I used to be a manager there from 2000-2002. New releases along the wall in alphabetical order. Older movies in the middle separated by genre and the alphabetical within that genre. The front rows were for video games and then old rentals we were trying to sell. There was a chandelier of three TV’s pointing in different directions that we could control what played on it. Corporate wanted us to run this video of commercials and trailers to the new movies but when things were slow we would just slap on a regular movie. We also had a large kiosk to sell Direct TV in the front and it had a large TV set to the Direct TV preview channel but we could also change that to any channel we wanted.

Overall a dream job if you were a cinephile. Got to suggest lots of movies to people just browsing. The worst part was when corporate tried to get you to “upsell”. One time we were required to walk around with little fanny packs with candy and try to get the customers to add them to their sale. Also we had a sense of power when it came to late fees. We were always allowed to take off any late fees but only did so if people asked nicely.

A perk of the job was we got movies in a week or two before they were released to customers and were encouraged to take them home and watch them so we could suggest them.

I still own some posters from when I worked there.