2295 Lifestyle Choice.
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I guess it would be a bad day to do a Game Grumps parody, huh? Anyway… Patreon, Subscribestar, EPIC AD READ!
Thank you all for the well wishes & sharing stories about when you started reading & whatnot. A fair few of you have been with me for well over a decade. Many started out in school & now have families. It’s pretty wild to think about what kind of impact I’ve had on some of you. Positive for the ones who commented at least, is good. Although I guess if it was a very negative impact you probably wouldn’t be here commenting at all. XD
My time in retail did a lot of damage to me & when I got out I wanted to try and give people some weapons to combat it. I wasn’t able to ground myself at the time, or even see the positive sides of most things, but I was very angry back then. Just mad at everyone and everything a lot of the time. I could never get people to see sense & management wouldn’t listen to anything. It was wildly frustrating. As I watched everything falling apart & no one being able to get ahead of it, I felt like Cassandra making predictions no one would heed. Even now I look at retail & see it further falling apart because of a total lack of vision. It annoys me, but I’m one man with no power to change it. Here we all are, with things deteriorating, hoping for someone to come along who will lead people to a better tomorrow. Perhaps soon our patience will be rewarded…
25 Comments
One could hope. Working retail almost killed me through depression. I took the out they gave me and haven’t looked back.
Why do i see jo as like a cocodile hunter sort of wildlife photographer.
Her hair has been blue this whole time, yet she’s as sneaky as a ninja. Nin-Jo.
It’s been far enough back for me that I can’t be sure how long ago I started reading. I figure it has been at least eight years, but quite possibly ten. It’s been a good read. I have found Reggie to be a great character to follow these past few of years.
Considering it looks like Brooksie is wearing a hoodie, I don’t think the blue hair will be much of a distraction.
It’s something to think how commonplace that fashion has become. It isn’t that unusual to see a couple of 30 somethings running around with blue hair but in the time that the story originates, Brooksie would have been pretty edgy with her azure locks.
So you evolved along Thomas. Frustrated and angry at retail in the beginning and getting more positive with time.
Thomas is way more kind and calm than I ever was.
I really don’t remember if I’ve ever actually made a comment, but I often wanted to, especially after you revealing that the store or chain of stores in this comic is based on Hastings Entertainment.
I don’t want to get into too many details, but I worked for that company for just a little short of a decade, and would have probably worked at least a decade there by now if it still existed. Oddly enough as damaging as the years working there was for me, the floor falling out from under me was somehow still the most damaging. And I had to get good enough to literally dodge falling bookshelves after the first time I got hit by one collapsing on me.
The worst thing was that we got the news that we were most likely going to be liquidated soon on my birthday at my store, after they had hushed it all up for so long but couldn’t any more because the distributers were asking for their money.
Even when I was working there, there were a lot of days where reading this comic was a big part of what got me through those days. In the years since, where I’m very much in the middle of a failure and between everything else, its been even more so.
I’m not sure we’d really get along as people or even have many of the same interests, so I’ve never worked up the nerve to join the Discord or whatever, but I still want you to know that in at least a few ways your comic has saved me over and over again. So thank you for taking something that damaged you and making something to help the rest of us, even if sometimes that seems a very small thing to offer.
She can always wear a dark do-rag…
She’s wearing a hoodie. This is not really a problem.
…Or Jo could wear a cloth, ninja mask.
Hm.
Doing that Nin-jo thing.
Fantastic Journey for this group! Great character development!
I did about 5 years in retail. What wonderful times! Store managers saying things are going to change, really they are. Almost passed out from laughing so hard. I found out later he QUIT and started driving a semi. Distribution center sending 10 times what was needed. Being the “go to guy” because the favored wouldn’t do the job and even if they did it was done wrong. More than once I got into it with managers about calling for me when there were others standing around, not doing anything other than talking to their friends. And always got evaluated low in “getting along with others”. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Left that job, and I haven’t looked back.
Oof, retail. I’d prefer the chores in the stockroom to the chaos on the main floor.
I just started in retail two years ago. It has been a fair step up from the previous eleven years as a security guard. My only real complaint is that everyone, EVERYONE, has shifted to part time employees to screw people out of federally mandated benefits. Personally I could do without the benefits if only I could get forty hours a week.
That’s been a problem for quite some time. Even before I started most companies kept associates under 40 hours to avoid paying any benefits. It’s a huge factor in job turnover & customer service failures.
Now they keep them under 32.
Hey it is the American way of doing business and treating employees and suppliers as a disposable commodity. I have seen it in large American multinationals here all too often. Not saying the locals are all that better when it comes to screwing over the workforce.
I am so jealous of the labour laws in central and Northern Europe – you work, you get benefits in proportion – also minimum wage is something you can actually live on [tips are an insult to the professionals]
When I think of trying to improve stuff, I think of this phrase-
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi.
It can be very rough to do that, [you bet!], but I try to do that, whenever I can.
Looks like maybe Jess is kind of cradling the back of her head in the palm of her hand. Do lovers do that? Genuinely curious, and obviously ignorant.
I’m not sure when I started reading your work, but I remember finding it, and backing up a week, and liked it, so I backed up a month, and read it to the current (at that time,) comic, and then went back to the start and read the whole thing. As for the time, there was a comic, called “Retail” (I think.) It was a web comic, not the syndicated “Retail.” Anyway the main character worked at a video store, and had a giant hammer that he would bash stupid customers with. Anyway, it had stopped, and even the archives had disappeared, and I was searching for for it with terms such as “retail, video, comic” and found yours. I’m sure some of your readers can tell us when that was. Anyway, Thanks for all the work, and feelings, and, and, and…
I knew the guy who made that I’m pretty sure. I have a pin I bought from him somewhere, but after he stopped making the comic I never heard from him again.
Most likely he hung up the proverbial pen and became a taxi driver after changing their name. Well, only one artist actually did that. Most others either just quietly disappeared or still maintained a presence and connection with their fans long after the burnout from overextending themselves.
I am not sure when I started reading, I think it is 10+ years by now. I went down a rabbit whole that started when I was in college from shoe blogs to Questionable Content and then the world of web comics from there. I of course backed up to the beginning. Now I follow 3 only. I have loved how all the characters have come along, every single one. I can’t pick a favorite. In the past few years I can’t help but feel that they are friends that I meet every couple of weeks. When I was going through depression, they have kept me a float too. Not sure what that says about my mantel health status :)
I am a third culture kid from UAE. Never worked in retail but the pain from the claws of private facilities and companies have never been easy either which I happily left behind end 2019.
I thank you (loads) for keeping this on going for so long through all of it.
I don’t even remember when I started reading this regularly, but it’s been years now. You post so regularly it’s one of the comics I can easily come back to when I have time. I don’t particularly like the humor, but the wordplay is fun, and because the characters are so fleshed out, it actually makes the comic easier to follow and remember. Thanks for the story.