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Earlier today, the manager for my local GW resigned. He did this after having a visit from his boss to the store. Needless to say that said boss didn't like how he ran things even though his numbers were amazing. This manager took a dying store with barely a community and made it great. When I first started going there, there were barely any players, and he took that and made it packed consistently. He organized countless tournaments and paint contests. He basically revitalized the community. And from what he's said, his sales numbers were always great, consistently beating his quotas.

One of the things the boss had a problem with was a 'Game Room' that the manager had previously gotten the OK on. He took a back room of the store that wasn't needed and converted into a playing area with tables and everything. He then spent his own money and time to get it painted and looking great. With such great works of art like:




That's not to mention all of his own money he's put into the store getting terrain and such for people to play with. This is a massive blow to my local gaming community as he was a beloved member and leader of it. He will be missed and whoever comes after him better have a PhD in PR after this mess.

I hope he finds a good job with an LGS that values him. It sounds like he did everything right, especially with the converted game room.

Welcome to gaming at a Games Workshop.

If the guy was that into the game and community, he'll resurface elsewhere, probably an an independant store, and do much more amazing things with even more games. Just keep an eye out.

Your gaming group should send an email to GW's HR or Customer Service department saying what you've said here.

I fething hate meddling upper managers.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Your gaming group should send an email to GW's HR or Customer Service department saying what you've said here.

I fething hate meddling upper managers.

We're planning on it. We only just heard the news and Customer Service hours are already over. They need to know that they basically killed off store.

The strange thing is, all of what you described will like great on his resume. Even though the GW folks didn't like it.

The bloke sounds like a champion, I hope he does well. He could probably start his own store and pull all the customers away from GW, although I guess he'd be at the mercy of GW for stock so that may be a no-go.

We've already heard it before, gaming isn't the hobby. Buying is.

That store looks brilliant. I used to shop at, what I was told and confirmed by other GW stores in different states, at the highest grossing GW store in the country (or one of the highest). The manager is amazing and still a good friend. He could make anyone fall in love with the hobby and somehow put up with my bad puns and snark. I would go out of my way to drive past other stores to go to a GW shop and help new players roll dice and how to paint models. He even, with a bit of his own snark, let me paint using Vallejo (as long as I had a few GW washes and metallic paints out, which I still enjoy greatly).

I hope he never gets hit the same way, but if he ever started his own shop, I'd ask him to mail order me stuff at my expense even. That's how awesome a dude he is. Sounds like this was the same situation. I feel for your community and I hope you can find a new place to play and that he lands on his feet.

Corporate is a weird thing.

Being a store manager myself, I've seen bosses who let me run my store the way I want (so long as I follow company policy in every other category) and we become a top ten store in customer service. Start to put the clamps on and you see that life isn't so nice afterwards (those kind of bosses don't last long).

Hopefully this former GW manager gets a better paying job with a better place to work for in his next line of work.

It sounds like your guy the one thing GW truly values, the old "Company Way":




I heard this the other week and thought "damn, this is pretty relevant to how GW seems to act these days." In case you're still wondering what I mean, I'm basically saying he made the mistake of looking better than most other managers (both horizontal and vertical),

That's some really great art by the way!

It's like... a song about Jervis Johnson? At least, that's the tone I get from his White Dwarf articles.

Is the previous GW guy going to start his own store? I bet he'd get the player base to follow.

I can guess what the upper management was saying; "What is all this stuff, you should put your energy in selling our products, get rid of this nonsense!"

 TheKbob wrote:
It's like... a song about Jervis Johnson? At least, that's the tone I get from his White Dwarf articles.

Is the previous GW guy going to start his own store? I bet he'd get the player base to follow.

There'd be no doubt we'd follow him if he opened his own store. He's the reason over half of us even bother going there. Right now though, it's uncertain what is going to happen.

 crazyfoxdemon wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
It's like... a song about Jervis Johnson? At least, that's the tone I get from his White Dwarf articles.

Is the previous GW guy going to start his own store? I bet he'd get the player base to follow.

There'd be no doubt we'd follow him if he opened his own store. He's the reason over half of us even bother going there. Right now though, it's uncertain what is going to happen.

If he's half as good as you say he is, he'll find employment and get back out there. But for your gaming pals? Try to find a new FLGS with the same credence?

 Medium of Death wrote:
Your gaming group should send an email to GW's HR or Customer Service department saying what you've said here.

I fething hate meddling upper managers.

I hate to say it but i think the reply would be something along the lines of " the use of that room unfortunately was not sanctioned for use by the general public and not covered under insurance"

 Bullockist wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
Your gaming group should send an email to GW's HR or Customer Service department saying what you've said here.

I fething hate meddling upper managers.

I hate to say it but i think the reply would be something along the lines of " the use of that room unfortunately was not sanctioned for use by the general public and not covered under insurance"

The issue is that as far as everyone is aware, they gave him permission to do it.

 WarOne wrote:
Corporate is a weird thing.

Being a store manager myself, I've seen bosses who let me run my store the way I want (so long as I follow company policy in every other category) and we become a top ten store in customer service. Start to put the clamps on and you see that life isn't so nice afterwards (those kind of bosses don't last long).

Hopefully this former GW manager gets a better paying job with a better place to work for in his next line of work.

Had a similar experience.

My line manager couldn't believe his luck when I asked for the manager's position in his worst store. Some staff changes and the effect of yours truly turns said store around in a little under three months.

Lines get redrawn on a map, and I get a new line manager. He tries to force my store into doing stuff I genuinely felt would damage both staff morale and store performance. Really puts the pressure on, is stood on the doorstep before opening times on days he isn't working, threatens me with warnings if store performance doesn't improve two or three days into the month, multiple phone calls "just to see how we were doing for the day" every day, all sorts of gak that really stressed me out, especially as I was trying to insulate my team from everything as much as possible.

It all went away when his role was revised and he became responsible for his own store in addition to supervising the area. We continually outperformed his store in mine, which completely eviscerated any leverage he had to try and force his ideas on my team.

Moral of the story? Some people care more about making people do things their way than they do about getting things done well.

@carzyfoxdemon

Is this all about the Forrest Dr store, in Columbia, SC?

Our local GW manager ended up opening and running an independent FLGS a few years after the GW Bunker left Maryland. So, there's hope

Sucks that the guy quit though, I'd be pretty pissed if my area lost another great place to play (there are so few where I live). Hope the guy finds another place to be awesome at, maybe even start his own store?

Did he get to take the stuff he purchased with him?

The thing is, if this was the 90's or early 2000's he'd be getting a raise. As someone who's generally pretty pro-GW, I can't stand how they handle stores. I'm jealous of a store with that kind of guy running it, and I hope he can work at or open his own game store and bring that same kind of passion and enthusiasm to the job.

Inserts obligatory: "there must be something more to this".

 RiTides wrote:
Our local GW manager ended up opening and running an independent FLGS a few years after the GW Bunker left Maryland. So, there's hope

Titan?

I hate to be the devil's advocate but there is usually something more than meets the eye here. As much as we would love to call GW a faceless corporate entity hell bent on sales and nothing more, there is always a reason that he must have quit voluntarily.

Why not ask him why he retired? The only thing I can imagine is continual stress and pressure from the company but I don't recall GW kicking people out based on what OP said.

I may seem like one of those "GW apologetics" but everyone straight up blaming GW before any solid evidence was presented seems disturbingly alarming at how much one can hate a company regardless of cause or reason.

From OP's post, we only know he retired, after a meeting with the boss. We don't know what took place in the meeting or the state at which he left (sad/angry/relieved/etc). I will reserve judgement until OP gives us the full story and I hope more people do too.

I just read the OP again with my Commercial Managers head on, Warning this is Arch-pedantry but people like this do exist and are drawn to middle management like moths to a flame;

- Uninsured activity possibly including minors without parental consent.
- Un-supervised activity on premises or store understaffed if this room was in use during store hours.
- Possible leasing issues if designated storage areas are being used for sundry Front of House activities and/or Out of hours.
- Premises in use for longer hours - who's paying for utilities?
- Employees on property for longer than opening hours - health/welfare and work /life balance issues and liability.
- Nice artwork now who's paying to clean this up when the Landlord sees it?

None of this counters the fact that on the face of it the Manager seems to have been doing a stand up job but there are many people that could and would over look good results to make a point and/or show someone they are the boss/don't get too big for your boots.

Jebus knows I've work for some bell ends like that in my time.

Boss feels threatened by a current subordinate who he knows can outperform the Boss in every way imaginable.

Boss takes action while he can to remove subordinate before someone even higher up the food chain decides to give the current subordinate a chance to really show what they can do.

Fortunately for the Boss, as notprop points out, there are so many rules nowadays that an arch pedant can make trouble if "i"s aren't dotted or "t"s crossed.

Pure supposition on my part of course!

 Brothererekose wrote:
@carzyfoxdemon

Is this all about the Forrest Dr store, in Columbia, SC?

Yup.

 notprop wrote:

None of this counters the fact that on the face of it the Manager seems to have been doing a stand up job but there are many people that could and would over look good results to make a point and/or show someone they are the boss/don't get too big for your boots.

Jebus knows I've work for some bell ends like that in my time.

Sadly, that's true. And when a company's results are flat, often paranioa spreads through an organisation, and there are certain people who revel in the conflict, like psychic vampires.

In my own Plc, a boss in my division wanted to sack a senior figure I'd appointed. He failed because at every board meeting I argued the case, and showed why, statistically, the approach they wanted would fail. They waited until i was camping in the South of France and sacked him, anyway. Just 'cos they could. The business in question is now, 10 years later, a quarter of the size it was.

Robisagg wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Our local GW manager ended up opening and running an independent FLGS a few years after the GW Bunker left Maryland. So, there's hope

Titan?

Dropzone Games, but maybe Titan qualifies, too!

 notprop wrote:
I just read the OP again with my Commercial Managers head on, Warning this is Arch-pedantry but people like this do exist and are drawn to middle management like moths to a flame;

- Uninsured activity possibly including minors without parental consent.
- Un-supervised activity on premises or store understaffed if this room was in use during store hours.
- Possible leasing issues if designated storage areas are being used for sundry Front of House activities and/or Out of hours.
- Premises in use for longer hours - who's paying for utilities?
- Employees on property for longer than opening hours - health/welfare and work /life balance issues and liability.
- Nice artwork now who's paying to clean this up when the Landlord sees it?

None of this counters the fact that on the face of it the Manager seems to have been doing a stand up job but there are many people that could and would over look good results to make a point and/or show someone they are the boss/don't get too big for your boots.

Jebus knows I've work for some bell ends like that in my time.

These are all good management concerns but if the person had been given permission to go ahead they should have been covered n that decision making process.