Crap, has it already been a year since the Wii and PS3 launch? I can still remember the stress of working on both of those launch days, although the PS3 one was much more memorable than the Wii one....

For the PS3 launch [I work at a Gamestop, for those who don't know], we had some crazy bitch go berserk on us because we told her we weren't taking any more pre-orders for the system. We explained that pre-orders took place a month before and if she wasn't there, she wasn't going to be able to get one at the actual launch date. She gets very upset and caused a scene and everything.

We had to go through a grueling process for her, which included us asking a good customer of ours to give up his pre-order for her. But then we received an upsetting letter from the corp that Sony will be unable to supply us with enough systems to fulfill pre-orders. We were only receiving HALF of them. Great. So had to contact the lower half of our pre-order list letting them know they weren't going to be able to pick up their system at launch date, this included the crazy lady. Of course she screams at us and claims we were bullshitting her. In the end, she didn't get her system until the third shipment, because our second shipment still didn't fulfill our pre-orders. Also one of our units from the first shipment got stolen during transit. It wasn't fun having to call one of our customers that he wasn't going to get his system on launch after we had told him that he was. Ugh.

On the more amusing side of things though, the amount of bribes we were getting from customers were incredible. We had a couple that brought a huge box of donuts, with a note saying "Dear Gamestop, thank you for putting up with us annoying customers and our phone calls throughout this holiday season. Please accept these for your hard work. You all deserve it. PS - We're still looking for a Wii!" *insert smiley face* Other brought us boxes of chocolates, candies, or discount coupons for whatever company they worked at, etc. We really didn't want to accept them, as we weren't allowed to pull strings when it comes to our policies. But they insisted anyway. Oh well, guess we can't pass up free goodies.