I was an ASM for about a year, had done retail before. Our store was right in between a fairly upscale touristy part of town as well as some of the poorer neighborhoods so we got all sorts of people. I'll tell one horror story and then one uplifting story
The holiday season was in full swing and we were always crowded. This particular day we had a few seasonal hires in to help with the work load and I was behind the counter pulling games as people came up, to make the transactions faster. Then suddenly a smell hit the entire building like a hundred cats had peed in the air conditioner and someone had tried to get it dry by stoking a fire with burning hair.
My seasonals looked at me with a mix of confusion and terror as a family of four approached the counter and it slowly became apparent that they were the cause of the smell. I've been noseblind before from staying with an aunt who used to be an animal hoarder, but this was far worse.
I sent my seasonals on break, grabbed the hand sanitizer, pumped a small mountain of it into my hands and as casually as possible smeared it on my upper lip, hoping my facial hair would hold onto it and block the smell. It mostly worked. I was already in holiday rush mode but this was the fastest I ever got a used Xbox 360 and GTA V packaged and ready to go.
When they left, we noticed that the store had actually cleared out of all other customers, who also couldn't deal with the odor. My SM came out of the back, gave me props for not embarrassing them, and promptly proceeded to fill our store with Febreeze.
Ok, one uplifting story. I know it's not what you asked for but you're not the one making this post, so nyeh.
We had our regular customers and over time we would get to recognize a few people and have a general sense of what their interests were. Beyond just being salespeople and trying to pitch whatever was hot and new. Frequently we would also get people who knew they had 7 days or however long to trade a game back in for the full amount they paid for, and would use us as a general rental service that way. We were supposed to flag their account (somehow??) to stop this from happening but it wasn't common enough at our location to really care, we weren't losing money and it was better than them stealing from us.
One sort of grungy guy missing a couple of teeth would come in regularly and he had a few different criteria: he owned a regular DS, he didn't have much money, and he wanted the games to be very long so they could occupy his time. Usually RPGs, but they had to have a good story. He'd bring it back if it wasn't engaging and ask for something else. The first couple of times he did this I thought maybe he was trying to put one over on us, but the games he was picking actually were too long to reasonably finish in the time he would have them. (I guess I could've checked the save files, but it wasn't that big of a deal.)
He disappears for a couple of weeks and then one day I'm working and I get a call, it's him. It's not too busy so we chat for a few minutes. He basically wants to pick my brain about what we've got that's less than $10 that will last for a month, and if it's worth his time to come get it because his money is so tight that just driving to our store and not finding something will be sort of a significant loss. This happens to be during a week where Dragon Quest 9 is on sale for less than ten bucks, and we have one copy left, so I set it aside and tell him to try it out. My wife isn't a big JRPG fan but she tried it and it held her interest for quite a while, so maybe this guy will like it too. He comes by, gets it, thanks me and leaves.
I don't see him for months. He's one of those regulars who you get to thinking about, whether or not you would really say you were acquainted, but just that general "I hope they're okay" sort of thing. Then one day he comes back in wearing a FULL SUIT, grinning ear to ear. I recognize him right away and ask how things are going. He tells me they turned around and he got a job as a cook at a Sonic within walking distance from his house, and had been able to save his money for a while, thanks to Dragon Quest being so long, and he wanted to say thanks and to buy his mom a PS3. He knew the only games she really recognized were classics, so we picked out one of the new Pac-Man games and Namco Museum. He was looking at the price tags of a couple of other ones and I could tell he was doing some quick mental math, so I told him "pick the ones you're looking at and we'll see what we can make work". He gets one more game for his mom and brings them up to the front.
It's been a few years since, so I honestly don't remember what if any promotions we had going on at the time, but wouldn't you know it? He got enough of a discount for some mysterious reason that he was able to afford everything.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bicr5z/gamestop_employees_of_reddit_what_are_some_of/elzyhic/