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I expected better. I know every store and every employee is different but as a customer service manager myself I was pretty disappointed in my local GW store. I always read online "Support your local store! Support the hobby!" and about how these stores are "a community" as much as a store. Well I'm not supporting that piece of crap store! I ordered some stuff from GW online and had it sent to the store specifically to have an excuse to go into the store. I walk in and the whole store is blocked off because of Covid so I can't walk around and check anything out. Me and the guy working the store are the only ones there. I've got a mask on, there isn't any reason to keep the entire store blocked off. How the hell you going to sell anything if you can't even take a look at the shelves? Fine though, I get it. Covid.

So I get my stuff from dude and try to strike up a conversation with him. I expected to find a knowledgeable geek, probably bored and maybe willing to talk about the hobby a little since I only know one other person into it. I explained I was new to the hobby and working on my first models. Told him I was bored one day a few months back and looking for some new reading material and discovered some 40k stuff and got hooked and now I was in the store to check things out and get into the hobby. Dude was not interested in talking at all, just sitting his fat neckbeard ass in that chair on his phone. I gave him every opportunity to engage and he just sat there worried about his damn phone rather than the customer in the store right in front of him. I got the impression that he just wanted me to go. Finally I gave up and left dude to his mobile game or whatever the hell he was doing on his phone. I'll never go back in there again that's for sure! A newbie walks into your store, you'd think "Hey this is a potential long time repeat customer, let's make his experience pleasant and fun." Nope. Neckhbeard didn't care obviously if anyone ever came into the store.

I know for a fact were I in his position and someone like me came in I'd be talkative and engaging and try to draw the person out. "Are you into just painting? Are you into the game aspects? Any parts of the lore you like in particular?" I'd show off the store, however limited that might be and offer suggestions and just generally be friendly. Not this guy, he just wanted me gone so he could get back to sitting alone in an empty f'ing store that's probably dying if that's their idea of customer service.

My local GW also has the shop barricaded off. So this is probably a common thing across the US at the moment. I think the idea is to prevent people from lingering around touching everything, and/or going in like they usually do and setting up their stuff. In regards to how that guy treated you as a customer....well if he keeps that up the shop won't be around very long.

Corona has caused a lot of issues and its important to realise that many staff can feel bitter that they are working during an outbreak where its very easy to catch the disease from other people. It leads to a certain level of distrust in others and a level of fear and desire to keep contact to a minimum. Plus chances are with the door barricaded you can't be engaged in the typical show and tell that you'd get as an intro to the game etc..

So I can understand some retail staff not wanting to stand around and chit chat hobby or the product. It's a "Sign of the Times" etc...


That said there are better ways to inform a customer of that than to simply ignore them and remain focused on a mobile phone.

GW normally has very good staff, though I've heard that the hiring process in the USA and some other countries has had issues, the UK side most of the staff tend to be closer to hobbyists who got a job and are also typically well trained and active at engaging customers and ensuring people are welcomed into the hobby.

Might be worth reporting to GW USA with a short and polite email about your experience. Perhaps he was having an off day and its a one time anomaly; or he's not holding up standards and needs reminding/retraining to ensure he's able to deliver a proper level of service.

 Overread wrote:
Corona has caused a lot of issues and its important to realise that many staff can feel bitter that they are working during an outbreak where its very easy to catch the disease from other people. It leads to a certain level of distrust in others and a level of fear and desire to keep contact to a minimum. Plus chances are with the door barricaded you can't be engaged in the typical show and tell that you'd get as an intro to the game etc..

So I can understand some retail staff not wanting to stand around and chit chat hobby or the product. It's a "Sign of the Times" etc...


That said there are better ways to inform a customer of that than to simply ignore them and remain focused on a mobile phone.

GW normally has very good staff, though I've heard that the hiring process in the USA and some other countries has had issues, the UK side most of the staff tend to be closer to hobbyists who got a job and are also typically well trained and active at engaging customers and ensuring people are welcomed into the hobby.

Might be worth reporting to GW USA with a short and polite email about your experience. Perhaps he was having an off day and its a one time anomaly; or he's not holding up standards and needs reminding/retraining to ensure he's able to deliver a proper level of service.

Meh. We're all dealing with Covid and in this country the simple fact is the ruling class is using Covid and a host of other ways to make Americans as miserable as they possibly can in the hopes of affecting the election. I have no doubt once the election is over we'll never hear of Covid ever again as a serious illness.

siliconmagician wrote:


Meh. We're all dealing with Covid and in this country the simple fact is the ruling class is using Covid and a host of other ways to make Americans as miserable as they possibly can in the hopes of affecting the election. I have no doubt once the election is over we'll never hear of Covid ever again as a serious illness.

You realise that Corina affects more than just the USA right?

 Overread wrote:

siliconmagician wrote:


Meh. We're all dealing with Covid and in this country the simple fact is the ruling class is using Covid and a host of other ways to make Americans as miserable as they possibly can in the hopes of affecting the election. I have no doubt once the election is over we'll never hear of Covid ever again as a serious illness.

You realise that Corina affects more than just the USA right?

Yeah I know and I have studied the statistics and followed it closely and IMO we're all in a global moral panic/hysteria unjustified by those statistics. No one seems capable of doing a cold, dispassionate cost benefit analysis and this "if it saves even one life" policy extremism is just wrong.

94% of all Covid related deaths in this country were of people of highly advanced age or with pre existing comorbidities. A fully healthy adult or child has little to fear. That is a proven statistical fact. Are we going to keep the entire global economy shut down everytime some SARS related disease breaks out? If so we might as well just forget having any kind of commercial society.

Devils advocate.

How do you put a measure on the risk of letting a likely lab devolved virus run unchecked through a global population of 8BL ppls exposing it to 8BL potential mutation vectors?

I'm sure it sucks not being able to have some neckbeard scramble for your attention trying to sell you crap.. But I would rather you go through that than we have to deal with a new strain of the disease at a rapid unmanageable rate and losing half my family in the process. No offence. You seem like a well-adjusted adult, so maybe think about the bigger picture rather then how it affects you? It doesnt affect just you. We all hate it bro.. but.. suck it up.

I don't trust WHO further than I could throw it.. but I trust independent scientists and they seem to be taking it seriously so Ill take my cues from them. I also trust medical staff whom I know personally who said when the first wave hit they had people dying left right and center and it was the worse thing they ever experienced... this ain't made up..

And maybe he's not happy that he's at work taking risks while all of his friends and family have been working from home or furlough for the last year getting paid for sitting at home? Yeah Id be pissed too...

Locking for political nonsense, and for the general selfish, entitled attitude of the original poster.