Are they for real?

[Garden Goblin]

It's surprising how many stories on the sister site, Not Always Working, have shop assistants arguing with women buying computer games that girls don't play them. I can't believe those stories are real.

I do.  It's happened to me.  Most recently, it took me a good ten minutes to find a game I was looking for (I didn't know the title, but could describe the plot, game play, and storyline) because he kept saying 'look, just send your husband in to tell me what game he wants'.  My husband doesn't play video games.  I do.  Game in question was "LA Noire", which was a pretty popular one at the time.

At this point, I order all my games through either Amazon or Steam because I've had so much trouble in game stores.  Mostly, it's just a case of getting ignored, but twice I've had folks tell me I didn't want the game in my hand because it was 'a guy kinda game'.  I wasn't aware Batman Arkham Asylum or Dead Island were off limits for those with XX chromosomes, but apparently a girl buying those games was sufficient to break the brains of the poor boys behind the cash register.

I'm both female and in my 30s.  I get looks of shock sometimes just walking into a gaming store unless I'm with my husband and kids.

[Hillia]

We actually managed to train a rude customer.  I was working 11pm-7am shift for tech support.  On this shift we often got the non-American customers, as due to time differences it was their workday.  One guy in Australia was epic...he'd call up and immediately start screaming at whoever answered the phone; he wouldn't let the tech get through the opening spiel 'Thank you for calling ISP, may I have your account number please?' but would immediately start screaming obscenities and threats.  One of the guys on the shift asked if he could handle it, so every time RudeGuy called up, Chris would grab the call.  He'd start the standard opening, and as soon as RudeGuy started screaming, he'd hang up.  It only took about 3 calls before RudeGuy finally said,'Look, I have this problem...' and Chris went on to handle the call as if RudeGuy was the nicest, most pleasant customer on the planet. We never had a problem with him again; he was never a favorite to deal with but at least he'd work with us and didn't scream obscenities any more.

[VorFemme]

It's surprising how many stories on the sister site, Not Always Working, have shop assistants arguing with women buying computer games that girls don't play them. I can't believe those stories are real.

I can. I'm female, geeky, and a gamer (although I'm more into tabletop gaming than video games). And I've met too many women gamers who've experienced this kind of thing and worse to disbelieve it.

I'm female, 55, and have been fixing up older laptops for a while - I believe it.

[mbbored]

It's surprising how many stories on the sister site, Not Always Working, have shop assistants arguing with women buying computer games that girls don't play them. I can't believe those stories are real.

I can. I'm female, geeky, and a gamer (although I'm more into tabletop gaming than video games). And I've met too many women gamers who've experienced this kind of thing and worse to disbelieve it.

I'm female, 55, and have been fixing up older laptops for a while - I believe it.

I'm a 30 year old female and can totally believe it. I've had guys tell me that I'm just pretending to be nerdy to pick up men.

[Reika]

It's surprising how many stories on the sister site, Not Always Working, have shop assistants arguing with women buying computer games that girls don't play them. I can't believe those stories are real.

I can. I'm female, geeky, and a gamer (although I'm more into tabletop gaming than video games). And I've met too many women gamers who've experienced this kind of thing and worse to disbelieve it.

I'm female, 55, and have been fixing up older laptops for a while - I believe it.

I'm a 30 year old female and can totally believe it. I've had guys tell me that I'm just pretending to be nerdy to pick up men.

I've had the above. Then I had the creeps (and they were putting off the vibes if that makes sense) who started to hit on me. Most of them in rather gross ways.

So these days I buy my games either as a download, or if I want physical, I order directly through the studio.

[Kendo_Bunny]

I don't usually have horrible experiences in game stores, since I usually go in on my days off, when I'm in stereotypical geek girl dress (anime or comic book T-shirt, glasses, jeans, sandals, loose hair). I usually crack a joke about being too poor to have a new game system, or that I'm a stereotypical girl gamer because I prefer RPG's (FPS's make me motion sick).

But I have been on the receiving end of geek sexism - girls don't play games, girls don't like comic books, girls don't like science fiction, or that any geek girls just like the cutesy stuff, and if I'm in a comic book store, I'm there because I want to either buy something for my boyfriend, or because I want to buy a boy's love manga with extra sparkles. That if I buy a rule book for a tabletop, I'm going to play a healer, preferably a pretty one with outrageously high charisma, and if not a healer, then a broody, tortured vampire. Or if I'm one of "those girls", I'll play a ranger with a bow who spends half of every game talking about how women are better than men, though my character still has elven blood, rides a unicorn or a wolf, speaks with animals, and has 18 Charisma.

So... I believe stories about geek sexism. Geekdom was a boy's club for a very long time, and some boys are resentful that it's not any more, instead of being happy there are now a bunch of girls with their interests.

[Cami]

It's surprising how many stories on the sister site, Not Always Working, have shop assistants arguing with women buying computer games that girls don't play them. I can't believe those stories are real.

I can.

My dh collects comics. Comics are delivered once per week on the same day. It's IMPERATIVE to my dh that he get those comics on the day they arrive. One week, he's out of town and can't get the comics, so he asks if I'll pick them up. Sure, no problem.

I go into the comic store -- that, mind you, I've been in approximately 1 million times before with my dh -- and make my way to the racks. Before I can get there, clerk RUNS across the store and inserts himself between me and the racks. I mean, honestly, it was like he was sacrificing himself to the rulers of the universe.

Him: "What do you want?"
Me: "Comics."
Him: "Why?"
Me: "To read them."
Him: "Why?"
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Girls don't read comics."
Me: "Newsflash. Some girls read comics."
Him: "Well, you don't look like the type who reads comics."
Another clerk comes over says to clerk #1: "She comes in all the time with her husband. But I bet she doesn't read the comics. I bet she's just here buying them for HIM!"
Me: "Are you going to let me buy the comics or not?"
Clerk 2: "How about you tell us what you want and we'll get them for you."
Me: "So I can't TOUCH the comics?"
Clerk 2: "We'd rather you didn't."
Me: "Oh, I see. Girl cooties. Well, guess what. I'd rather not give you my money."
Clerk 1: "Okay with us."

This incident was not a lone incident in comic stores. As my dh says, "Comic store geeks wonder why they don't have girl friends. Let me start listing the reasons..."

Dh has repeatedly heard how comic store geeks (as he calls them) bash women in the most misogynistic manners. He has often commented on how reading comics with the exaggerated female body has affected the expectations these guys have of women in terms of physical attributes, but has somehow managed to leave them utterly unconvinced that women have any power, strength or intelligence.

[redsfan]

http://notalwaysright.com/a-hearty-heart-meal/16837

I can vouch for this one.  I had a really hard time keeping a straight face.

[Jones]

I can believe the anti-girl geekery stories, but I am very sad that it exists. I haven't run into it personally, though the old ladies at the locally owned bookstore used to give me strange looks when I went in there to pick up my orders as a teen (pre-Amazon). Generally these days I'm complimented on my taste when I splurge on a new game at the game store. I used to take my little girl into a gaming store (that sadly no longer exists) and the big guy there was always delighted to help us with our anime/sci fi/whatever selection of the day.

So I'm sad to realize that apparently there are people working in geekstores who choose to mistreat a growing customer base.

[Julian]

Conversely, in a computer store, mentioning that you want X piece of hardware / system upgrade because you want it to play Y latest game tends to get a big grin and lots of extra help and assistance from the salesfolk.  Particularly the younger geeky ones. 

Hey I might be a 50yo woman, but I can geek it out with the best!

(Admitteldy I've been lucky with the local games stores, they seem to recognise that us 'Old Ladies'  play games too.)

[Slartibartfast]

Okay, I'll admit, I always get an extra kick out of people my parents' age (late 50's) and older who play video games.  It's mostly because I know those people didn't grow up with electronic entertainment the way I did, so they *choose* to be gamers.  It's like we're all members of a cool nerd club and they're just in really good disguises 

[Garden Goblin]

Conversely, in a computer store, mentioning that you want X piece of hardware / system upgrade because you want it to play Y latest game tends to get a big grin and lots of extra help and assistance from the salesfolk.  Particularly the younger geeky ones. 

I wish this were universally true.  I build computers, and last time I went in to buy a video card upgrade, I first had to argue with the guy that yes, that overpowered monstrosity was indeed the one I wanted, and then I had to argue that no, I didn't need to leave it there and bring my computer in so he could install it correctly for me since as a girl, I clearly couldn't do the simple task of switching video cards.  I ended up not buying it there (or yet at all).  I started to justify my skills, got halfway through a sentence, realized what was happening was stupid, and turned around and walked away.

[LadyClaire]

I do believe a lot of the stories are heavily embellished, if not outright fake. However, I can believe that some are true, or have a grain of truth to them.

I worked retail in my early 20s, for the holiday season. I only personally experienced one rude customer, but my manager and some of the other employees had some really awful ones. One guy told the manager he'd be waiting in the parking lot after we closed so that he could beat the manager up. Why? We ran out of XBoxes and the manager told him we didn't have any left to sell to him.

We also had to call the police to break up a near fistfight that erupted between two customers who were fighting over the last Playstation in the store.

I worked at a big department store this past holiday season. I didn't experience anyone rude/bad/nasty, but I did witness customers being awful to other employees. There was also a woman who used the dressing rooms as a toilet.

I've also seen a lot of people being absolutely horrible to staff when I've been out shopping. I saw a cashier reduced to tears because the customer was angry that there was a long line and took it out on the cashier. It was the week of christmas. Of course lines are going to be long.

[bloo]

I'm with the other posters that thought this thread would be about something...er...else!

Anyhoo, I've often wondered about the veracity of some of the stories because even though I've seen some doozies in the jobs/businesses I've worked - it's just hard to conceive that people can be like this.

But people are getting worse and so I CAN believe it, especially the ones that are recent.

I know at least one is real, because like a couple of PP's I submitted it:
http://notalwaysworking.com/making-a-mountain-out-of-a-marked-bill/27250

Compared to some of the other stories it's not very exciting, but 100% truth!

[datcat]

I worked in a petrol station for 9 years and in that time I
was called every name under the sun and learnt some swearwords that I had never heard before
was spat at
was threatened to have my throat cut. Twice and other threats of bodily harm
had things thrown at me
All the above were from SS that for safety reasons I couldn't turn the pumps on for example trying to fill up a old glass milk bottle or even in 1 case holding a lit cigarette.

I also had quite a few men think that all I needed in my life was to see their genitals. This I always laughed at because they were either tiny or had a odd bend/shape.