I won the first job lottery, for any teenage, game playing goob. Mom and pop video store up the street I could bike to hired me at around 13 to do odd jobs, cut the grass(this only happened once, it was my first and last time cutting grass). When the boss found out I was into video games and they could be priced differently depending on title I was in. He just knew people wanted to rent/buy them but wasn’t a player so to him everything should be priced the same, right?
When I was a year or two older I got behind the counter, ran the register, priced out game trades, did console testing, cleaning and light repair. This is where it really amped up for me, since everyone would bring in old 8-16 bit collections want to trade up for one of the new 32 bit consoles. I saw some real beautiful complete games come in for very little money. Prior to turning 18 I was paid under the table, boss would ask how many hours I worked that day, and either pull out his wallet or let me walk out with a stack of game trade ins we’d taken that day. This was instrumental to me building my vintage gaming collection.
I ended up working that job for over 10 years and going on to manage a second location for a couple years until it closed. I realize i’m very fortunate for this opportunity, basically every kids wet dream in that era. The job didn’t pay much but the benefits were unparalleled. I still have the majority of games I acquired back then, at least the good stuff after years of culling the chaff. I still have fond memories from that era of my life.
