GameStop fired a manager after two robbers held up a single employee and made off with $5,000 worth of PS5s, which is 10 consoles (thanks, Kotaku). In response to the much-loved manager’s termination, all but two employees at the Easton, PA, location submitted their two-weeks notice or left immediately.
The robbery happened when just one employee, who had only been hired weeks before the incident took place, was working. Two men ordered him to put his hands over his head and take them to the back room where the consoles were kept. While they brandished no visible weapons, the employee said they told him to stay still while they removed the consoles unless he wanted to get hurt.
A week and a half later, the manager was fired, with corporate citing the robbery as the reason.
The man was the most tenured and the top performer in the district,” one former employee told Kotaku. “The dude bent over backwards for this company.”
It’s not the first time GameStop’s actions have prompted employees to leave in outrage, as the company expects more from fewer employees and even makes managers responsible for multiple stores at once. Staff cuts in the face of declining revenue – despite extensive investment in NFTs – make scenarios such as this one, where a new hire is alone in the store for their entire shift, increasingly common, to the point where a subreddit for employees frequently has posts asking for help on how to keep everything going.
The comments on the Kotaku article are filled with employees posting similar complaints. One said they were held responsible for a robbery where the perpetrators did pull a gun on the staff. Another former manager said they were fired and accused of theft after adjusting a customer’s return price up to the then-current price – $25 more than what they paid for it – because they bought $300 worth of product in the same visit.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
