Kanluwen wrote:See, but therein you're dealing with a manager(potentially the most stable position in a GW franchise) rather than a redshirt/register monkey.
My whole point in that comment was that people seem to recognize that redshirts have a high turnover--but for some reason expect the outgoing redshirt to pass the word on to the new staff about their preferences.
See, I would find no problem with a new redshirt approaching me asking about preferences, etc. It's when the same person approaches me with the same pitch when I'm an obvious regular that would start to irk, and tell them politely to leave me alone, and I'll ask for help when I need some.
It's kind of like this... again from personal experience:
Last year, my wife and I happened to hit the "local" games store for the "worldwide"
RPG day. As we were browsing the D&D books, the fellow manning the freebies table came over to us:
him: "Hello! Do either of you know someone who plays
RPGs?"
me: "Yes, both of us do." (granted, we are both in our 40s, so look out of place for some folks)
him: "Well, what games do you play?"
me: "We've played D&D since 2nd edition, Deadlands, Hell on Earth, Paranoia, Noir, GURPS..."
him: "Well, you're my new best friends! Come look at this stuff!..."
At which point we went over to the table and he gave us a spiel on the product being handed out (and a lot of the product). Here was an (obviously) experienced seller who, while he didn't know us, politely got our attention and drew us into his pitch, which we enjoyed and came out of by buying more than we thought we would.
Compare with this:
About 4 years ago, while down in Abbotsford we went to the local games store there (Wiser's). We entered, said hello to the persons behind the till, and started browsing. I headed further into the store, and my wife picked up a box of Chaos Marines for me and went to pay. The young fellow behind the till rang the sale up, then brought out a "Welcome to the
GW Hobby!" pamphlet and said to her:
him: "Here, I'll give you a pamphlet."
her: "No, thanks."
him: "But it's free."
her: "No thanks."
him: "But it will tell you all about the
GW Hobby."
her: "I don't need it."
him: "It's no problem..."
her: "Look... my husband has an 18,000 pt. Chaos Marine army, and I have a 4,000 pt. Imperial Guard force."
him: "You're right. You don't need this."
At which point, after the sale was through, the young fellow took us to the back area to show off their gaming area, including a room you could reserve for gaming with your buddies. We chuckled about it afterwards (we're usually pretty laid back), but I can see how some people would become annoyed. Rather than approach and see if my wife played or not, he automatically assumed she knew nothing about the game. Of course, she has had more than one of these encounters before, but they're getting less and less.
So in the end, it should not matter if you're experienced or not. How you approach people makes a big difference, and a new redshirt can still do well enough if they gauge the reactions of their customer. When you think of it, where do the new Managers come from? I know in Vancouver, it was a redshirt that was promoted up the first time, so obviously they can learn something...
-Vilegrimm