I'm at home today, sick as a dog, but need to write about this. We hear an awful lot of bad press about Gamestop, some of it rightly deserved. There are a lot of bad things that Gamestop does. But you guys know me, you know how I am, and how I really try to spend time building people up rather than tearing them down. That kind of brings us here. I'm going to be sending this post to the store's DM, so that they can see the awesome service one of their rank and file employees provided.

My followers already know this, but I'm going to say it anyways. I'm a collector. You all know about the awesomeness of my retro collection, especially if you follow me on @vimm. (wink wink, nudge nudge) Xbox 360 controllers have been the bane of my existence for pretty much ever, even when I was working at Gamestop. Yes, I actually worked there for 4 1/2 years. I have the Stockholm Syndrome to prove it. Anyways, I bought a used Xbox 360 controller back in March to add to my collection, as I only have 3 working controllers and could use another one for reserves/multiplayer events/conventions. You get the idea.

The sticks looked good, they felt good, but I didn't test it until last Monday. And then I realized the horrible truth: The bumpers are completely shot. You could tell just by pressing them that they were broken, and I didn't care to try and tackle that repair job. It just wasn't happening. I look at the receipt: March 20th.

I cursed my indolence but thanked my laziness as I still had the bag and receipt for the transaction. I packed it all up, and stopped by the gamestop on my route home from work last night. Now, I want to point something out here. I had a terrible headache, most of that afternoon was a blur, and I slept another 2 hours when I got home. I was pretty well miserable. I walked in, talked to this guy named Michael. I told him that my dumb ass didn't test it until last Monday, pointed out the bumpers, asked if I could just get an exchange.

He actually said, "sure, I can do that." And that was just the beginning. There were two controllers on the floor, and both of them were in pretty beat up shape. I didn't care, I've got this awesome metallic blue shell that I can just swap out and be done with it. That one's got dead innards, so it doesn't bother me at all. But then, instead of just letting me feel the buttons, he offers to test the controller! We didn't have anything like that when I worked for Gamestop, but sure enough, we had a calibration tool that we could check button and joystick function! And when we tested it, the left stick was routinely pulling left, just outside the dead zone. We tried the other stick, same deal.

So then he goes into the back, and pulls out, like, a half dozen other controllers and proceeds to test them until we find one that won't drift. This was fantastic, as I'm not in good condition to be testing electronics, much less typing this much! But we settled upon this one, which is actually in pretty good shape!

During the transaction, he asked about the extended warranty. I'm going to void this thing right out the gate anyways, and he knew it. But because he helped me out, and took the time to find a good controller, I bought one for him anyways. The corporate office really cares about these things, and not selling enough can be grounds to write someone up. I've seen it happen. Since he went above and beyond to exchange something that was outside the return policy and took the time to help me find a good controller, I decided it was worth helping him out, too.

So, once I'm feeling better, I'm going to be putting the innards from the white controller into this awesome blue controller:

I can't wait to do the organ transplant, I just need to get over this headache first...

But yeah, that's really all I wanted to point out. Hey Mike? Over at the southtown Gamestop on 494 & Penn? You're awesome. Don't ever stop being awesome. That is all.

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