There was a time when many teenagers dreamed of working at their local GameStop (GME).
Even a part-time job there would mean being around games all day, the chance to talk to like-minded gamers, and of course, a discount on video games.
Today, you're lucky to find one employee at any given store, much less two.
The retailer's stores typically look downtrodden and tired. What was once the busiest store in the mall, bustling with excitement on the release days of big video games, has now become, in many cases, deserted.
Of course, it'd be easy to attribute this change to many different things. The pandemic. "The Great Resignation," or the ongoing shift away from physical games and towards digital.
On the flip side, GameStop stock has enjoyed an incredible surge over the last year thanks to meme stock traders. It's still at $145.33 at the time of this writing, in fact, about double its 52-week low.
But GameStop has a bigger problem, something that existed before any of those things.
What was once the world's biggest brick and mortar video game retailer has become something very different indeed.
And if you listen to what its employees are saying, you'll learn exactly what that problem is.
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What's going on with GameStop?
Recently four employees at the GameStop located inside the Gateway Mall in Lincoln, Nebraska agreed to walk out together, according to a new report from Kotaku.
They left a sign taped to the door which read:
"Attention GameStop patrons. We regret to inform you that we all quit. Our District Manager has no respect for us as employees or as human beings.
"We have been told by our district manager that we were supposed to have had this store retrieving sales quotas and running perfectly 6 months ago.
"Which was 3 months before a lot of us even got hired. Unfortunately, despite the staff's best efforts, we are not god."
The sign goes on to recommend three other nearby stores that sell games, finishing with the message "spend your money at an establishment that respects its employees."
A GameStop Pattern Emerges
This is not the first time GameStop employees have staged a walkout. The Southpointe location, also located in Lincoln, had a similar walkout in March 2020, leaving a comparable note behind.
Reddit's GameStop sub is crammed with similar stories from employees who have experienced everything from feeling degraded by GameStop's pointed focus on ever-rising metric goals to its "grading system" for employees.
"I’m tired of stressing myself out over metrics that I excel In for the company not to reward me in, why do I kill my self making these goals for no reward? Must win? I kill metrics, my rewards? Still being a GS employee … it’s not worth it " one wrote in a thread about raises.
Kotaku's interview with Frank Maurer, the ex-manager of the Gateway Mall store, revealed even more disconcerting information.
He cites never being properly trained, having to work a two-week stretch with no days off, and an allegedly verbally abusive district manager who "constantly threatened people's jobs."
Maurer also said he was paid $17 an hour as a store manager.
Better Paying Jobs Are Everywhere
With no shortage of stories like this, it's no surprise that GameStop employees are quitting in droves, as better-paying jobs — and better circumstances — are hardly in short supply.
According to Indeed.com's salary averages as entered by both present and past employees, GameStop's starting pay is $9.97 per hour and ranges up to $17.71 per hour for store managers.
One District Manager reported making $35,000 a year.
With wages rising across retail and some as high as $24 an hour, disgruntled GameStop employees have more alternatives to choose from than ever before if they are seeking a way to improve their work lives.
In the meanwhile, GameStop is gunning hard for the bitcoin and NFT market to make up for the losses it recently reported for its first quarter.
