GW Voorhees Community wrote:This was originally posted on the official Games Workshop facebook page in the discussion thread for rants, so I will just copy and paste it from there. Thank you for reading.


Games Workshop USA dealt a death blow to the South Jersey wargaming community yesterday. At the GW Vorhees in Echelon Village, New Jersey, our local store manager is lovingly refered to as "The Emporer" or "Our Fearless Leader" and many other names. This guy was so beloved by our community, that as a redshirt, GW corporate recieved enough mail from our community that they elevated him to store manager. Since then he has taken #1 in sales last year and #2 in sales this year, out of all of America. As of yesterday, this great man was fired. Why? A few months ago, he was forced to ask a customer to leave for cursing repeatedly in front of other customers including women and children. I have a seven year old daughter myself and this kind of thing infuriates me, so I respect that he had the courage to ask them to leave. This was after he had politly asked them to stop several times before. Since then, this crude person and his friend made a fuss, purely out of spite, to the store manager's superiors. Did GW USA act professionaly and investigate? Look at the evidence as to how great an employee he is and how loved by his community he is? No. They show up in force, like a bunch of thugs and make all of us leave the store, lock the doors for an hour and then walk him to his car and make him leave right there on the spot. This is outrageous. Everyone in our group is furious about what GW USA has done, it was completly unjustified and inappropriate. Games Workshop stores are not a McDonalds where you place an order with some snot nosed teen you'll never see again. This gentlman has become a close friend to all of us, in store and out. We have a huge respect for him, and most of us come purely because he was the manager. Before he worked there, I didnt bother making the 45 minute drive because the current store manager was lazy and unproffesional. GW USA will come to regret their decision and I hope that the parent company, the origins of this great hobby we love so much, you in Great Britain, will take notice and investigate what was done here. We have a community page with over 140 people on it, everyone of which is pledging to no longer support the store under its new management. Many are even saying they will be moving on to play Warmachine. This is disappointing to hear, I have been a Games Workshop enthusiast for 20 years now and I'd hate to see the hobby die in our area. PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS INJUSTICE!! Sincerly, Josh Austin. Dedicated Games Workshop hobbiest since 1992.

I've been visiting the store for many months now, This CO was more then a sales person for the community. He went above and beyond the call of duty, often paying for prizes out of his own pocket, making community members feel welcome, and encouraging people to join. He did not push sales, still he made more money for GW then almost any other store. As a result many members of this community, including myself are refusing to return to the store. There is many posts on facebook and on other forums trying to drum up more support for our beloved CO, but none on dakka. I figure I might try to expose some of the injustice GW has done with this decision on Sunday.

You must exact vengeance through the medium of your wallet and GW's till.

In other words, boycott the store.

Write a paper letter to tell GW what you are doing and why.

May I have a link to ze' FaceBook page?

It is absolutely atrocious for the suits to fire a gracious and seemingly well-loved pillar of the community like this. Caring red-shirts are a rare breed.

Ya, What Killkrazy said...

The guy was just trying to keep the store a "Family friendly" environment...their was no reason to fire the guy!

I agree wholeheartedly. Sounds ultra weak on GW part. Boycot the store and write a letter to GW saying why. Ensure that all the gamers you know do the same. A little proactive work on your part can go a long way.

So the guy got fired for doing what anyone would do (or at least should have done imho) in the circumstances?

There must have been something else happen for the equivalent of the MiB to march him out of the store?

So let me get this straight. He asked someone to leave several months ago and is just now being fired without any investigation or research?

I hate to break it to you but they didn't even do that in the gung-ho days back in the early 2000's. It's one side of the story from a fellow who was well liked. I can understand being upset when a manager you like is let go but don't think for a second that this is the only side of the story guys.

I do however commiserate with losing a manager you respect and cared for.

Hulksmash wrote:So let me get this straight. He asked someone to leave several months ago and is just now being fired without any investigation or research?

I hate to break it to you but they didn't even do that in the gung-ho days back in the early 2000's. It's one side of the story from a fellow who was well liked. I can understand being upset when a manager you like is let go but don't think for a second that this is the only side of the story guys.

I do however commiserate with losing a manager you respect and cared for.

QFT. GW probably will not announce why he was fired but be open-minded it may have been other things. Maybe he was lax in supervising his folks. Maybe he was giving away too much in prizes and breaking policy. Maybe one reason he was well-liked is he was not doing some hard-nosed sales thing required by policy.

All that being said I wish the guy well, if he's all you said I'm sure he'll land on his feet somewhere.

GW runs through employees faster than any other company I have seen. They really need to realise that the store managers are a very important part of the hobby. They should be regarded as just as essential to the success of the company as the fluff or the rules.

[delete post - mispost]

Hey guys, this is our facebook page and our manager was fantastic

http://www.facebook.com/GWEchelonVillage

Probably more to it than what's been said. Whatever the real reason, sorry to hear you've lost a key member of your war gaming community

Wait wait wait, let me get this straight, you are actually hopping for GW to actually listen, no, futher more, ACT on it`s customers feelings and opinions?.

Flashman wrote:Probably more to it than what's been said. Whatever the real reason, sorry to hear you've lost a key member of your war gaming community

Flashman pretty much says what can be said.

GW, despite being one of the most erratic corporate entities out there, does not just fire people because of two or three people complaining.

Kanluwen wrote:

Flashman wrote:Probably more to it than what's been said. Whatever the real reason, sorry to hear you've lost a key member of your war gaming community

Flashman pretty much says what can be said.

GW, despite being one of the most erratic corporate entities out there, does not just fire people because of two or three people complaining.

Actually it does, this is how they do business, has been how they do business for quite a while now.

My actual best wish for the community is that that service manager is able to open up an indi store.

xxvaderxx wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Flashman wrote:Probably more to it than what's been said. Whatever the real reason, sorry to hear you've lost a key member of your war gaming community

Flashman pretty much says what can be said.

GW, despite being one of the most erratic corporate entities out there, does not just fire people because of two or three people complaining.

Actually it does, this is how they do business, has been how they do business for quite a while now.

My actual best wish for the community is that that service manager is able to open up an indi store.

No, they really don't. Not in the US anyway. I can't speak for other countries but if you don't live here and haven't worked for them I'd suggest not throwing out opinion as fact.

Actually, we had a GW higher-up come in to investigate at our store and almost fire our manager. Similar situation- he's super well liked, lots of guys only come on his account, etc etc. The day the higher-up came a ton of us stopped by the store and bought stuff if we could, to show our support for him and demonstrate that he actually was successful in that a lot of us buy from the store.

Hard to know the reasons behind the investigation, but it was unjustified in our manager's case (seemingly, his not doing some of the pushy sales techniques... which would make sense, except that it would result in LESS sales from the rather mature crowd that frequents the store) and I would bet it is so in the case of the OP. Our manager weathered the storm, apparently the OP's was not given such a chance.

Don't assume the worst... innocent until proven guilty still reigns in the U.S.!

Is it bad that I instantly though this thread was some kind of Jersey Shore joke thread from the title?? I wholeheartedly support you guys and would love to boycott GW on your behalf but I'm already for the most part not buying their stuff as a result of their stupid decisions in May.

Yeah, sounds like there is more than meets the eye to this situation. Skeptical cat is skeptical.

To the OP, Vote with your wallet.

Put the store out of business by not shopping there anymore. Seeing the rabid FB page, I sympathize, but can't say I am very suprised.

GW won't tell you the real reason, but I would be curious as to hearing from the guy in question, why he was "Escorted out" and who thinks they are going to replace him, with a fanbase as rabid as this stores seems to be.

I don't see the need to disparage a guy for arbitrarily just being "Fired". It happens more and more in these stores.

GW is just a suck company to work for, thats just how it is.

This is a fruitless enterprise and you should move on.

Games Workshop will never rehire this person, nor will they ever explain why they actually fired him in the first place. I'm not saying that his version of the story isn't true, but I strongly suspect it's incomplete.

If you don't like how your local gee-dubs is run, stop buying from them. Optionally, write them a letter explaining why, but do it to make yourself feel better, like writing a letter to Santa. It will be as effective.

Hulksmash wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Flashman wrote:Probably more to it than what's been said. Whatever the real reason, sorry to hear you've lost a key member of your war gaming community

Flashman pretty much says what can be said.

GW, despite being one of the most erratic corporate entities out there, does not just fire people because of two or three people complaining.

Actually it does, this is how they do business, has been how they do business for quite a while now.

My actual best wish for the community is that that service manager is able to open up an indi store.

No, they really don't. Not in the US anyway. I can't speak for other countries but if you don't live here and haven't worked for them I'd suggest not throwing out opinion as fact.

You see the problem with that statement is that this post is actually open for a reason. You can post again when the action is reverted.

You don't know the reasons, I would guess that where not a case of negligence of some sort, he pissed off the wrong people in more senior positions. Maybe he was getting good sales, but perhaps he wasn't following their decreed approach and following the rules is more important that raw sales because they don't want people doing their own thing.

Anyway I took an idle look at GW careers and my god GW wages are bad. £14K starting for a *manager* going up to £15K when they give you a shop.

Grot 6 wrote:I don't see the need to disparage a guy for arbitrarily just being "Fired".

What else do you expect?

Someone posts an emotional thread to defend the Manager and in that thread admits that he was "escorted from the store" and that they have no explanation beyond the swearing incident to justify the action by GW.

The standard response on any internet forum is to pull the OP apart and speculate wildly that there must be something sinister about the case beyond the info provided based on the fact that he or she is defending someone rather than putting them down.

If someone had posted the opposite opinion, that GW were doing the right thing the thread would be swarming with posters saying that the guy was a victim of corporate stupidity.

An opinion stated on a forum attracts posts that assert the opposite stance as readily as a dog's bum cigars attract flies.

What can I say?

Apart from that it seems that the old adage is proven true yet again.

"No good deed goes unpunished."

Now if he'd been a useless oxygen thief on a couple mil salary a year, he'd no doubt have been rewarded with a board seat.

This story pisses me off. I hope HQ removes head from arse on this one.

I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

I have to disagree with a lot of the "don't complain, nothing will happen" approach a lot of people are posting here. Games Workshop, as a company, will realize that if there is a public outcry from their loyal gaming community and those people are committed to shopping elsewhere, hitting GW's bottom line, something will have to be done. That may not be the answer everyone is looking for, but they will respond. However, they could do the same thing Starbucks did 10 years ago, ignore their customers, alienate the loyal base and lose the business to sustain the store and shut it down. Hopefully they realize that this isn't the way to success but time will tell.

I can say this too, I feel really badly for the new manager, he's stepped into a hornets nest and he's going to have a hell of a time for the next few weeks/months explaining to people how he's going to make that location as good or better without the old manager. Time will tell what's going to happen here.

My first ever introductory 40k game was played with this individual that was fired... The only reason I would drive 40-50 minutes to play/buy at GW Vorhees instead of the other FLGS in NJ is because of him.

Ofcourse the regional GW corporate managers would bring multiple "reasons" for his separation(code/policy/operating procedure violations and etc) in order to justify it. And their extreme scrutiny was bought upon by a few certain individuals....

This generic story happens too often in corporate institutions:
1. No life individuals complained to corporate
2. Corporate forced to respond and sent inspectors to inspect the store.
3. Inspectors found minor/mild deficiencies
4. Corporate used these deficiencies to justify the removal of manager without giving the employee chance to correct deficiencies.
5. Corporate's macro business approach is flawed because they did not take local/community(micro) factors into consideration.
6. Store's sales declined heavily.
7. Store closes
8. Competitor stores(independent retailers) benefits

On a whim, I looked at the Facebook page.

I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children.

Oh Internets, how you make people look ridiculous.

You have several "regulars" talking about how because this individual was fired, they're going to instead take their business to online retailers and game at each others' homes.

I wonder how long that will last?

You have a "Jesse Newton" who is doing nothing but trolling, likely because he found a link to it from sites like this where the poster has made his hyperbolic statement about "GW dealt a death blow to South Jersey 40k and Fantasy community".

This is why you don't air your dirty laundry in public, and especially not when you don't have all the facts. For all you know, this guy could have been fired because of any number of reasons which GW wouldn't put forward to preserve the guy's integrity.

Tronzor is definitely right though. It's going to suck majorly for the next manager.

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

As are we. As are we. He was an amazing manager. As for the nay-sayers: There may be other reasons to the firing. The community was given no answers. I was there on sunday afternoon while GW kept all the community members outside for an hour while they fired him. After waiting an hour, this person tried to hold the door open for the community (while the new Black shirt and a HR person was to run the store inside), but was forced by his (former) supervisors to close the door and walk to his car. The community had to wait another half hour before they let us in (Note: The store was supposed to open at noon, No one was let in until 1:15). No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go."

This firing was a complete slap in the face to the community.

You seriously think they're going to give you an answer?

They're not.

And continually using hyperbolic statements like "a complete slap in the face to the community" just makes you look silly.

Kanluwen wrote:And continually using hyperbolic statements like "a complete slap in the face to the community" just makes you look silly.

I've posted about this twice.... "continually" is quite a stretch.

On the other hand though escorting a well liked (ex)employee off the premises in front of customers and keeping them waiting outside is so discrete and understated.

I agree with a lot of what you have said Kanners, especially about not airing laundry in public, but can't help thinking that this was not dealt with well.

Stoupe wrote:No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go.

Sorry that you lost a valued member of your community.

But not telling you why he was fired was the right thing to do. Legally they CANNOT discuss this. If you want to know, the only person who can tell you anything is the guy who was fired. Heck, if I was GW, I would not even discuss or respond to anything regarding his termination.

Does anyone know if there are confid. clauses written in GW manager contracts?

Kanluwen wrote:You seriously think they're going to give you an answer?

They're not.

And continually using hyperbolic statements like "a complete slap in the face to the community" just makes you look silly.

In a situation like this, with people waiting outside the store, I do think people seriously expect an answer. Many of those people were part of a community, and not used to how callous a corporate firing can be. So while you or I don't expect GW HR to ever give an answer, those customers probably do want to know why the head of their community was fired, and fired in that way.

I don't see his statements as being silly. There was a very strong community at that store. The community, or roughly 30 people of it, got to sit outside a store and then watch him be escorted out. They naturally want to know what's going on. Even if GW can't/doesn't want say why he was fired, the manner in which this was done is certainly a 'slap in the face'. There are better ways to let someone go than the way this was done. I have a bit of sympathy for the new manager, as he has his work cut out for him.

So what 'answer' did the fired manager give? Or did he just walk to his car and drive off into the sunset? If he was a prominate in the local community and you guys were so involved with him, I am surprised that he hasn't told you guys 'Nope, no reason except for that one person I asked to leave because profanity.'

I am surprised with so many people fighting and making a stink of second-hand info, no one has direct confirmation of 'his side of the story'.

There may have been legitimate reasons and often companies don't give any reason because they want to give the departing employee a smidge of dignity in case the person did something bad. Most times companies are not even legally allowed to tell other companies why they dismissed you so not only are you due no explanation but legally they may not be able to give you one out of fear of opening themselves to a lawsuit.

This is fairly common in the business world... If you don't like it, vote with your wallet.

You know, the interesting thing is that I haven't seen a single less than glowing comment about the fired manager on the GW store's Facebook page.

You'd think there was at least one person who was willing to come out and say something maybe a little negative.

Though, you have to understand all you guys, GW absolutely CANNOT tell you why the former employee was released. That would be a privacy violation that could lead them to being sued by the former employee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Haha...I just kept reading down the Facebook page. Good ol' "Mauleed" posted asking about the firing.

mikhaila wrote:The community, or roughly 30 people of it, got to sit outside a store and then watch him be escorted out. They naturally want to know what's going on. Even if GW can't/doesn't want say why he was fired, the manner in which this was done is certainly a 'slap in the face'. There are better ways to let someone go than the way this was done. I have a bit of sympathy for the new manager, as he has his work cut out for him.

This is exactly what I meant. I wanted an answer because to see him escorted out was a bit much. The store is closed on Monday and Tuesday. They couldn't wait til he closed at 6 pm on Sunday to do this? They had to do it publicly in front of all of us.

nkelsch wrote:So what 'answer' did the fired manager give? Or did he just walk to his car and drive off into the sunset? If he was a prominate in the local community and you guys were so involved with him, I am surprised that he hasn't told you guys 'Nope, no reason except for that one person I asked to leave because profanity.'

I am surprised with so many people fighting and making a stink of second-hand info, no one has direct confirmation of 'his side of the story'.

He has been more than appreciative of the community feedback. He has told some members of the community the reasoning, but to air it online is his choice and his choice alone. He remains a great member of the community, often posting for us and keeping in contact. He actually has been more than professional and most of the anger has come from the community and not him.

Stoupe wrote:

He has been more than appreciative of the community feedback. He has told some members of the community the reasoning, but to air it online is his choice and his choice alone. He remains a great member of the community, often posting for us and keeping in contact. He actually has been more than professional and most of the anger has come from the community and not him.

He sounds good then, some of the people posting on that GWs store's FB wall are doing him a disservice.

The best thing they can do is vote with their wallet. When I see people who whine and cry but still buy their plasticrack, it seems empty and wasteful.

The real thing these people can do is help this fellow find a new job making more than he did at GW. That would show real support and realistically, hand-picked references is the only way anyone is getting employed in this economy.

He should have been removed out of hours so as not to make a scene and have some privacy. To remove someone from the premises in the middle of the day is a bit much, did they really want to humiliate him?

Really though, there's no way of knowing what has been going on behind the scenes. There was one story on Dakka of a guy who seemed the nicest store owner, then it was found that the store had a £8000 hole in the accounts. I'm not at all saying that's the case here, but you just don't know what was going on between him and his superiors based on your interactions with him.

In my experience, companies usually will have some sort of escort for the ex employee if the individual had access to decent amounts of cash, merchandise or customer personal info. Sometimes locks and computer passwords are changed as well. It usually is overkill, but for bean counters that worry over every lost penny or a risk to said penny, its neccessary to their peace of mind.

Not trying to justify GW firing a seemingly great ambassador to the hobby, just putting it into some sort of understandly reasonable context.

Well certainly they would not sack you and then leave you in charge of sensitive material or cash, but to create a scene by chucking you out in the middle of the day seems weird. Did they arrive at the store and find something they took an immediate dislike towards? It should have been done at the end of hours, not in front of a crowd of customers.


Of course I gather in the US you can sack someone on the spot at any time without reason and many in the UK might not realise just how non-existent employees rights are in some areas. It simply isn't like that in the UK, you have rights to notice periods and fair reasons for dismissal.

NELS1031 wrote:In my experience, companies usually will have some sort of escort for the ex employee if the individual had access to decent amounts of cash, merchandise or customer personal info. Sometimes locks and computer passwords are changed as well. It usually is overkill, but for bean counters that worry over every lost penny or a risk to said penny, its neccessary to their peace of mind.

Not trying to justify GW firing a seemingly great ambassador to the hobby, just putting it into some sort of understandly reasonable context.

A coordinated perpwalk and escort out of the building is standard operating procedure for dismissals. They want as minimal notice to the employee as possible to avoid any possible damage, theft or other issues. Always pull them in to HR when they have no chance to do anything, then cut their rights, lock down everything and then walk them out into the street. People can make an appointment to retrieve personal belongings at a later date. Also doing the exact same overkill proceedure in all situations protects the company.

It really is not that unheard of and many times it is for the employees own protection as it prevents them from making bad and possible criminal decisions in a bad situation. Gives them time to cool off and protects both ex-employee and company.

The way they handled it may have been overkill, but sounds pretty reasonable from a corporate POV and how I expect good firings to be handled in a legally judicious way. Also sounds like there was a crowd of people in the store who would have been unruly... the best way to stop a riot of 30 people is to shuffle them all out of the store before they know what is happening and get a chance to cause a scene. Maybe they were more worried about the people in the score causing trouble and not the manager. Considering the posts on the FB wall, sounds like they protected themselves from a bad situation with out of control customers.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Well certainly they would not sack you and then leave you in charge of sensitive material or cash, but to create a scene by chucking you out in the middle of the day seems weird. Did they arrive at the store and find something they took an immediate dislike towards? It should have been done at the end of hours, not in front of a crowd of customers.

Yeah, that was kind of unprofessional for the higher ups to do it during business hours with paying customers in full view. I wasn't trying to justify that aspect.

But on the flipside, I have seen it done before with former employees who made some seriously egregious errors or malficence, which makes me curious to see both sides of this, and we'll most likely never know that.

Where I work they tell you you're fired somewhere around 3:00. Then security walks you to your office/desk and watches while you put your things in a box. Then they escort you out the door (after having taken your key and ID badge of course). This is to make sure that you don't walk off with things that don't belong to you and you don't have an opportunity to damage company property. It is also so that you can't make a fuss about it to your fellow employees during work hours.
It may be humiliating but the company has to protect itself from people disrupting and/or damaging its property.

Stoupe wrote:This is exactly what I meant. I wanted an answer because to see him escorted out was a bit much. The store is closed on Monday and Tuesday. They couldn't wait til he closed at 6 pm on Sunday to do this? They had to do it publicly in front of all of us.

While it sounds harsh - they have things to do as well. People at corporate headquarters generally don't work weekends, or retail hours. The fact they were asked by someone higher than them to do it on a Saturday probably pissed them off, and they did it when they could. Mikhaila was right when he said how callous corporate firings can be. Even corporate redundancies can be harsh. They're not paid to be nice, and they likely don't know them personally, so have no reason to play nice. GW are no different to other corporations. It's unfortunate they decided to do it during opening hours - probably would have been better to do it before or after as you said. It's also likely they wanted to do it before opening hours. Didn't someone say the sotre was meant to open at noon? It's likely they intended to do it before opening, and just slot the new manager in, but got delayed and had to do it then without wasting the rest of the day.

Not sticking up for GW in this case. From the glowing comments about him, he's someone they were stupid to let go of, and they did it in a terrible way. But again, corporate layoffs are rarely done nicely.

I also feel that there is probably more to this than meets they eye, but understand that employment law in the US is very different to the UK.

Just to put things into context as to why GW takes a hard line on this sort of thing though I can tell you a couple of incidents that I had to deal with when I worked for them.

One of my jobs for GW was refitting new stores, or resolving the fallout from situations like this.

I remember one London store where the manager was fired over the telephone from Notts before they thought to get the shop keys from him.

The store in question had a flat/apartment above it which was used as a stockroom. The fired manager, one of his mates and his girlfriend had the locks to the store changed and squatted in the shop, living in the flat above.

When my team got there after he was finally evicted we found the shop in such a mess that the whole store had to be refitted. They had used the shop as a toilet and totally trashed it, and had stolen the shop safe and most of the stock.

In another incident a manager had "borrowed" a substantial amount of money from the store safe to pay for a holiday and I had to wait outside the store with two police officers from 6am to catch him when he opened up.

In that case I felt bad as he had the money in his wallet to put back in the safe, and if one of his key timers hadn't grassed him up Head Office would never have known.

However he was charged with theft, taken away in handcuffs in front of his colleagues and ended up serving time in prison. Needless to say he also sacked.

The reason I mention these incidents is to highlight the fact that a manager has access to keys, cash, stock etc as somebody already mentioned.

It is common practice now to escort a manager off the premises immediately so tha these sort of things don't happen.

However it is highly unusual to do this during opening hours, in front of customers, and is also grossly unprofessional because it results in this sort of bad publicity.

It is also unusual for a manager to be sacked on the spot in the UK unless he is guilty of gross misconduct, although that may not be the case in the US.

In the UK he would have been suspended on full pay whilst an investigation took place, and if fired would be able to present his case to an industrial tribunal. He would also be entitled to representation from his union if he was a member of one.

In this case I won't defend GW's actions, as being escorted from the store in front of his customers must have been both humiliating and embarrassing, and frankly I am very surprised this happened.

However I understand why a manager would be summarily dismissed and escorted from the premises, just not in front of his customers and I hope if anything good comes of this it will be that that doesn't happen again.

I wish him well for the future though, and urge the community to rally together and somehow keep him involved in some way.

I feel bad for one of my co-workers. At the end of his shift tonight, he's being told that he will no longer Have a shift at that particular account.

I myself was fired from my last job with no notice, and it really sucks.

Stoupe wrote:

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

As are we. As are we. He was an amazing manager. As for the nay-sayers: There may be other reasons to the firing. The community was given no answers. I was there on sunday afternoon while GW kept all the community members outside for an hour while they fired him. After waiting an hour, this person tried to hold the door open for the community (while the new Black shirt and a HR person was to run the store inside), but was forced by his (former) supervisors to close the door and walk to his car. The community had to wait another half hour before they let us in (Note: The store was supposed to open at noon, No one was let in until 1:15). No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go."

This firing was a complete slap in the face to the community.

What is shocking to me is that after they escorted the manager out, you all went right back in. To find out answer, I imagine, but did anyone stay? Did people sit around and game for the rest of the day? Or did they leave out of outrage?

As I mentioned in another thread about this, I doubt this is the whole story.
A company simply would not fire someone for the reasons stated unless there were serious underlying issues.
They would leave themselves liable to serious legal issues.

As to the HR people not telling the reasons why he was fired to the customers, They can't tell you. It's none of your business, and you have no right to breach the ex managers privacy in this matter.
If you want to know the full reason, you'll have to ask him, although you're unlikely to get the full story.

Seems like an unfortunate incident. My prior experience with managerial positions in the (Australian) retail industry is that termination is normally done during after hours and behind closed doors, regardless if it is outside the usual working hours for the area manager/corporate representative. The style of termination used in the OP is similar to the type I’ve seen used by shonky low level businesses.

At the end of the day, regardless if the person was guilty or innocent, its poor form to let such matters be visible outside of closed doors as it has a negative affect on the reputations of both parties (not airing dirty laundry etc). Given GW’s extremely odd practices the past year or so, I’m not surprised that this has happened. Expect to see further craziness in the future etc etc.

Let me get this straight. After directing all of their focus towards children GW is now firing employees for reinforcing family friendly environments.

Another case of GW's left hand not even knowing its right hand exists***.






***Assuming there isn't more to the story, that is.

"The minds of gods are not for mortals to know, or to judge. Accept that Tzeentch has a place for all of us in his grand scheme, and be happy in the part that you have to play."

Not sure why people are complaining. GW clearly put its company policy in the most recent CSM codex...

Well, we cannot be privvy to the internal process so i guess the only thing that the OP's community can do is En Masse Write to GW head office deploring the loss of this store manager.
if done by many people and worded in a level and polite way they may realise what a following he has built up and it may influence their decision.

may.

there's no guarentee's but its worth a try. i would also advise if you are going to do this you do NOT send any nasty letters, you don't know better then their management as you are not in on the full reasons so just be polite and hammer them with letters (paper not e-mail)

I agree with Hulksmash.

There is always more to stories like this.

Always.

While normally I would say that there would be more to this, the glowing comments about him really do seem to tip it in his favour.

Could be that the guys complaining did a similar thing to what your doing, got friends to make false complaints or perhaps accused him of something worse.

All I can say is good luck, its a damn shame that someone who did so much for the community gets treated like that

H.B.M.C. wrote:Another case of GW's left hand not even knowing its right hand exists***.

I'd say it's more a case of it's right hand not knowing what it's doing because it's too busy jerking off onto the faces of it's customers

Asuron wrote:While normally I would say that there would be more to this, the glowing comments about him really do seem to tip it in his favour.

This is a common misconception: that employees that are beloved by customers are always good employees.

I worked for a small business, and the senior salesguy (guy who closed, had a key, etc) was a great guy. Loved by the customers. Got fired when he was stealing hundreds of dollars a day.

Employee fraud is very common, and far more common among higher employees.

I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but it's more common for an otherwise model employee to violate some major breach of trust than for a company to fire a model employee over a handful of complaints.

There was a situation at the local GW in Dallas Tx. The manager went out of his way and had a large group of regulars to game and shop. Certain people complained about the community and the manager and in a few months he was fired and escorted out. The group found a local comic shop and thats where we do all our gaming and buying. So my suggestion is just find a new place to play, I'm sure most local stores would like to build a large community of gamers.

Ultrafool wrote:There was a situation at the local GW in Dallas Tx. The manager went out of his way and had a large group of regulars to game and shop. Certain people complained about the community and the manager and in a few months he was fired and escorted out. The group found a local comic shop and thats where we do all our gaming and buying. So my suggestion is just find a new place to play, I'm sure most local stores would like to build a large community of gamers.

Yep. Building up a large community of gamers is by far the best road to success, and the hardest job a store has. If you have to let someone go from the job, this was not the way to do it if you want to keep the community.

Eiríkr wrote:May I have a link to ze' FaceBook page?

It is absolutely atrocious for the suits to fire a gracious and seemingly well-loved pillar of the community like this. Caring red-shirts are a rare breed.

Facebook is blindingly irrelevant. As KK noted, send a real letter. Note the amount of items you acquired from that store in the last 12 months (detail it). Then note how that income stream is gone.


Probably more to this though.

I find this very interesting.

Corporate Retail is more than happy customers. It is representing the Corporation in the manner that the corporation finds most fulfilling to its core requirements for the unit. This is usually a measure of core sales, growth and customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction on the surface would seem high to the 30+ regulars but in fact the corporation may choose to measure satisfaction differently. It doesn't mean it is right but right in the their eyes.

Corporations, above all, must achieve consistency in their retail platforms. Any move away from creating a consistent customer experience from location to location can create havoc. ie. One store stocks items that another doesn't, one store allows players to use "non" figures to play the game, a store allows customers to play on tables longer than prescribed, the store gives out too much free product...etc. All of these things might create loyalty in a core group but cause significant disruption to the corporate culture.

Often, being#1 in sales but not following the prescribed sales techniques is more likely to be seen as "money" left on the table vs. being a well run unit in a tight corporate culture.


Now terminating a successful manager for violations above is usually a long path. You try and help them understand the error of their ways and pick up the corporate standard. If after repeated attempts, you are unsuccessful, they are shown the door.

As a corporate owner, you want a good mix of toeing the line AND the self initiative to run a quality unit within boundaries you can live with.

In my experience running a retail restaurant unit for a corporation, I often found the corporation's "measures" of success to be very different to my own. However, I was always cognizant of their success measures and ensured that

In common with what others have said, I think there are two possible explanations. One, that there is more to this than we have been told, or two that GW didn't handle things as softly as they should have done. Humiliating a generally liked manager will not do anything to endear the shop to the customers who were present (and who will no doubt repeat the story to the rest of the local community). In that case, I hope that the replacement manager isn't having to work to support a family...

It makes me think that it was something so serious that they felt they had to act immediately, certainly something more than the original reason for complaint (which would surely not be grounds for dismissal on its own).

I'm the admin on the GW Voorhees page of a 130+ members on facebook,

The page exploded in an outrage as soon as the news was spread. It's not so much as what Kanluwen said below, but as the manner that he was fired in that has the community up in arms.

Kanluwen wrote:On a whim, I looked at the Facebook page.

I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children.

This is why you don't air your dirty laundry in public, and especially not when you don't have all the facts. For all you know, this guy could have been fired because of any number of reasons which GW wouldn't put forward to preserve the guy's integrity.

To judge the Manager's character, I think mikhaila sums it up (As he's one of the most know FLGS owners that posts regularly on Dakkadakka):

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

Ultrafool wrote:There was a situation at the local GW in Dallas Tx. The manager went out of his way and had a large group of regulars to game and shop. Certain people complained about the community and the manager and in a few months he was fired and escorted out. The group found a local comic shop and thats where we do all our gaming and buying. So my suggestion is just find a new place to play, I'm sure most local stores would like to build a large community of gamers.

I think that shop closed shortly after right?

Auxellion wrote:and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This right here is a little over the top and judging by the comment only lends credence to Kan's original statement.

Either way Polonius broke it down perfectly. Before my current job I was in retail for 10 years with several companies including Games Workshop. And what Polonius brings up is pretty spot on from my experience as well. You can hit all your numbers as a store but still be doing things that are instant terminations. Numbers aren't the only driving force for a company.

Simple question, if you were an area/regional manager (in charge of more than one store) would YOU fire a store manager for politely asking someone to stop swearing?!

Do you know anyone ever who would ever read that story and go "Yeah! He deserved to get his ass fired!"

In life in general, if something sounds ridiculous because you don't know anyone who would behave in such a strange way, then you probably need to hear another side of said story.

I don't believe this story, and whilst I feel bad for you having lost a good mate, I would be stunned to find that this is exactly what happened, because I don't know a single human that would insta-sack a guy for such a trivial and minor occurance.

Ultrafool wrote:There was a situation at the local GW in Dallas Tx. The manager went out of his way and had a large group of regulars to game and shop. Certain people complained about the community and the manager and in a few months he was fired and escorted out. The group found a local comic shop and thats where we do all our gaming and buying. So my suggestion is just find a new place to play, I'm sure most local stores would like to build a large community of gamers.

Thing is, there is no other place to play around here, other than at people's homes. There were other independent shops around but they all closed. This was a great place, that's why this is a 'deathblow'. I'm still reserving judgement until I see how the new manager runs the place and if the community sticks around.

The saddest thing, to me, is that I had just asked the manager a few weeks ago about how he liked his job. He told me it was the best thing that ever happened to him, that he didn't 'have' to go to work, he 'got' to go to work. He loves the hobby, the community, and the job. I'm sure there is more to the story like everyone is saying, but I don't believe that he was doing anything intentionally wrong that could have got him in trouble.

One thing that I just can't stop wondering is if this has anything to do with a certain someone who recently got banned. He used to be a red shirt, and just last week was banned for using loaded dice in a tournament. Maybe he knew something from his time working there and felt like ruining someone else's life out of spite? Who knows.

Further to Matty's post, there was a Stationmaster (railway) over here who got sacked for removing a trolley off the line. Company rules say that nobody goes on the lines. His defence was it was for the safety of the trains that he did it. There was big up roar in the local community about it and at first sight it appeared to be a heavy handed response. However today in the news they are saying that there was no evidence of a trolley being on the line at the time.

Hulksmash wrote:

Auxellion wrote:and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This right here is a little over the top and judging by the comment only lends credence to Kan's original statement.

Either way Polonius broke it down perfectly. Before my current job I was in retail for 10 years with several companies including Games Workshop. And what Polonius brings up is pretty spot on from my experience as well. You can hit all your numbers as a store but still be doing things that are instant terminations. Numbers aren't the only driving force for a company.

I'd also point out that in circumstances like this, the real reason for termination isn't released by either party.

The fired worker wants to maintain good standing in the community, and the company doesn't really gain anything by sharing the real reason. IN addition, companies often look bad for employing employees that commit those types of infractions.

If you're interested, you can always see how quickly he gets unemployment, if at all.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8282735_new-jersey-unemployment-rules-regulations.html

If he's cashing umemployment checks after a week, there's probably nothing to this other than a whim of GW. If he's not, there's cause for GW's action.

All i can hope is he opens another store and drives the GW out of town.

Auxellion wrote: when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This is a violation of Rule #1. If you find another poster's post offensive, please use the Alert Moderator button. As you are an admin for another site, I'd think you could appreciate the importance of following a website's rules for posting.

Thank you.

Frazzled wrote:

Eiríkr wrote:May I have a link to ze' FaceBook page?

It is absolutely atrocious for the suits to fire a gracious and seemingly well-loved pillar of the community like this. Caring red-shirts are a rare breed.

Facebook is blindingly irrelevant. As KK noted, send a real letter. Note the amount of items you acquired from that store in the last 12 months (detail it). Then note how that income stream is gone.


Probably more to this though.

I wanted to have a look at it. I didn't mention that I was going to do anything about it. I live in the UK, as depicted by my national flag on the left, it's quite obvious really.

I am a consumer in that area. Just like Aux, Mikhaila, and several others of the local gaming community: I'm shocked. I think GW made a stupid, ill advised mistake in my opinion. The manager in question convinced me to play in his slow grow getting me back into 40K. In response he got my entire gaming club playing 40K again, which honestly only made that store profit.

We were not the only club he brought in. Honestly, there is no reason for me to drive the 45 minutes to that store any longer. The words vote with your wallet will be reinforced by myself, along with the urging of my club to purchase from 1 store in the area. Which means, yep Mike, going to help you put those kids through college

I'll be honest. I don't know the full story. Frankly, one day it will come out. But I'm not driving there, paying tolls to play. Showcase Comics offers a better selection. My club was gaming with GW Voorhees to learn 40K again, because i'll be honest, the guys at Mike C's store are really good. I needed to learn to play before heading to his events. I'd rather go get my army stomped at a Showcase GT, or 40k pick up games, instead of driving to GW Voorhees.

The sad part is. This is not the first time Coporate has fire saled that store. They did it to the Manager before MikeD (different mike then "c"). They did it to Dave. Dave was a valuable enthusiastic employee who had awesome sales, and was with the company forever. One day the decided it was cheaper to plug someone else in. That company has no loyalty. So I'll just got back to voting with my wallet, and spending money where i have loyalty.

Stoupe wrote:

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

As are we. As are we. He was an amazing manager. As for the nay-sayers: There may be other reasons to the firing. The community was given no answers. I was there on sunday afternoon while GW kept all the community members outside for an hour while they fired him. After waiting an hour, this person tried to hold the door open for the community (while the new Black shirt and a HR person was to run the store inside), but was forced by his (former) supervisors to close the door and walk to his car. The community had to wait another half hour before they let us in (Note: The store was supposed to open at noon, No one was let in until 1:15). No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go."

This firing was a complete slap in the face to the community.

No company in their right mind would explain why they fired an employee to the general public. The main reason is they would be opening themselves up to major legal action from the fired individual. A lot of states are right to work states, which mean the employer can fire you without notice, and without cause. And they sure as heck don't have to explain to customers why they fired someone.

I understand being upset when your BFF manager gets fired. Did anyone ask him? Did he say it was because he kicked a kid out of the store? Maybe when he kicked the kid out, he put his hands on the kid? Maybe he lost his cool and told the kid to get the F out? Maybe some inventory went missing, and the firing had nothing to do with him throwing the kid out, and instead of admitting it to customers, he went with this route to save face?

I have no idea what happened, and I am not saying any of the above did happen. However, as much as you might want one, and might think you deserve one, you are not entitled to an explaination for his firing.

Hulksmash wrote:

Auxellion wrote:and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This right here is a little over the top

You have to admit, How kan gets away with the amount of trolling he does here IS one of the great mysteries of Dakka...

Guys, if you read the thread, the OP says that the manager has told him the reason for the firing, but he doesn't want to share it online. Which makes sense to me, as that's not really his call. If you didn't see it, it's a good chance to try the "filter thread" feature .

Here it is quoted, anyway:

Stoupe wrote:He has been more than appreciative of the community feedback. He has told some members of the community the reasoning, but to air it online is his choice and his choice alone. He remains a great member of the community, often posting for us and keeping in contact. He actually has been more than professional and most of the anger has come from the community and not him.

So, there probably is more to it, and I think it's true that if they were going to post about this to protest it online, it might've made sense to include the whole story if it was known. But I think it's also decent to not post everything online without the person's consent.

We're not going to know the whole story unless someone "in the know" comes forward, and even then, it probably won't be that interesting.

Obviously, GW handled this terribly. Fire the guy Sunday evening, for goodness' sake, if you have just cause. I hope he does well and that the community sticks together at a new location, if possible.

jbunny wrote:

Stoupe wrote:

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

As are we. As are we. He was an amazing manager. As for the nay-sayers: There may be other reasons to the firing. The community was given no answers. I was there on sunday afternoon while GW kept all the community members outside for an hour while they fired him. After waiting an hour, this person tried to hold the door open for the community (while the new Black shirt and a HR person was to run the store inside), but was forced by his (former) supervisors to close the door and walk to his car. The community had to wait another half hour before they let us in (Note: The store was supposed to open at noon, No one was let in until 1:15). No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go."

This firing was a complete slap in the face to the community.

No company in their right mind would explain why they fired an employee to the general public. The main reason is they would be opening themselves up to major legal action from the fired individual. A lot of states are right to work states, which mean the employer can fire you without notice, and without cause. And they sure as heck don't have to explain to customers why they fired someone.

I understand being upset when your BFF manager gets fired. Did anyone ask him? Did he say it was because he kicked a kid out of the store? Maybe when he kicked the kid out, he put his hands on the kid? Maybe he lost his cool and told the kid to get the F out? Maybe some inventory went missing, and the firing had nothing to do with him throwing the kid out, and instead of admitting it to customers, he went with this route to save face?

I have no idea what happened, and I am not saying any of the above did happen. However, as much as you might want one, and might think you deserve one, you are not entitled to an explaination for his firing.

Just as GW shouldn't have any expectations of keeping those customers when they fire a store manager in this manner. The entire scenario could have been done after hours, instead of in front of customers. There was no reason for doing it in this callous fashion.

CT GAMER wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:

Auxellion wrote:and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This right here is a little over the top

You have to admit, How kan gets away with the amount of trolling he does here IS one of the great mysteries of Dakka...

Thats easy, he smiles and walks down some stairs while doing the "haters gonna hate" thing. It stops people in their tracks.

On topic, My sympathy to the community there.

RiTides wrote:Guys, if you read the thread, the OP says that the manager has told him the reason for the firing, but he doesn't want to share it online. Which makes sense to me, as that's not really his call. If you didn't see it, it's a good chance to try the "filter thread" feature .

The why did the OP post a quote claiming it was purely and only because of this 'cursing' individual who was asked to leave the store?

If he knows other reasons but is not cleared to disclose, then why disclose anything or purposefully disclose an irrelevant situation which had nothing to do with the situation? And if it was the only justification why not disclose there are no other extenuating circumstances?

I don't really get it... if the manager who was fired doesn't want to disclose it online, then all these other people shouldn't be blowing up forums and facebook with false or erroneous stories which had nothing to do with the firing. It really doesn't help anyone or the situation. If the person doesn't want it discussed online, then don't run out and make a thread about it?

Polonius wrote:I agree with Hulksmash.

There is always more to stories like this.

Always.

Well, yes and no.

Yes there is likely more, but what more there may be might well be shockingly underwhelming to result in this guy getting shunted.

I was once told about a 'commissar' rule run by a regional manager, to his district managers to their store managers in GW US. This consisted of the regional forcing his districts to instruct their store managers to grant 'the emperor's grace' to the lowest selling employee periodically. Their customer service, timekeeping, hobby skills, professionalism and other factors were irrelevant, store managers were forced to fire the lowest seller in their store to inspire fear in the rest of the minions.

I've read Kirby's 'little red book' and it's Gordon Gekko red braces and brick sized phones mantras of the worst kind.

So yes, probably more to it than telling off kids for swearing, but whether the real reason has any place in real world business is quite another thing.

nkelsch wrote:The why did the OP post a quote claiming it was purely and only because of this 'cursing' individual who was asked to leave the store?

If he knows other reasons but is not cleared to disclose, then why disclose anything or purposefully disclose an irrelevant situation which had nothing to do with the situation? And if it was the only justification why not disclose there are no other extenuating circumstances?

I don't really get it... if the manager who was fired doesn't want to disclose it online, then all these other people shouldn't be blowing up forums and facebook with false or erroneous stories which had nothing to do with the firing. It really doesn't help anyone or the situation. If the person doesn't want it discussed online, then don't run out and make a thread about it?

I posted the quote as I felt it was an eloquently stated case that was more true than false. I felt it was the best way to inform everyone what happened and to start the discussion from there. I did not feel like writing yet another letter as mine to GW was very personal. This quote was a lot less of a personal story than mine. At the time of the original posting, any story I wrote would have been tainted by my own emotion at the time.

As for "nothing to do with the firing" this is not exactly true. It is, from my information, 90% of the reason he was let go and one of the reasons he felt appropriate to disclose.

Lorek wrote:

Auxellion wrote: when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

This is a violation of Rule #1. If you find another poster's post offensive, please use the Alert Moderator button. As you are an admin for another site, I'd think you could appreciate the importance of following a website's rules for posting.

Thank you.

I'll be sure to do that

- On the actual topic, I've been trying to "Clean up" some of the rants/accusations on the alternate GW-V Fan page I made before the actual corporation's incarnation of it. GW will mostly ignore anything on FB, as well as anything on forums. What the community needs is a few dozen or so letters sent to GW as formal complaints.

From what people have been saying it seems as though that this man had excellent customer relations skills.

This is great, very important. There are tons of reasons however one could be fired, and fired in such a sever manner and still be well liked by customers.

For instance, it could be possible that this man was consistently doing his money incorrectly. Even if there was no malicious intent, that is a very serious problem. I know I could fired for small things like not marking bills that are larger than 20s. He could not be balancing his stuff correctly, incorrectly using store funds, not keeping inventory, so on and so forth.

As for being fired in the middle of the day, that is actually fairly normal in the united states. I know HR people, and as many others have stated firing procedures that are used for a reason (firing him in the day in front of his community gave him and incentive to not do anything crazy).

Points is you can be a nice, well liked guy, and still make job-threatening mistakes. Record keeping, wise decision making, and following the rules are just as important as customer relation skills.

nkelsch wrote:

RiTides wrote:Guys, if you read the thread, the OP says that the manager has told him the reason for the firing, but he doesn't want to share it online. Which makes sense to me, as that's not really his call. If you didn't see it, it's a good chance to try the "filter thread" feature .

The why did the OP post a quote claiming it was purely and only because of this 'cursing' individual who was asked to leave the store?

If he knows other reasons but is not cleared to disclose, then why disclose anything or purposefully disclose an irrelevant situation which had nothing to do with the situation? And if it was the only justification why not disclose there are no other extenuating circumstances?

I don't really get it... if the manager who was fired doesn't want to disclose it online, then all these other people shouldn't be blowing up forums and facebook with false or erroneous stories which had nothing to do with the firing. It really doesn't help anyone or the situation. If the person doesn't want it discussed online, then don't run out and make a thread about it?

So if say the fired manager posted all over forums/complained on the internet, how will that bode for GW if he wishes to sue/argue his termination from the company? That would be obnoxious;possibly the worst thing he could do.

Let it play out for a few days and see what happens.

Auxellion wrote:

So if say the fired manager posted all over forums/complained on the internet, how will that bode for GW if he wishes to sue/argue his termination from the company? That would be obnoxious;possibly the worst thing he could do.

Let it play out for a few days and see what happens.

LOL, at-will state... You think he has any rights or recourse?

You can't have it both ways... someone cannot post a thread claiming he was fired for 'reason A' and then claim he can't disclose why he was fired at the request of the person. Either he was fired for asking a rude cursing customer to leave, or he was fired for other reasons. Suggesting it to be A but knowing B C and D is dishonest to me. If he can't disclose B C and D, because he was asked not to, he should have just kept it to himself.

Either way, it is distasteful for him to be advertising this guys situation if he doesn't want it discussed on the net.

I thought his reply to your post summed it up well, nkelsch. Not saying your post isn't valid, and I thought your previous one brought up some very good points, but he did reply. Also pointing out, which I didn't realize, that he simply copied a post from facebook to here- it wasn't his own words, as he says, his own letter to GW was too personal to share.

Quoted below... and again, that's not to say I disagree with your points, as they are valid.

Stoupe wrote:

nkelsch wrote:The why did the OP post a quote claiming it was purely and only because of this 'cursing' individual who was asked to leave the store?

If he knows other reasons but is not cleared to disclose, then why disclose anything or purposefully disclose an irrelevant situation which had nothing to do with the situation? And if it was the only justification why not disclose there are no other extenuating circumstances?

I don't really get it... if the manager who was fired doesn't want to disclose it online, then all these other people shouldn't be blowing up forums and facebook with false or erroneous stories which had nothing to do with the firing. It really doesn't help anyone or the situation. If the person doesn't want it discussed online, then don't run out and make a thread about it?

I posted the quote as I felt it was an eloquently stated case that was more true than false. I felt it was the best way to inform everyone what happened and to start the discussion from there. I did not feel like writing yet another letter as mine to GW was very personal. This quote was a lot less of a personal story than mine. At the time of the original posting, any story I wrote would have been tainted by my own emotion at the time.

As for "nothing to do with the firing" this is not exactly true. It is, from my information, 90% of the reason he was let go and one of the reasons he felt appropriate to disclose.

Auxellion wrote:I'm the admin on the GW Voorhees page of a 130+ members on facebook,

The page exploded in an outrage as soon as the news was spread. It's not so much as what Kanluwen said below, but as the manner that he was fired in that has the community up in arms.

Kanluwen wrote:On a whim, I looked at the Facebook page.

I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children.

This is why you don't air your dirty laundry in public, and especially not when you don't have all the facts. For all you know, this guy could have been fired because of any number of reasons which GW wouldn't put forward to preserve the guy's integrity.

To judge the Manager's character, I think mikhaila sums it up (As he's one of the most know FLGS owners that posts regularly on Dakkadakka):

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

Hey there chief, You have a few issues on that FB page you might want to review before you go on and spout off at the hole at Kan on his perfectly reasonable statement.

Normally, I wouldn't respond, but in the matter of you saying your actually " Admin" that greek tragedy of a facebook page, you might want to hold what you got.

I saw exactly the same of what Kan saw on that embarrassment, and if thats your "Community", it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see one of the reasons that they fired him.
with the family friendly comments and spout off that you have going there, you calling Kan, "a blatent neckbeard troll" is a badge of honor.

Point blank thing for you to do is to go clean your mess up and report some facts, instead of letting that mess continue to fester and instigate more of your gak.

Don't pee in the wind again, chief.

He's not an "admin" of THAT facebook page, but rather a private one created for the community on facebook called "GW Voorhees". The one that your referring to is the company run page that only GW is an admin of. I don't think he made it quite clear in his post. It is a private group.

He has no control over the page that your referring to, and actually has helped keep things calm in the private group. If you noticed, the page that your referring to is called "Games Workshop: Echelon Village", while the page he referred to is "GW Voorhees".

As of now, most of the stuff on that page is done by trolls now.

Stoupe wrote:He's not an "admin" of THAT facebook page, but rather a private one created for the community on facebook called "GW Voorhees". The one that your referring to is the company run page that only GW is an admin of. I don't think he made it quite clear in his post. It is a private group.

He has no control over the page that your referring to, and actually has helped keep things calm in the private group.

So he comes over here to stir the pot?

He's referring to Kan as a neckbeard for stating an opinion of general knowledge that we see on the Facebook site- YOU referenced.

Instead of keeping to topic, lets slash and burn the conversation over symantics?


Good tactic, I guess. Keep on keeping it on target.

Sheck2 wrote:

Stoupe wrote:No answers were really given to the community unless it was "I don't know why he was let go.

Sorry that you lost a valued member of your community.

But not telling you why he was fired was the right thing to do. Legally they CANNOT discuss this. If you want to know, the only person who can tell you anything is the guy who was fired. Heck, if I was GW, I would not even discuss or respond to anything regarding his termination.

Does anyone know if there are confid. clauses written in GW manager contracts?

Unfortunately, the only people that know why he was let go cannot legally discuss. The person in question could, I guess, if he want's to post here.

Once again, unfortunate situation for the community and the guy in question. I hope he finds something else that he enjoys doing job-wise.

The patrons of that store need to vote with their wallet, but it would also do them well to not treat the replacement disrespectfully, that guy had nothing to do with the decision.

Grot 6 wrote:

Auxellion wrote:I'm the admin on the GW Voorhees page of a 130+ members on facebook,

The page exploded in an outrage as soon as the news was spread. It's not so much as what Kanluwen said below, but as the manner that he was fired in that has the community up in arms.

Kanluwen wrote:On a whim, I looked at the Facebook page.

I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children.

This is why you don't air your dirty laundry in public, and especially not when you don't have all the facts. For all you know, this guy could have been fired because of any number of reasons which GW wouldn't put forward to preserve the guy's integrity.

To judge the Manager's character, I think mikhaila sums it up (As he's one of the most know FLGS owners that posts regularly on Dakkadakka):

mikhaila wrote:I've personally known this person for about 20 years. He came into my shop as a skinny 8 year old kid. Very polite person, very into his gaming. Played in a lot of GT's, paints well, low key sales techniques, very big into the hobby and running events. He was between jobs a couple of years ago and worked for me at my shops, and did a great job. He started up in Voorhees, and moved into the managers spot when they went to one person stores. On his off days he'd bring a half dozen guys over to my store to game and make scenery, buying the scenery supplies himself, and making sure his store had good tables for players to use. I'm quite shocked to see him let go by GW.

and Kanluwen, stop trolling. It's great to say "I have never seen so many "mature adults" behaving like spoiled children." when you, yourself are a blatant neckbeard troll

Hey there chief, You have a few issues on that FB page you might want to review before you go on and spout off at the hole at Kan on his perfectly reasonable statement.

Normally, I wouldn't respond, but in the matter of you saying your actually " Admin" that greek tragedy of a facebook page, you might want to hold what you got.

I saw exactly the same of what Kan saw on that embarrassment, and if thats your "Community", it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see one of the reasons that they fired him.
with the family friendly comments and spout off that you have going there, you calling Kan, "a blatent neckbeard troll" is a badge of honor.

Point blank thing for you to do is to go clean your mess up and report some facts, instead of letting that mess continue to fester and instigate more of your gak.

Don't pee in the wind again, chief.

I made this page a year or so ago: http://www.facebook.com/groups/162359720466994/ (GW Voorhees Group)

This is GW's Page on FB - http://www.facebook.com/GWEchelonVillage (GW Run)

The previous poster that mentioned that I was an admin, he was not implying the FB Page, but for the Tyranid Forum I'm an admin on. I run this ---> http://thetyranidhive.proboards.com/index.cgi

You're a funny guy bro!

Grot 6 wrote:

Stoupe wrote:He's not an "admin" of THAT facebook page, but rather a private one created for the community on facebook called "GW Voorhees". The one that your referring to is the company run page that only GW is an admin of. I don't think he made it quite clear in his post. It is a private group.

He has no control over the page that your referring to, and actually has helped keep things calm in the private group.

So he comes over here to stir the pot?

He's referring to Kan as a neckbeard for stating an opinion of general knowledge that we see on the Facebook site- YOU referenced.

Instead of keeping to topic, lets slash and burn the conversation over symantics?


Good tactic, I guess. Keep on keeping it on target.

Stir the pot? Naw bro! I just pointed out his obvious trolling. In any thread I read that has that Kan kid posting, I simply ignore. He's a very obvious troll; all forums have trolls, even mine.

Auxellion wrote:Stir the pot? Naw bro! I just pointed out his obvious trolling. In any thread I read that has that Kan kid posting, I simply ignore. He's a very obvious troll; all forums have trolls, even mine.

He's only a troll if you don't know what a troll is.

I think I heard someone say that they weren't sugarcoating the truth or just telling it like it is (or something).

Regardless, this thread has devolved into bickering and insults.

Locked.