Chindie Posted March 27, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 27, 2012 Put it like this - it hasn't come up in discussions between staff, so we better **** be. I suspect that part of the reason they want it done so fast is the last half decent thing the management managed to do was, apparently, to shove a pot of cash in an RBS fund to guarentee wages for March, effectively meaning PwC can get a load of donkey work they want done, done, with no cost to the company finances. Interestingly, they've actually managed to **** up something as simple a organising the transfer of a load of stock, if our store is anything to go by. We're packing everything up, getting all the gutted stock on the shopfloor refilled, getting all of it out of the drawers and stock shelves. We're a small store, and our stock has taken a hammering in this sale, but we've still got a decent amount, and we've got a very decent stock of consoles. So obviously, we need boxes to pack this stuff into. They asked the managers to look at stock levels and estimate how many boxes we'd need. My manager reckoned, largely because we'd got a decent amount of consoles, we'd need about 120 (you can fit 4 consoles into the boxes we use, if you're lucky, and you can't fill them to the brim with games because they'll be rejected on pick-up if too full). Thats a decent estimate imo from my boss. They sent 60. We'd filled about 30 today before you even started to take consoles into account. Thankfully though, they aren't expecting us to cart them to the nearby Game ourselves like they normally do for last minute transfers. They're sending them all the central depots and then redistributing them, apparently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sie Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 If that's what they have done, a RBS pot for wages, then they should be pretty forthright about you getting paid if you ask the question. I'd tell em to **** off if they can't and walk. Everything I've read of this administration process so far is that, basically, GAME are using it as justification to shit on everyones rights - customers, staff, the lot. Laws and rights no longer apply - we'll sell you faulty goods with no refunds allowed. We'll get you to work for us with no clear agreement in place that we're paying you for it. I'm pretty sure administration doesn't protect them from flagrantly breaking the law. Btw, not trying to give you advice here, just thinking aloud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 27, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 27, 2012 I'm fairly sure we're being paid in fairness. The way to think about administration with GAME Group I've discovered is this - GAME Group is basically now a husk. On Friday, GAME Group was GAME Group, the company we know. On Monday, GAME Group became effectively a shopfront of PwC, and was in such a bad way they implemented actions (in some cases unavoidably - redundancy pay) to stop the thing not being 'a thing' anymore. The refund thing provides a decent example of quite what that situation means. As I understand it, yes, GAME Group no longer will refund anything. PwC has taken that option away from the company as it believes it cannot be trusted to do that and survive. Thus, it has altered the balance of quite what your contract with GAME Group was when you bought something, your contract is now with them, arising from their stewardship. And they basically see anyone in contract with the company as a creditor now, and they have degrees of importance. If you bought a console on Sunday, had it die on Monday, you'd now need to take it up with PwC, they're effectively in charge of deal now. And unfortunately they've bigger things to worry about from their point of view than your faulty console. It rather does appear that administration completely changes the game for everyone involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laivasse Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 Sounds like an accurate summary of what the whole deal is. The way I see it, though, customers who have already paid hard cash and received broken crap should be priority-one creditors. Not for the sake of preserving GAME as a going concern, but for the sake of integrity and preserving consumer rights, insofar as it's possible in this bad situation. I'm sure it's their physical cash in the tills which has greased the broken gears over the last couple of months. Giving them nothing when in all other situations they'd be entitled by law to a 100% refund sits very, very badly with me. I guess it's kind of a personal bugbear for me, how consumer protection is tossed aside when it's too much of a hassle to worry about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 28, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2012 I believe staff are considered first priority creditors, then lenders, then everyone else. I think that's probably right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juju Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 To be honest, that list of store closures is credible evidence of a confused management strategy. Croydon, for example, had apparently 3 stores, and one ex gamestation already closed. The 2 Croydon stores were effectively competing against each other, one on the outside, and one on the insude, of the same central high st shopping area. Crawley too, had 2 competing stores less than 50 yards apart. Even Redhill (where?) had two till very recently, which is a small High St full of empty retail, units albeit only 10m from Gatwick. Frankly, half their shops should have gone 3 years ago or more. Whats also noticible, is that when I was more regularly buying PC games, a few years ago, my Game had a decent selection of stuff, including more "adult" titles (Not smutty, but "dads software", like third party extensions for MS Flight Sim, Il2 Sturmovic Series, and the train Sims. They had a range of more pricy joysticks and stuff for those. Decent books and guides on that "niche" area. The last couple of years have seen them turn Game into a console games for kids store, and I cannot actually buy from Game, what I want to buy. Thats a failing, not having product that casual passers by with disposible income might get on impulse, but trying to compete on the big sellers like Amazon and Tesco's, without the price advantage of operating out of one industrial retail unit in a tax haven. The last titles I have wanted to buy, Cliffs of Dover and Rise of Flight, have not been stocked by Game, or at least, I have not seen them on the shelves for a casual purchase. The last I did buy, Railworks Train Sim 3, again, not for sale in store? Why? But given the lack of any other game stores in the High St, it's still a shame to see the doors of so many Game stores close....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 I don't think anyone expected them to just shut a load of shops the moment administration was officially in place.... Someone knew, couldn't tell you how though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 28, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2012 Yesterday was a grim today, today was a **** sad day. A couple of guys I really get on with aren't working tomorrows final shift, so it was a case of some goodbyes today. Really not nice. As for what went on today, well... we ran out of boxes, as expected. Ended up using the largest bags we have and just taping them up shut. The shop is now just... well, horrible. A bloke from the administrators turned up. **** prick he turned out to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 A bloke from the administrators turned up. **** prick he turned out to be. from my experience with them im not surprised, they work on huge percentages, im sure the last one i worked with was on 42% but ive seen higher, so they take it personally while badging it up as helping the company they represent, half dont understand what they are even trying to bring in and im pretty sure the half really dont **** care as long as they get as much as possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 28, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2012 He came in with his Louis Vuitton man bag, all happiness and smiles, most 'fake'person I've ever seen, didn't say a word to the 3 of us sat around the shop slaving away bagging up all this stock. He walls up to my manager and I swear this is what he said 'Hi, how you doing? Don't look so happy today do you?!'. He talked about how the boxing up was going, checked some off the bags, and disappeared upstairs alone. Came back, and started telling my manager how he wanted things (stuff my manager already was gonna do, effectively just tidying). He goes 'Basically, when the game is over... Haha! Game over!...I want it like this...' as he starts to show my boss what's what. One of the other guys turns to me, behind this pricks back, and does the rocket polisher gesture to me. Then he **** off. You could he was a prick the moment he walked in, head to toe designer, fake smile, fashion cut that didn't suit him, walked about like we should be pleased we could even look at him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 He came in with his Louis Vuitton man bag, all happiness and smiles, most 'fake'person I've ever seen, didn't say a word to the 3 of us sat around the shop slaving away bagging up all this stock. He walls up to my manager and I swear this is what he said 'Hi, how you doing? Don't look so happy today do you?!'. He talked about how the boxing up was going, checked some off the bags, and disappeared upstairs alone. Came back, and started telling my manager how he wanted things (stuff my manager already was gonna do, effectively just tidying). He goes 'Basically, when the game is over... Haha! Game over!...I want it like this...' as he starts to show my boss what's what. One of the other guys turns to me, behind this pricks back, and does the rocket polisher gesture to me. Then he **** off. You could he was a prick the moment he walked in, head to toe designer, fake smile, fashion cut that didn't suit him, walked about like we should be pleased we could even look at him. How did you not say anything to this guy? Sounds like one of the biggest bellends on the planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 techincally you can call him a prick now anyhow i would have. i walked past my local its closed down. so what happens to all the stock now?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 29, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 29, 2012 How did you not say anything to this guy? Sounds like one of the biggest bellends on the planet. I was actually tempted to say something when he dropped the 'happy today' line, I was right next to him sat on the floor bagging up a fuckload of stock. I took some solace in the fact he looked... concerned that we were using bags. If he'd have spoken to me like it directly I'd have said something. Definitely a bellend though. Not looking happy today?! Yeah we're **** ecstatic mate, we've lost our jobs and having to box up the entire **** store, it's **** fantastic?! Today looks like it might have been my last shift. Worked 10-6, but can't say I really did much for that time. The idea was we'd come in, see to the delivery pick up of all this stock before 12, get the shop tidy and go. While we were waiting we had the other 60 boxes we'd wanted turn up (we only needed them 2 days ago...), so we just decided to whack as many of the bagged stock into boxes as we could. And then the bloke never turned up. We spent most of the day sat around. We actually got so bored we started carting over some of the remaining bags we couldn't box over to the GAME store nearby, which has wrecked my hands. We suspect that head office **** up the pickup day. Nice to see they're proper pros to the end. PwC have provided us with what appears to be some kind of rendundancy pack, just a few printed sheets with a few Q&As. Our favourite Q is basically 'What should I do now?'. The Answer? 'Sign on'. Might have to go in tomorrow to help the pick up go through, but probably not. So thats that. End of my first job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 29, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 29, 2012 techincally you can call him a prick now anyhow i would have. i walked past my local its closed down. so what happens to all the stock now?? The stock is all being redistributed, it's what I've spent this week doing. All the stock is being boxed up and shipped around to other stores. Don't expect some massive clearance sale. Even if the company goes bust it's more profitable for the administrators to shift the stock to other stores rather than sell if to the public - for a start simply because to sell to the public they need to keep stores open. Anyway... Reward and loyalty cards came back online today - you could use reward and loyalty credit to purchase preowned stock. A lot of people are speculating that this basically means they knew theres a sale of the company coming very soon. Which is interesting because all the talk is that RBS are going to come in and take on the company. The only issue with that is, that RBS won't have much interest in running a games company. They either are going to further trim the company and get it running on it's feet again to encourage a bid, or are aware of an interested party already who aren't quite able to purchase now, or they will simply asset strip the company to get their money back and maybe some profit. Because theres no **** way you'll have RBS actually running things long term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 30, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 30, 2012 I had said I was, in a way, glad that I wouldn't be having to man the tills anymore in the wake of trade cards being stopped. Talking to the guys in the local Game as we carted some spare stuff over to them, I think I was right in hearing that. Apparently a guy on the till in a London store got battered in the wake of the trade/loyalty thing, customer just grabbed him over the counter and started wailing on him. All the stores still open got send down a notice to put on the till about respecting the staff as a reaction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donnie Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Which game store in brum did you work at?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 30, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted March 30, 2012 I worked at Gamestation Walsall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingsombrero Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Please Insert Credit To Continue. Reading the stories brings back a lot of memories of when Our Price (then Sanity) folded while I was working there. We didn't think we were getting paid, were assured everything was fine literally the day before; my assistant manager was told to go ahead and sign for his mortgage which he was holding off on and we packed up and left with a lot of the store in carrier bags. I think the security drafted in when Virgin Megastore was wound up was probably in response to the amount that went when we were left to our own devices to do final stock checks. Not a nice thing to go through, good luck to all those on here affected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P3te Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 i see game **** their uk employees in the ass the very same way the **** the irish - no redundancy or payment for notice period and this time they waited til they had everything boxed and sent back to tell them. classy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaGoMarching Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 It'll go to a tribunal and the staff will be drip fed a payout. It's what happened with Zavvi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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