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I'm thinking of applying to be a redshirt at my area gw store. I'm wondering if there are any former redshirts on here that can give me the low down on working for GW. What's the starting pay like? What do they expect from you? How easy are promotions to come by? What is the best part of working there, the worst? What benefits do you get from working there (ie discounts and such)? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

starting pay is around minimum wage so dont expect much more.

Best part of working there? The discounts are always cool (tho you still cant hammer them due to low wages), I enjoyed the interaction with other gamers, my painting improved dramatically due to constantly painting and picking up tips and was genuinely proud of my job.

Worst part without doubt is management, quite a few have poor man management schemes and there seemed to be a lot of bullying. Also expect quite a lot of unpaid overtime expected ( I was usually there an hour before and after shifts) and had to paint store stuff in my own time.

If you go for it, base your answers in a very customer focused way, they seem to like that. Discuss how keeping a customer happy is the best way forward and how retaining customer is (ironically) better than finding new ones.

Show a passion for imagry and fluff, discuss your fave aspects in a vivid and discriptive way, they'll pick up on it. Above all show confidence, they are expecting you to strike up conversations with complete strangers so will need to see an outgoing person.

Lastly dont stay in the job too long, unless you want to go career, leave if it starts to get you down or it can kill the hobby for you.

The only thing I'd add to sleazy's post is that if you fancy being a bit cheeky you can buy models with your 50% discount then sell them to your buddies at 75% retail. As long as you don't buy so much that it looks suspicious

One of my roommates is a red shirt so I hear a lot about the job. Most of it is what Sleazy has already mentioned. The discount is cool (and cool for your friends too ), you can hang around for large portions of the day discussing GW games with people while getting paid, and you can hone your painting skills on shop models. The down sides are things like having to be nice to jerks (a standard hazard of working any retail job), baby sitting gamer kids, and being forced to paint shop models. The pay is fairly bad as is just about any retail job, but from what I understand, the health benifits are actually really good (yay European company). All in all, it's not a bad job for the short term (summer job, something on the side, or to get you by while you decide what you really want to do) but the long term prospects are kind of grim.

so even though they expect you to paint models and build scenery they only pay you minimum wage? That seems a bit off. I guess it's the whole starving artist thing? Is the discount really 50%? that seems incredible.

They still make a profit off you at 50%.

IIRC the 50% is what GW gives out in Europe, I think its 60% in the US.

How easy are promotions to come by?
Its all about selling. If you can move a lot of product, you should be able to work your way up the GW food chain. GW loves to promote from within - you just need to fit in, sell and be willing to relocate.

RanTheCid wrote:How easy are promotions to come by?
Its all about selling. If you can move a lot of product, you should be able to work your way up the GW food chain. GW loves to promote from within - you just need to fit in, sell and be willing to relocate.

Phil Kelly was a camera man or something. ditto Jervis.

RanTheCid wrote:How easy are promotions to come by?
Its all about selling. If you can move a lot of product, you should be able to work your way up the GW food chain. GW loves to promote from within - you just need to fit in, sell and be willing to relocate.

Partially but not entirely true. GW actually has a series of tests that their employees are required to take in order to move up in the company. If memory serves, they are color designated (green test, orange test, red test, and so on). They cover things like company values and policies as well as customer service ideals and techniques. Some of the tests have basic rule questions from the various game systems. There is a time schedule for taking the tests (after so many weeks you can take the first test, after so many more weeks you can take the second). Once you pass certain tests you get raises. After passing certain other tests you become eligible for promotion but management actually decides if you get promoted or not. So you have to both pass the tests and perform well to move up.

There are some occasional rewards for performance though. The reginal manager showed up at my roomie's shop one day. At that point my roomie was new and didn't know who the regional manager was. There was also another red shirt on the floor that day. The other red shirt paid little attention to the manager when he came into the shop. My roomie, however, came out of the back, across the store, and proceeded to give him the standard GW customer talk up. "Welcome to Games Workshop" "Are you familiar with our hobby" "What armies do you play" and the rest of the standard banter. After some conversation and making some good suggestions on what the regional manager might want to add to his tomb kings army, the manager introduced himself. By roomie was a bit surprised but took it in stride. However since the regional manager was impressed with his performance and told him to take $100 of stuff off the shelf and take it home as a bonus. So management isn't all a bunch of jerks that want to make you slave away and never reward hard work.

Never heard about the color coded tests, but then its been a few years since I hung out with GW management types. But I can say that the fastest way to get fired is to be a manager and miss your sales targets.

RanTheCid wrote:Never heard about the color coded tests, but then its been a few years since I hung out with GW management types. But I can say that the fastest way to get fired is to be a manager and miss your sales targets.

The local redshirt described it as RAGE.

Red Amber Green Esomething

Redshirt advice?

Why lie, and lies why!

A bit harsh, I guess, but I think if you've got a vivid imagination (or really, not even that good of one) you get to "leak" a bunch of made up stuff and then watch everyone on Warseer either believe it OR try and come up with some new way to claim to NOT believe it, usually with some strained joke about salt.

All this and minimum wage too, apparently.

Daggermaw wrote:I'm thinking of applying to be a redshirt at my area gw store. I'm wondering if there are any former redshirts on here that can give me the low down on working for GW. What's the starting pay like? What do they expect from you? How easy are promotions to come by? What is the best part of working there, the worst? What benefits do you get from working there (ie discounts and such)? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

In the US, you go to Baltimore, go to indoctrination, see the chick from the 40k radio podcast that sounded like a goof, and get to go through the gauntlet of sales.
They teach you the rights of the omnisiah, the mysteries of selling miniatures, the oddities of the way of the redshirt, and then you get the coveted secret squrrel training camp.

Only the hardiest souls make it through the grueling training, with thier sanity intact. those that fall by the wayside, go home, while the victors get the coveted red shirt, and secret decoder ring.

Redshirt advice?

Why lie, and lies why!

A bit harsh, I guess, but I think if you've got a vivid imagination (or really, not even that good of one) you get to "leak" a bunch of made up stuff and then watch everyone on Warseer either believe it OR try and come up with some new way to claim to NOT believe it, usually with some strained joke about salt.

All this and minimum wage too, apparently.

yes this comment was so helpful in determining whether or not applying to gw is a good idea.

the discount was really handy when i was there, 50% off anything in store, 30% off FW and mail order at weight cost - which was superb, I got a Harlie army for £6, an all metal Lizzie army for about £35, INQ figure for about a quid.

Sadly they got rid of the weight thing and I'm not sure if they get anything off FW anymore.

Wages seem to have gone up a tad, its slightly above minimum in the UK.

You also tend to get to blag stuff, we had a massive bitz box full of whatever returns were brought back to the store that we were able to root through, and old display armies tended to get nabbed too.

Sorry i'm from the US what does the term blag mean?

Blag-
To gain, usually entrance to a restricted area or club, or some material good, through confidence trickery or cheekiness. Lying is also acceptable.

Lol, blag is essential brit-slang. I'm also fond of the rarer verb 'to chief', which pretty much means steal, but slightly more sly.
But, don't steal, its wrong.