As you all probably know, I work in a comic book store dealing. I was hired mainly to deal with the Magic cards, as that's my
area of expertise, having played the game for almost as long as it's existed. It should go without saying that most of my
friends, new and old, play Magic as well. However, since I started working here, my friends started to decide that they should
get unreasonably special treatment, and I really don't appreciate it.
Now don't get me wrong, I help my friends out when I can. I'll hold cards for them for significantly longer than we normally do,
whenever we buy a collection I immediately let them know what's in it so they can have first crack at the stuff
they might want before it goes out for sale, and I don't even care that they text message me lists of cards to pull for them,
regardless of whether or not I'm actually at work. There's a limit to what I can and can't do, however, and there's a huge lack
of respect for that limit.
One of the least annoying things, though most frequent, is the complete lack of respect some of my friends give me when I'm running
tournaments. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "When are we going to start?" BEFORE the fucking event is even scheduled
to start. You know what? We'll start when I fucking say so. I like to start the tournaments five minutes after they're scheduled
in case someone is running late and doesn't have the store's number to call so that they don't miss the tournament. Considering
I don't think that I have ever been to a tournament anywhere else that didn't start at LEAST 20 minutes late, I don't think five
minutes is unreasonable. I also think it's interesting that the same people that complain about us starting five minute late have
called us before and had us hold the tournament as long as fifteen minutes for them. Not only have I never been anywhere else
where they start on time, many tournaments, especially large tournaments, frequently start as much as 90 minutes behind schedule.
I guarantee you these people would NEVER complain to the organizers of the other events in the same fashion that they complain to me,
and it's really uncalled for.
The most recent and one of the most annoying things, however, happened this morning. I'll spare the technical details, but apparently
a friend of mine and his friend have acquired a book that tells them how to find all the valuable cards in the newest Magic set.
If they have a new box, they can open 2 packs, and from that know where everything that's worth money is. My friend wanted to try
this morning, and my boss isn't around at the moment so it was my call. The thing is, we have a box of packs for sale that's 2/3 full
and a sealed box. My friend wanted to open the sealed box and only buy the packs with good stuff (Assuming this works because I'm sure
it will) leaving us with over 1½ boxes of packs, but no sealed box. This leaves us marginally fucked if someone wants to
buy a full box, as some people will only buy sealed boxes. And again, he would never walk into a store and ask some random clerk
"Yes, may I crack open that sealed box even though you have a perfectly good box of packs out for sale, keep the box away from other
customers for a few minutes while I open a couple packs and pull some more out, and then leave you with the rest of this open box
with all of the value removed from it just so you can get my $20?". I also mentioned that if this method does work that I would
have to shuffle the packs in any future boxes I put out for packs so that people can't do this. When I was asked why, I explained
how it would be unfair to our other customers because they would have no chance of ever opening anything good. He didn't understand
this it seems and since I wasn't going to let him abuse our friendship, he has simply stopped talking to me for the day.
I should mention that while I was writing this I just discovered that someone fitting his description bought the sealed box
while I was downstairs, but I'm still pretty pissed off that I was expected to allow this. If you want to sit there and use the entire
box as your toy, you should buy the entire box. You can also rest assured that all future boxes I open will be thoroughly shuffled, because
don't stuff like this to cherry pick the boxes, beyond doing it once just out of curiosity to see if it works, is blatant douchebaggery.
This is a hobby, not your means of early retirement.
If you were really my friend you'd sell me that Action Comics #1 for five bucks.
© 2009 by Dr. Jeebus