But "competitively priced" means loss leaders, so basically you'll hold onto a bunch of more obscure stock and hope that people buy it for full price because you're not going to deep discount the big releases like best buy and target. They did have a bunch of movies for sale at my local BB, but I rarely even looked through them because of the prices. I don't think a store can survive just selling videos; there's a reason BB and others are cutting back their media sections.

http://www.angelfire.com/movies/oc/t...ockbuster.html

Rant on Blockbuster from a former employee, dated 1998.

Wow, that's a whiny rant. I have a whole lot more problem with him than with Blockbuster, based on that article. Here's my takeaway of his main complaints. As a cog in the corporate machine, I don't have a problem with any of these.
* Companies want to make money.
* Companies use cheesy stuff in their internal materials sometimes.
* The company actually expects me to GREET the customer.
* The company actually expects me to look decent, wear a uniform and suggestive-sell.
* I, like many other militant internet idiots, have no concept of the difference between "not selling something" and "preventing someone from buying something."

Its called MovieStop. After Suncoast closed, we were lucky to get one here.

Agree, in the many years I ran my site (see sig, it's now closed), I would get emails from both employees and customers that bordered on total crazy. People on both sides would do/act foolishly and think I was on their side based on the site. No, you shouldn't be able to keep a video for months and not be charged. Or put some clean clothes on. And if BB doesn't want to rent NC17 movies, they don't have to. Many theaters wouldn't play them either.

Now, I'm glad they are gone, but so are all most of the other video stores. It wasnt because of the crap service, or anything. It was the mainstream model of a video store is dead.

I got a lot of entertainment out of the "I Hate Blockbuster" site. Never posted there since I never worked for them and all the posters I read seemed to be employees, but it was a good look into that company. It still amazes me that as they were bleeding customers, the higher-ups still didn't think that a single thing needed changing, telling everyone to just shut up and keep pushing candy bundles until the stores closed for good!

I personally boycotted them because of the NC-17 issue. It's one thing to not carry porn, but the NC-17 rating was an attempt to allow stronger content in legitimate movies and Blockbuster just squashed that by refusing to carry them. Since they were once the biggest video retailer, studios decided not to release movies with that rating since it would mean a lot of lost sales. (None of the theaters in my area had a policy against showing them, though I know that was the case in more conservative areas.) Roger Ebert had a good write-up of this:

Fuck. I forgot all about the greeting policy. I got written up once for not saying "hi" to a customer. This was back when I was a common employee. It was close to closing and I was putting returned tapes back on the shelves. The Assistant Manger was in the little manager cubicle in the front, arguing with his girlfriend on the phone. It was just the two of us on staff and the store was empty.

A customer came in and started browsing the shelves. I was at the other end of the store, putting tapes back and straightening them up. At some point, my re-stocking brought me in contact with the customer and I said "Hello. Can I help you find anything?" She said no and I went on stocking. She eventually found a movie and I checked her out (not literally).

After she left, the Assistant Manager called me over and told me he was in the process of writing me up for not saying "Hello" to the customer as soon as she entered the store. I said I didn't even know she was in the store because I was on the other end stocking shit. AND I said "hello" later on. Besides, he was supposed to be manning the front. Why didn't he say "hi?" He said it wasn't his job to say that to the customers, it was my job. It didn't matter where I was in the store - I had to say "hello" as soon as they entered. Period.

The dick was in a pissy mood too because he started nit-picking a whole bunch of stuff like how terribly I straightened the shelves and nothing looked even. Did I bother to wipe the shelves down before putting the movies back up? Why did the beanbags in the kids area not look fluffy? Did I make sure tapes were rewound before putting the back?

So I was written up. From that day on, whenever we worked together, I would make it a point to say "hello" to the customers. Even if I had to scream it from the other end of the store.

His girlfriend dumped him a week later and started dating one of the store managers. The asshole got fired 5 months after that for taking candy and eating it without paying.

Fuck him and Blockbuster.

I'm getting flashbacks of my time working at Hollywood Video. I'd be returning videos, yell "Hello!" and more often than not the customer looked around bewildered, not being able to find where the voice was coming from.

I managed a Blockbuster in their later years, when they had that "No late fees" policy. Imagine the head ache's those conversations were with customers who still had to pay a fee because they went past their "grace period" for returning the movie.

Every month I would be required to push HARD whatever loyalty program they were promoting. 1 month I had to talk nothing but Blockbuster Rewards. The next, it'll be our online rental service. After that, it'll be back on Rewards. It was like they couldn't make up their mind on what was more profitable for them, because I remember selling a ton of online subscriptions during a month we were supposed to push Rewards, and when my DM saw the report, he flat out told me not to sell another online sub until next month, and convert those to our in store Rewards program.

On an almost monthly basis they would change their mind on how they wanted the New Release wall to look like. Instead of displaying the movies in normal alphabetical order like you would think, they had us break down our walls into sections and have them wrap around the store. A customer looking for a small Indie movie which we have 2 copies of that started with a F would be in the section with a giant display of movies that started with a M. It was horrible.

I won't even get started on their POS system. Holy shit.

Hey, at least I got to rent out New Releases sometimes up to 2 weeks before street date. Saved a shit load of money on potential blind buys.

I never understood why people complained about late fees.

Look... If I'm renting a movie, I'm renting it for x number of days. If I keep it longer than x days, I pay a penalty. I know this going into the transaction, and when I rent the video, I agree to those terms. Furthermore, if I keep a video longer than my rental period, then they can't rent that copy out to anyone else, so I should pay for another rental period. Simple as that.

I never really had an issue with late fees either. I mostly rented from Safeway years ago and the they shortly moved the return time because that's what many people disliked. Having a late fee for an hour is a bit silly yet if you return it the next day it's going to happen.

It's funny when someone looks at you with surprise when you say you wish to pay off your late fee. I guess they are just used to everyone fighting them regardless of it being their fault or not. I understand the concept of late fees being annoying, being the nature of the rental.

Another note on late fees was the library system. They did not have them for years and I am perfectly fine with it, why? It gave people an actual reason to return items at least somewhat close to the due date. For years there were items others had holds on to look it up and see due dates for a week, month and sometimes longer. Just return it already! The late fees helped people return stuff on time.

A sign would be enough. If we don't see it, oh well. Most people don't like being put in a spot they have to say no thanks or no so it would be great if they did not have to do so. I'm sure they hate it just as some customers do.

I always thought the elimination of late fees was going to kill them. If it wasn't the cause it certainly didn't help. I wonder how that would work for Hertz rental cars? Look I'm going to rent this car for a week, however if I keep it 10 or 12 days I shouldn't have to pay any more. If you don't like late fees, pay for the monthly all you can rent program.

It's a moot point now but it seems like there were other ways around the problem. When I had the online with the in-store exchange, that was fucking great. I was banging out 12 or more a week for $20/mo.

In all my years of VHS and laserdisc renting, I never returned anything late. I even took the store's due-back times into consideration when renting from that store- will I be able to get back there by the time it's due back? Especially with brand-new movies, you're being a dick if you keep it longer than you're supposed to since there's others out there who want to rent it but can't until you bring it back!

My problem wasn't the late fees, it was them inappropriately assessing the late fees. I got burned back in 1998 returning A Perfect Murder. I guess it was my fault for expecting them to check the tape in before the return time if I dropped it in the return slot. They still assessed it even though it was returned well before the time.

Honestly though, I rarely rented from Blockbuster as it is. I rented from a local grocery chain when I still rented tapes.

Yep, now I recall that being part of it. So many people said they turned it in on time. There should have been some type of grace time based on when they collect the films. Not a renters fault they did not check them in on time.

/\ When I worked there in 2001/02, the return time was posted as 12PM but the software wouldn't start reporting check-ins as late until 2PM. That way, you would have plenty of time to empty the return bins and get them checked back in.

It's too bad they never pro-rated late fees. The fact that they would charge you a full rental fee for being a few hours late was kind of ridiculous.

I don't have a problem with late fees. Late is late.
However if it's in the bin by the time it's supposed to be, I agree, late fees should not be charged if there's a delay in the employees checking them in.

That's a different issue entirely.

I've never had an experience like that at any video store, though.

Last time I rented at Blockbuster, stuff was due back by midnight (closing time) on the due date. Remember now another reason I didn't rent from them unless they were the only place that had the movie I wanted, they made you pay $3 for 3 days for EVERY movie- this was when most other stores charged about $2 for one day, which was all the time I needed. Remember going to a few Blockbusters out of town though and renting a ton of movies that no places near me had, then dubbing all of them- was the only way to get "Superfly" back then. Some of their stores admittedly did have a number of obscure and hard to find titles (excluding any X or NC-17 rated movies of course), but part of their downfall later was that they started carrying just the popular stuff you could find anywhere. Will eventually check out the clearance sales at the 3 remaining stores here but not expecting to find anything major.

A mix up with late fees was the reason I started my site...

I know I'm WAY late sharing this, but forgot it existed for a while til I was going through my favorites a few days ago:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cerb7dRcOFE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

One comment from someone who worked at a Blockbuster warehouse says: "Towards the end we were shipping out tomato growers, snuggies and other shite."

I like this oldie, now it's is a bit more appropriate.
The Blockbuster Museum

That would have been much better if they had VHS tapes instead of DVDs.

This is a long video, but it's worth a watch. The guy doing in it, is a little…spastic though.

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