Jon’s introduction, November 2008: Ordinarily, when I get a letter from a Blockbuster employee, we get into a spirited back and forth about our disagreements. But this recent letter from Brandon spoke for itself and really needs no introduction. I’m definitely flattered that Google has seen fit to place my piece on Blockbuster in the #2 position when it comes to “Blockbuster sucks” though. What is most interesting about Brandon’s piece is the sense you get of a company in transition. Rightly underconfident in the future of DVD rentals, Blockbuster has moved into many brand, uhh, “extensions,” some of which may make sense and some of which (like the toy business) smack of desperation. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Blockbuster, but I can’t deny that letters from folks like Brandon give me a certain satisfaction.

Dear Jon,

While at my "Nine to Five" today and after a particularly shitty weekend at my part-time (Blockbuster), I some-what randomly got the urge to Google "blockbuster sucks" and the second thing that popped up on my list was the article on your site that dealt with the letter from Becky, it made me smile inside so I figured I would read the rest of the rants and raves about the dreaded BB and I have to say; Bravo! :)

But it has left me wondering, when is the last time you have been into BB? How have your experiences been since? I ask because I believe the "Corporate Policy" has been changed since (in some cases I know for a fact it has). Now by saying that I hope you don't think I'm about to defend those P.O.S. :)

First thing out the door... The categorizing of movies is done by a mentally handicapped monkey that is locked in a basement and starved for a week, after this time some suit goes down, unlocks his dank hole-in-the-wall, dangles a plump banana in front of his face and says that the monkey can have it after he decides how the movies are going to be placed in the various stores. Now obviously this monkey isn't in the right frame of mind so his decision is less than logical (to say the least). For example, if you have been in recently you will notice that (and this isn't REALLY categorizing as it is PLACEMENT but bear with me) the new release wall is more out of wack than it used to be. The corporate decision was to stick "popular stuff with more than six copies" in the middle... 4 or 5 shelves (at the moment I can't think off the top of my head how many shelves there are on the wall), "popular stuff with less than six copies" goes on the top two shelves, and the stuff that any sane person would be hardpressed to look twice at goes on the bottom two shelves like Sleeping Dogs Lie or Teeth (breaking off for a moment I feel I need to give a very brief synopsis of both movies, while keeping in mind that I will never bring myself to watch either one. Sleeping Dogs Lie is a movie written by none other than Bobcat Goldthwait about a woman who meets a man, falls in love, and gets left because he finds out that she likes to "service" her pooch in the oral fashion. Yeah. Teeth on the other hand is about a virgin teen who has teeth in that great area that I personally could never look at again if I was to watch this movie.) Now back to the topic at hand.... With the decision to model the wall off a starved and deranged monkey's decision obviously the alphabet takes more of a backseat than it had in the past. To compound this, in my store the wall is done by a man who barely knows that C comes after B, frequently I have found movies beginning with S way after the Us, and it does not end there but I won't get into that monotony.

You said that the guy who greeted you did so in a "robotic tone" I am TOTALLY that guy and I'm more than happy to admit it. After a few months you tend to become jaded by all the people who, after you greet them cheerfully, look you dead in the eye and continue walking without skipping a step (I am in no way going to defend my behavior, it is just me, for better or worse and I am OK with who I am). So greeting becomes a chore, something we're supposed to do, sometimes we do it, sometimes we don't but we really don't give half a shit about it.

You also said that the guy made you go home to get your movie because you had to check it back out. It is so totally in the system chief... haha literally all we have to do is type "list" to see all the stuff you have out, unless it's past the seven day grace period but still within the thirty-seven day "till you're fucked" (my term, not theirs :D) period, all we have to do is type shistory (insert days here) and BAMF! there it is. Now if you were planning to check it back out, no problem. If you WEREN'T however, then issues arise. So yeah, he was pretty much dicking with you.

A very recent change has been the lack of caring about credits by the corporate "geniuses." Basically, any employee can do any credit for almost any reason. As an current (disgruntled) employee I gotta give a big "Fuck you." to those corporates because every credit we do, takes away from our quarterly bonuses. Now we don't get paid shit (usually, some actually do) so those bonuses tend to help out a LOT and me personally, I don't do a credit unless I absolutely fucking have to, I care more about myself than I do any random customer off the street. Yes, I'm selfish :)

As far the line goes in your article... technically speaking... the line is supposed to be a priority, trumping pretty much everything else in the store, unfortunately problems arise like with the woman who was a member at another BB, our systems ARE nationally linked BUT to find someone from another store we have to basically START a new account under them and hope that they aren't TOTAL idiots and that the account is actually under their name and not their husbands or parent or any of this other mess. That's why people need to hold onto their damned cards so we can avoid crap like that. As far as the cashier answering the phone... I do that when I'm with someone, it doesn't USUALLY hamper my ability to check people out, I just stop talking to the person instore for a moment while I answer one of a thousand dumb-ass questions like "Is the Dark Knight out?" (this is just an example and in this example we are assuming this is a few months ago) "That is going to THEATRES in two weeks." "Oh, I thought it was out.... are you sure it's not? My kid said it is." Well by god he would know wouldn't he! haha, ohhhh priceless.... Anyway back to it! Other unfortunate things that we have to deal with is when a movie that someone THINKS they turned in says is still out, we have to go search for it on the shelf, in miss-match, in sold-to-member, and in the drop box. When I actually find them (rare. VERY rare.) it's understandable, when I don't... that's when it gets annoying, it's like, "K, keep track of your shit please? K thx!" How fucking hard is it to remember what you turned in? honestly, I mean, they just made me make other people wait to get out of the damned store, probably pissed some people off in the process, just cuz they're fucking retarded. Beautiful.

Oh, real quick, back to the "member of a different branch bit" sometimes the computer fuck up, I mean, you've seen them, they're way older than ten years and the software we use is based on DOS! DOS! I mean shit! DOS! Anyway if we don't bring up their account via the national search with he new member fiasco but they KNOW they've rented at a store close by within three months we can call them and hopefully they can find them. It would be too much to expect every store to have every person's account in the system from all over the world, the computers would shut down with that much information bogging them down.

Now I want you to know that literally 7 stores down the street is a Hollywood Video/Game Crazy (big fan of GC by the way, I get a discount at BB when I buy games but I still shop at GC... what does that tell you about BB? Movies I go to Walmart of Best Buy), so people in my area have a choice, and to boot the girls that work at Hollywood are MUCH better looking than my BB. Now I doubt Hollywood is much different than BB in most regards, but the choice is there.

For whatever reason that escapes me (the "common" man) BB execs seem to think that BB needs to be more like Best Buy or Circuit City or all these other big stores that are devoted to SELLING shit. Now I could be wrong but I personally, when I hear Blockbuster the first thing that comes to mind is "movie rental" yet they expect us to get preorders for video games on par with ACTUAL game stores like Game Crazy, Game Stop, etc. not to mention movie presales, we have to sell toys even. TOYS. We have friggin little WALL-E figures and some crappy Batman sword things, and they expect us to ACTIVELY SELL this shit. Who goes to BB to buy friggin toys? and games... any real gamer already has a store that they go to for their information and cuz they know the staff, so they preorder from THEM. Maybe, like I said, I'm just crazy.

You said you wrote them a letter AND got a response, I'm actually pretty amazed you got a call. That is very unlike them, especially the DM and not just some customer service rep.

Now to the last bit cuz I really gotta get back to work before someone realizes I've just spent the last 4 or 5 hours surfing the internet and writing some e-mails... You said, "Maybe the real lesson here is for me, and not Blockbuster: when I act like part of the herd, and rent the same movies at the same video store as the rest of the herd, then I can expect to be treated like part of the herd, and let’s face it, I deserve it." I found this hilarious simply because people are like cows, not only at BB and other stores but just in general, one cow gets the bright idea that there’s something over the hill and so it marches off, soon to be followed by the rest of the herd. When one customer comes up to get in line, nine times out of ten the rest of the customers in the store are going to follow within two minutes tops.

I apologize if I ranted, repeated myself or anything just doesn't make sense, I don't have time to really proof read this, I have two hours left to get almost my whole work load done, possible but it be a bit of a rush for me, the price of having fun at work I guess. :)

Sincerely,
Brandon

Brandon welcomes emails from jonreed.net readers.