That's kind of a fitting thing to share in this thread.
Gamers as a community failed if they failed to shut the spawn of the creepy coward troupes.
that they would have so little decency to harass people based on their gender or on the flimsiest sets of inconsequential lies.
At least if mobile had taken over completely we would have been rid of this.
It really was upsetting, and of course the higher-ups did nothing to combat it. Many times they would have the girls work alone at night, knowing that these "types" often hung around our stores, clearly not intent on buying anything whatsoever. After bringing it up multiple times, I was told "If they can't handle it, they shouldn't be working here".
I could write essays on everything I saw at my time there, but bullet points will do:
- Shy, timid employee is called a "bitch" and "whore" out loud by an angry customer, who wanted to cash out a gift card that was given to him. Threatens her multiple times. I made him leave, he calls the DM. DM allows the guy to go back to the store after-hours (when the female employee was closing alone, gates down, etc) to get his money back. He also received an extra gift card for his troubles, as did the employee herself (which turned out to be nothing but hush money, really).
- Busy with other customers, one guy refused to speak to a female employee (different than the prior person). He waits ~15-20 minutes for me just to ask "What's the best headset for PS3?" I ask him why he didn't just ask my coworker, to which he simply responded "She's a girl, man." The guy was in his late 20s/early 30s.
- Female employee closing alone had been stalked by the same customer over and over (who was previously banned from other stores for doing the same thing). Asks her if she carries pepper spray, what time she got off work, etc. SM/DM did nothing to combat this, nor did they change her schedule or have someone work with her.
- Lights went out at one of our other stores in the parking lot, leaving it pitch black at night. Given the demographic, this worried some of the employees. They fixed it 6 months after the issue was brought up, though it was called a "non-issue" multiple times.
- Had a bunch of 20-somethings using "This rapes!" as sort of a "cool!" expletive. Obviously made my coworker uncomfortable. I tell them to cut it out, and they seem to stop. After a few minutes, they got closer to the counter (where my coworker was standing) and started saying it louder, looking back every so often for a reaction. I kicked them out.
- Female employee is asked by some holiday hire if she "likes balls in her mouth" while chewing gum. She got pissed and left. Because of that, however, my DM wrote her up for leaving her shift early. She brought the issue to HR, was told to "deal with it", and they just fired them both instead.
- Boost Mobile across the street from one of our stores ends up in the news. Girl working alone, pregnant, gets punched in the face and robbed in the middle of the day. I bring up possible solutions to make sure the girls are always working with someone else, at least for a little bit while they were obviously upset/nervous about the news, and was told by my SM "You know the bank right on the corner is the most robbed bank in the city, right?". As if that helped or solved anything.
- The amount of times I heard "Well, you actually play games, right?" when talking to me over any girl coworker just became too consistent to count.
I could go on and on. It never ends. Retailers, publishers, developers, etc. don't put a stop to behavior like this simply because they would lose customers. The generation of "this is man's land" mentality when it comes to games is simply disgusting, and GamerGate is just something these mobs can latch onto as they feel their Boy's Club is becoming inclusive to other walks of life, which terrifies them. It's all they know, and their personalities are so shaped by it, that the idea of anyone else encroaching on it probably gives them some sort of internal crisis when they realize they lack basic acceptance.
