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Considering GW purportedly no longer has regional managers, I can think of absolutely no reason for a manager's "boss" to be showing up just to have a walkaround.

Ummm.... bulgak. You might not know who that guy is for your local store, but they do store checks on a regular basis. Similar thing happened at my local store. Two great managers set up with a store with eight game tables. They ran tourneys, campaigns, paint classes you name it. When they changed to one man stores they offered one of the guys his own store but it would not have any tables, he would only be allowed to do retail, and the store would be two blocks from an FLGs with tables that offered a discount. The other guy they assumed would stay at the first store but they told him he had to restrict painting at the paint bar to one hour per person, and he had to cover the tables with product with the exception of a 4X4 section he could use for demos. No more open gaming would be allowed in the store. They both quit. A store that you could barely walk in on a Saturday had two people in it the last time I was there.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 crazyfoxdemon wrote:

It wasn't an investigation. He was just showing up as a walk around. He was scheduled to visit more stores after.

Considering GW purportedly no longer has regional managers, I can think of absolutely no reason for a manager's "boss" to be showing up just to have a walkaround.

Seriously? This happens at almost every retail place I've ever worked at/known. Bosses do it every 6 months or so, usually just to check things out or they do it when corporate pushes some new rules/plans into effect. This is not something surprising and if the higher up got word that he was supposed to implement some new plan/take his stores in a new direction, then he ABSOLUTELY would go around to all his stores.

 crazyfoxdemon wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

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

I fething hate meddling upper managers.

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

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

Common practice for Corporate Management to give you the shaft if you do not conform to their quasi religious dogma.

On the other side of the fence being a owner of commercial property it depends on lease that they hold. I can say when the old tenants are gone it is turn key operation to get it up to specks for leasing to another business. So in this case the paintings on the wall will be a non issue as everything will have to be painted/cleaned/torn down regardless. The cost is what my maintenance crew is. An hourly wage.

I hope this guy does well in any endeavor he chooses. The guy has talent.

Sad to hear. I wish the guy well. If he needs a new town to start a FLGS he and all his customers are welcome in my town. Our store had to close the first of July. It didn't go under. The store owner was working another job while running the store and had no time for family. But, even he said as a FLGS GW was making things difficult.

Sorry I'm late,

The guy who ran the place is a great guy and a true friend to our gaming community. And no worries he has already started looking for other places to play.

So to give a bit more details, when this store first opened it did ok...for the first month. Then this guy came and changed everything around. When he first joined as manager he was completely new to the game and was just learning it, which to me helped him connect to the younger crowd. In no time the store was filled up with 5 to 7 people playing and buying.

We were told earlier from him that he was told by his boss that he wasn't exactly following the guidelines but he wasn't breaking rules either. They were happy with sales he made as well and had approved for the game room.

From what I heard about that day, his boss came in and said he wasn't happy with the game room and some of the other habits he was doing and told him to change back to what it used be (while making the exact sales he was making)

What wasn't said was how his boss acted after he quit. He told everyone to leave and locked up. One of the customers is minor who had to call his mom and wait for about an hour in SC heat. Poor kid should never had to deal with that. When his mom confronted him about it, his boss said, "a Games Workshop manager's resignation is a private matter."

This kind of behavior is what's making me turn to other game companies.

GW like any company has a duty of care and safeguarding towards minors and other vulnerable people visiting its premises.

soultaker87 wrote:
Sorry I'm late,

The guy who ran the place is a great guy and a true friend to our gaming community. And no worries he has already started looking for other places to play.

So to give a bit more details, when this store first opened it did ok...for the first month. Then this guy came and changed everything around. When he first joined as manager he was completely new to the game and was just learning it, which to me helped him connect to the younger crowd. In no time the store was filled up with 5 to 7 people playing and buying.

We were told earlier from him that he was told by his boss that he wasn't exactly following the guidelines but he wasn't breaking rules either. They were happy with sales he made as well and had approved for the game room.

From what I heard about that day, his boss came in and said he wasn't happy with the game room and some of the other habits he was doing and told him to change back to what it used be (while making the exact sales he was making)

What wasn't said was how his boss acted after he quit. He told everyone to leave and locked up. One of the customers is minor who had to call his mom and wait for about an hour in SC heat. Poor kid should never had to deal with that. When his mom confronted him about it, his boss said, "a Games Workshop manager's resignation is a private matter."

This kind of behavior is what's making me turn to other game companies.

Again this is the EXACT behavior of the corporation. This is nothing new. The Double Speak is also the norm for the corporation.

Glad that the young kid is okay but man if the child had got heat prostration/stroke then the corporation would be in a hefty civil suit.

The thing is thigh, as with any resignation, we only know one side of the story. Perhaps the higher management were being unreasonable, equally perhaps they asked him to make some changes and he went off the handle because he didn't like authority telling him what to do (it happens).

Without hearing both sides of the story we are just guessing.

soultaker87 wrote:

What wasn't said was how his boss acted after he quit. He told everyone to leave and locked up. One of the customers is minor who had to call his mom and wait for about an hour in SC heat. Poor kid should never had to deal with that. When his mom confronted him about it, his boss said, "a Games Workshop manager's resignation is a private matter."

I don't honestly see what the problem is there. It's been said time and again, GE stores are not kindergarten. What would the kid have done if the store had to close due to an emergency? It's down to the kids parents to not leave him stranded like that if he is not old enough to look after himself.

In this case we don't really know either side of the story since we only have the OP's report of the situation.

I am not saying he lied about it mind you, only that hearsay accounts are not regarded as being as reliable as the direct account.

But as to the children in shops, if GW do not want to safeguard unaccompanied children they should not allow them in their shops.

Sounds like a real shame, I would have thought GW would want to reward creativity in trying to boost sales and create a player community. They seem unable to realise that there is no reason to buy from a GW store anymore, with all of the discount retailers.

My local GW is my wargaming hell. The manager is pretty friendly, but there is one table at the back that always has people playing so no chance for me there even if I wanted to put up with the kids [last time one of whom was shouting "If I roll a 4 or more your warlord dies, snort snort *rolls a 5* there, your warlord is dead *picks up model and puts it off the table*]. I only buy the odd paint pot now, or if I need to get something last minute before a game. Wish we had someone like the manager mentioned in the OP.

So when you resign you leave immediately and they shut the shop? Don't people work a notice period? Or shouldn't he have been relieved?

The one man shop is a risk to child safety. It's not responsible to run businesses that aim to sell to minors and only ever have one member of staff on site and responsible. I have to be careful about sharing a classroom with a single pupil in school.

 Azreal13 wrote:

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

...and not just in retail.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
So when you resign you leave immediately and they shut the shop? Don't people work a notice period? Or shouldn't he have been relieved?

The one man shop is a risk to child safety. It's not responsible to run businesses that aim to sell to minors and only ever have one member of staff on site and responsible. I have to be careful about sharing a classroom with a single pupil in school.

All GW employees are CRB checked, or the equivalent. IIRC you can only leave kids aged 12 or older. As a parent whose kid often plays at their stores, I think they do a good job (apart from the pressure to get daddy to flex his credit card), and are normally pretty responsible, letting kids be independent, and usually giving clear directions about when to pick them up.

And really, are we all so paranoid these days that a 12 year old left at a shop is a major risk? When I was 12, we'd be playing on building sites or blowtorching Airfix models.

This one occasion, closing the shop and letting customers see the internal conflict, does sound very unprofessional, though.

Howard - depends on the situation. As he walked out he might have broken contract on his end and not served his minimum contract end period (or his given notice period). It might be that this one meeting just set him off and he walked or there could have been more in the background going on.

Far as I'm aware the highstreet shops don't have to remain open/onduty even if the sell to minors unless they have something like a specific area for child-care (like those leave your child to play whilst you shop things). Otherwise its just a shop like any other with its own opening and closing times.


tyrannosauru - part of that problem is expense. Sadly GW stores have gotten smaller and smaller because GW always tries to site them in a good area of town. And sadly rent and rates pushes the costs up more and more 0 I've seen several slowly shift into smaller and smaller properties; and with single staff they can't even use upstairs as a game room either.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

And really, are we all so paranoid these days that a 12 year old left at a shop is a major risk? When I was 12, we'd be playing on building sites or blowtorching Airfix models.

When I make sure not to shut myself in a classroom with a pupil, it's to protect me. What will GW do the day someone accuses a member of their staff?

 RiTides wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 crazyfoxdemon wrote:

It wasn't an investigation. He was just showing up as a walk around. He was scheduled to visit more stores after.

Considering GW purportedly no longer has regional managers, I can think of absolutely no reason for a manager's "boss" to be showing up just to have a walkaround.

Same thing happened at the Columbia Maryland GW, random management check. The higher up gave the local manager a hard time, too. That local manager, Tony, was and is awesome. GW's corporate attitude / pressure on employees is quite bad, though. Seeing the way the higher up treated him was one of my last straws with GW HQ... although I'd still go by the store to get paint / etc when I could just to support Tony. It's awesome that two other GW managers in Maryland are at their own independent stores now.

Tony's out at GW Columbia? That's a shame. Good guy. Not that I visit GW anymore, but still... I already watched GW totally destroy the GW Annapolis store's community. Manager there was a good guy who tried really hard to keep that store going in the face of GW stupidity. And, yes, its very very good that GnS, Dropzone, and Titan are around.

Valete,

JohnS

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

And really, are we all so paranoid these days that a 12 year old left at a shop is a major risk? When I was 12, we'd be playing on building sites or blowtorching Airfix models.

When I make sure not to shut myself in a classroom with a pupil, it's to protect me. What will GW do the day someone accuses a member of their staff?

Fire them, probably, and attempt to pretend nothing ever happened.

it would be a good question for the AGM, though...

 Overread wrote:
Howard - depends on the situation. As he walked out he might have broken contract on his end and not served his minimum contract end period (or his given notice period). It might be that this one meeting just set him off and he walked or there could have been more in the background going on

Almost all US jobs are "at will" employment; no contractual terms on either side governing notice periods.

Unfortunately being great for the community doesn't always mean towing the Corporate line.

This happens in all industry, private and public sector. Seeing good managers moved and incompetent ones promoted is something I see often.

Life sucks. This guy seemed like a great guy.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
So when you resign you leave immediately and they shut the shop? Don't people work a notice period? Or shouldn't he have been relieved?

The one man shop is a risk to child safety. It's not responsible to run businesses that aim to sell to minors and only ever have one member of staff on site and responsible. I have to be careful about sharing a classroom with a single pupil in school.

All GW employees are CRB checked, or the equivalent. IIRC you can only leave kids aged 12 or older. As a parent whose kid often plays at their stores, I think they do a good job (apart from the pressure to get daddy to flex his credit card), and are normally pretty responsible, letting kids be independent, and usually giving clear directions about when to pick them up.

Think you might be being a bit short-sighted there Hivefleet Oblivion, a CRB check is no guarantee of anything. Having more than one member of staff in the store not only protects the kids, it also protects the people working in the store from any unfounded accusations - such things can ruin careers and lives.

I worked for GW years ago and I've worked as a teacher. In both cases I have met people who, in my opinion, should not have been working with children. I should stipulate here that I might have been completely wrong about them, and they might be completely straight down the line, but nevertheless it was enough to set an 'alarm bell' at the back of my mind.

Having two members of staff, in all cases, adds more of a safety net for everyone concerned. GW is either ignorant of this, or else has decided that the 14-15k a year or whatever it is that they save on an extra member of staff, is worth the cost of something that could potentially destroy their image as a company and their presence on the high street, looking at the worst case scenario.

 RiTides wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 crazyfoxdemon wrote:

It wasn't an investigation. He was just showing up as a walk around. He was scheduled to visit more stores after.

Considering GW purportedly no longer has regional managers, I can think of absolutely no reason for a manager's "boss" to be showing up just to have a walkaround.

Same thing happened at the Columbia Maryland GW, random management check. The higher up gave the local manager a hard time, too. That local manager, Tony, was and is awesome. GW's corporate attitude / pressure on employees is quite bad, though. Seeing the way the higher up treated him was one of my last straws with GW HQ... although I'd still go by the store to get paint / etc when I could just to support Tony. It's awesome that two other GW managers in Maryland are at their own independent stores now.

Tony is a great guy, and i will occasionally drive past the Owings Mills GW to throw him some sales! Currently sitting on about 400$ worth of dwarves and the paint set as well, just cause Tony was cool(i dont play fantasy lol). As well Dropzone is epic and i try to get in there as mu h as possible, there staff is awesome.

Edit: reading that made no sense to me lol, i meant ill goto the Columbia GW to spend $$ at Tonys store hes such a good dude. My owings mills guy is cool as hell too.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:

Considering GW purportedly no longer has regional managers, I can think of absolutely no reason for a manager's "boss" to be showing up just to have a walkaround.

Ummm.... bulgak. You might not know who that guy is for your local store, but they do store checks on a regular basis. Similar thing happened at my local store. Two great managers set up with a store with eight game tables. They ran tourneys, campaigns, paint classes you name it. When they changed to one man stores they offered one of the guys his own store but it would not have any tables, he would only be allowed to do retail, and the store would be two blocks from an FLGs with tables that offered a discount. The other guy they assumed would stay at the first store but they told him he had to restrict painting at the paint bar to one hour per person, and he had to cover the tables with product with the exception of a 4X4 section he could use for demos. No more open gaming would be allowed in the store. They both quit. A store that you could barely walk in on a Saturday had two people in it the last time I was there.

Oh, I always thought their covering the tables in product was a coincidence. Didn't realize it was a corporate policy! Lol

That seems strange to me. My local store has 1 table for product and 2 tables specifically for gaming. If the gaming tables weren't there, you wouldn't have 10-20 people in there hanging out, playing games and probably making some type of impulse purchase. I have a hard time leaving without grabbing a pot of paint, a white dwarf, or even some of the more expensive models.

Oh, I always thought their covering the tables in product was a coincidence. Didn't realize it was a corporate policy! Lol

Not a coincidence RiTides, 100% company policy. They were basically told GW is a retail chain and they should get people in to buy stuff and get them out, people should not be loitering in the store!?! The store has a Island bar with 12-15 seats around it for panting. When My friends were running the store you had to get there a half hour before opening to get a seat to paint or a game on one of the tables. I stopped buy today to pick up a Dakka Jet and there was one guy painting and two guys playing fantasy with unpainted models on the one open table. It's a shame what they have done to their stores.

Please have a look at the GW homepage.
There is a ''painting & modelling'' button, which has replaced the former ''gaming'' button.
This is in line with the small GW stores. Customers get it to be adviced, buy some stuff, and then get out. Small demo games for absolute beginners included.
An additional room for larger games seems to be against the corporal policy.

Their retail locations are at the same time GW's key marketing tool and the millstone around their neck.

Space for demos and games needs a larger shop and more staff, both costing more than small shops.

The strategy of one man shops is to get the customer to buy something quickly and order more things from the GW web store.

These two purposes are contradictory, which I think is one of GW's current challenges.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Their retail locations are at the same time GW's key marketing tool and the millstone around their neck.

Space for demos and games needs a larger shop and more staff, both costing more than small shops.

The strategy of one man shops is to get the customer to buy something quickly and order more things from the GW web store.

Exactly.

And if some shop would offer more like the others (e.g. addition room for gaming purposes) this would eventually awaken desires among the customers to have more stores like that.

I don't know what else to assume from this thread other than the long term hope of GW is to go out of business with as much shareholder profit left in tact as possible. Short term just sell as much as possible and completely do everything in your power to alienate your customers, who in the future will be printing their figures from an iphone app anyway. sad.

Although I don't really want to get involved, its the internet so I might as well.

We have to face the facts that gw is a corporation in the 21st century. I can see where they are coming from, keeping actual gaming to a minimum and sales at the top of the list. This is the problem with a big corporation. The guys at the top don't play warhammer and they don't read it. They only go by numbers.

Although selling figures is a little different than electronics but let's face it. Gw are purely their to sell gak. Although I would love every gw store to be like the op one, they are just an expensive storefront.

Life would be bbetter if gw just ditched stores and franchised out to independent stores. That way, they could be ran however the owner wants. The downside to that is, after the bad rep gw have got sellers will probably push other products now.

I would rather buy from and goto an independent store with an enthusiastic hobbyist who knows what we want, instead some poor gw guy bound by rules. The gw of the 90's is long gone

You have to separate GW's ability to run a retail store from their ability to run a company. What I mean is, it's a miracle they operate a retail chain at all and just because they gak it up doesn't mean the "one more sign GW is going out of business." (Note: I am not saying GW is or isn't on a downward spiral - I am just saying the health of retail stores is a bad indicator of determinign this)

Most corporations stopped running their on retails stores because they figured out they don't know how go do it. Disney, who is a lot bigger and better run than GW sold off their retial stores to Children's place a few years ago because they realized they are not good at running retails stores.

One Day GW will realize this too and close their stores down. It's inevitable. There is no way a niche of a niche product can operate a profitable retail store chain when bigger more popular, higher volume selling type products can't run their own stores.

The continued attempts just show how GW stubbornly continues to try to get as many sales at MSRP as possible, they need to realize as a miniature company they are just going to have to accept they will make most of their sales through LGS, distirbutors etc. at that lower margin.

So to sum up, from my business experience and background, my belief is eventually GW will realize the retail chain is a bad, non-profitable move for them and shut them down all together A sad day for us players, but it will improve the overall health of the company.