they would never call us to tell us that they had movies of ours. Grrrrr…
Favorite Mis-Returned Movie: There was the one time that a woman returned a movie that had DOG SHIT on it. But the best misreturned story has to be the time that my coworker was talking to me on the phone. He was at work, I was at home. At the same time, he was returning movies. “Dammit,” he said. “Someone returned a home movie in the Queen of the Damned* box.”
“ooooh, put it in the monitor, maybe it’s homemade porn.” He laughed, and said he had to go deal with that movie. Called me five minutes later. Guess what? It WAS homemade porn. Just like that Jetta commercial. He put it in the monitor because he was too lazy to carry it to the VCR in the office. Three scenes, multiple locations, same guy, same girl. And the best part is that because this video store would take digital pictures of customers rather than give out cards, we knew WHICH copy of Queen of the Damned had been mis-returned because we could match her from the porn to her account picture.
Furthest away from home that I was “recognized”: At a wedding two hours away. It was established that this guy recognized me and had done some kind of work on the store, so he knew the owner, who is insane. Good wedding banter ensued.
The worst part of the job was recognizing people on the street of the small city I live in, knowing it was because they were regulars, and not knowing whether they were porn or non-porn regulars. Because the porn regs were WAY more consistant renters than non-porn renters.
Best non-video store advantage to working there: I once flirted with a customer to get tickets to a sold out Tenacious D show. The guy ended up selling them to me at face value.
I also ended up going out with a customer that my coworker slipped my number to, telling him that I thought was adorable. I was infuriated at first, but in truth, I’d NEVER have the balls to do it myself, so I was secretly delighted.
Favorite Video-Store job perk: You’d think it’d be the free movies, but I’d have to go with the amazing capacity of Rapid Rental as a stalking tool. With one screen I have someone’s age, address, phone number, their state residency (we required Driver’s Licence numbers to verify identity), whether or not they had an “F9” (ie: someone allowed to rent on the account, sig other) and with a touch of a button, their entire rental history. Did he just rent “Ya Ya Sisterhood?” He has a girlfriend. Three weeks ago he rented “Where the Boys Are #34.” He’s gay.
I had a coworker who flirted with a customer, and then called him a half hour later.
“Hi, this is XYZ Video. You forgot something here.”
“Really?”
“Yea. You have a pencil?”
“Um…OK. What did I foget?”
“It’s 555-5678. Call me.” They ended up dating for three months.
Favorite way to Waste Time: Video Box Tennis. Take one rubber bouncy ball. Take one video store on a Saturday morning devoid of customers. Take two bored coworkers, and empty video boxes (not the box art, the plastic cases) Establish serving lines and boundries. One point for a missed volley, two points for missed volley AND knocking box art off the shelf in back of opponent.
Favorite Way to get Customers out the the Store: Put in the Devo movie: The Men Who Make the Music. People would get confused and annoyed and pick up the first movie they saw and would hightail it to the counter.
Number of times I’ve been recognized as “the Video Store chick” since I’ve left my job a year ago: Too many. Free drinks at a bar from a customer who was SO delighted he placed my face (where the HELL do I know you from?) that he bought me a drink. Free food in a number of restuants because the server knew that I’d forgive late fees if they comped me an app.
It’s actually starting to disappate now, mostly because that original group that I worked with has all moved or quit, save one guy. So we were a unit for a long time, both in and out of the store, which contributed to being recognized. For one of my buddy’s going away party, we all (the entire staff) went out drinking, and then drunkenly decided to go back the manager’s house to smoke and hang out. We were walking down the street, and this guy with a video camera commanded us to “Do something crazy.” My buddy obliged, promptly flipping over and walking on his hands. As I walked by the video-camera kid, I heard him say “Dude, that’s the kid from the video store.”
“No, man, that’s ALL the kids from the video store.”
My best friend still works there, so I still get free movies and hear about the shenanigans. Currently, three of the boys have decided that with their film equipment (independantly owned) and the dubbing machines at work, they can produce a fetish film and sell it over the internet with NO reproduction costs. Oy. That place REALLY needs its own reality show.
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