Prize Counter Woes

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

I was on Prize Counter today, and that just brings it's own brand of misery and SCs.


Time Wasters

These come in two flavors. 1: the people (usually kids) who have a ton of tickets and only want the 25 and less prizes, and 2) the people who have maybe 40 tickets and want the 250+ stuff on the walls.

I have told you where you can look. No, you can't get that. I already SAID why! Look, there are 50 people in line behind you; can we step this up a little, please?

Small shoutout to that one kid who had 540 tickets and wanted something for 600. I told him his total, he handed me a dollar and pointed out what he wanted. I had a register since I was covering the cashiers' breaks, so I went and rang up the 30 cent difference. Whole transaction took maybe 40 seconds. A blessing upon you, Little One.


Yay, trash!

One of the Prize Counter duties is to sweep up the garbage around the games. Not every speck, since it's a carpet and we have cleaners for that sort of thing. Just the wrappers and loose paper that people carelessly drop.

What gets me is when people take the trouble to throw their garbage BEHIND the games and token machines. DUDE! I have to sweep this stuff! You're just making my job harder. Those things are VERY close to the walls and each other. The broom just can't get in there sometimes. And often there are wires and junk back there. Electrical outlets. I don't even bother trying with those. I have to leave SO much junk behind so I don't get electrocuted. Fortunately, the managers don't care about that, since it's too much of a hassle and a danger.

But still, please... PLEASE! Just leave your junk out in the open floor where it's easy to see. We'll spot it and take care of it. Seriously. We don't even CARE that you're leaving it in the middle of the floor! Heck, we LIKE that because it's easy to pick up. Granted, putting things in the actual garbage bins would be even better, but you're distracted by pizza, flashing lights, cake and wristbands. We understand. So don't even worry your fuzzy little head about hiding the things. Just drop it anywhere. Please? For a Tootsie Roll?



Sharing is a pain in the @$$

Kids who want to share their tickets to get something bigger. This is ALWAYS suggested by the kid with fewer tickets. Today in particular I had a doozy. This girl who is obviously older than her friend wanted to put their tickets together. They decide to take them back, get more, and then return. Okay, no prob. I return their tickets. When the come back, the older girl wants to divvy things up without me counting them first. The younger girl has OBVIOUSLY less. True, it's really no skin off of my nose, but I hate seeing someone getting taken advantage of. So I talk them into letting me count and separate them (cause I"M older), and give the younger one her fair share.

I am just. That. Awesome.



Though really, time seems to go by a lot faster at the Prize Counter, today anyway. Maybe because it wasn't that busy and I was surrounded by TOYS! Seriously, you can kill so much time with a Chinese Finger Trap.

[Victoria J]

Ugh - do people really get worked up about these "prizes" ? If it's the kind of things I'm thinking of they start of at the level of cracker prize, work up through £ or $ shop and end up with stuff like you find in the grabber machines. Kind of rubbish, but cheering and good fun for children.

I can't imagine anyone caring.

I quite like playing the sillier machines when I go to the seaside (the only place I've seen this kind of set up in the UK) - and occassionally they give out tickets. It's not why I play though, and on my own I've never even swapped them for anything I think.

But last time I went with my little sister (7) we were all playing the games. I got a really high score on the whack-a-mole (lots of aggression to work out ) which made my father sulk.

We ended up with a couple of hundred tickets - but a couple walking past saw my sister and gave us their tickets so we had over 500. (My sister certainly isn't brought up to think the world revolves around her, but it really is wonderful when people do special stuff just because she's little). So she got her prizes and well they were only a cheap journal and pencil set and a paper aeroplane she loved them because they were her prize (and she was kind of smug ).

Do you have a whack-a-mole game or anything similar ? Think of SC's when you whack and it will work wonders.

Victoria J

[Space]

I hear you when it comes to people wanting a prize requiring a large number of tickets when they only have a fraction of that number.

Several years ago, I used to help out a friend who owned a game room when he would go on vacation. One incident that stands out is this kid who came in with his mom, who was obviously a trophy wife. The kid played a few games and ended up with 40 to 50 tickets, and when they got to me at the counter, the kid immediately became fixated on a Game Boy...only problem was he needed a number of tickets about 200 times what he had.

The kid seemed to understand, but God help me...I spent the better part of a half hour explaining to the mom why her son couldn't have the blasted video game. Good times.

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

Actually, our prizes have gotten better. The 1 ticket ones are, like, tiny army men, big fake money, and Tootsie rolls. Goes up to child jewelry, more candy, harmonicas, yo-yos, tops, and then upwards to lava lamps, board games, Barbies, musical instruments, etc. There's really a wide variety, so it's kinda like the toy aisle at Target, only without the Power Wheels.

But yet, people do sometimes get a little too slap-happy about the prizes. Usually it's the kids, but sometimes the adults.

Boy, if they only knew the markup on those things... incidentally, people, if you're ever a few hundred tickets short in the US, odds are you can just pay the difference at about a penny per ticket. So a 300 ticket prize is, like, 3 bucks.

Nah, at our place, he have this chicken coop game (hit the lights when they come on! And also there are chickens!) and Spider Stomp (step on the lights when they come on; THEY ARE TEH SPIDARS!). Neither really worth playing. I'd rather have Wack-a-Mole.

[ExHDCashier]

I go to the arcade every summer while I am on vacation... I love the one I go to.. THey have a VIP club thats free to join and as you move up higher on the points teir, the bigger a dicount you get.. right now I get a 15% off all prizes... Earlier this summer I got a GPS unit and now next year I want to get a new TV.... my nephw goes to the same arcade when they go on vacation and he has gotten numerous bikes, tvs and stereos!.. he ever won enough 2 Wii's!!!!

[PepperElf]

i personally hate those ticket things... mostly cos i'd rather just buy the toy myself. but i do remember playing once jsut for some fun... ended up just giving my tickets away to someone else when i was done.

tho... i am a sucker for the stuffed animal claws.
i had one night where... i dont know who packed the thing but it was pretty loose so ... at one point i just asked someone... "what do you want?" i forgot what he said, but... when i came back within a couple of minutes with the toy, the look on his face was priceless. i think i won about 14 total that day.

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

I go to the arcade every summer while I am on vacation... I love the one I go to.. THey have a VIP club thats free to join and as you move up higher on the points teir, the bigger a dicount you get.. right now I get a 15% off all prizes... Earlier this summer I got a GPS unit and now next year I want to get a new TV.... my nephw goes to the same arcade when they go on vacation and he has gotten numerous bikes, tvs and stereos!.. he ever won enough 2 Wii's!!!!

Yeah... they mark those things up, like, 50%. Or more.

Odds are it'd've been cheaper to just buy the Wiis.

[rerant]

I like going to Dave and Buster's and playing what I like to call thr Ticket Machine Games.
They're games where lights move in one direction or another and you have to press a button to stop the lights. You always get at least one ticket, but if you hit the button at the right time to stop the lights in a particular spot you hit the JACKPOT!
Me and an ex were at Dave and Busters for maybe three hours, an hour of that time we were having drinks and eating, and in the end I think I ended up with 700+ tickets, only playing maybe four games.
Yeah, I'm awesome at the Ticket Machine Games.

The prizes there are pretty cool, too. Nothing junky. I got a stuffed Carebear that I love.
The fun bit is you can put your tickets onto a card as credits and reuse them later on.

[Victoria J]

Actually, our prizes have gotten better.

Classier than the set up I'm used to - but most things are classier than the English seaside (and I actually like the seaside resorts).

Nah, at our place, he have this chicken coop game (hit the lights when they come on! And also there are chickens!) and Spider Stomp (step on the lights when they come on; THEY ARE TEH SPIDARS!). Neither really worth playing. I'd rather have Wack-a-Mole.

The spider stomp seemed more for children - I tried it but didn't feel I could really stomp. The whack-a-mole is great when you are in a bad move but my favourite were the "cracky crabs" (plastic crabs sings "we are the bad crabs" then scuttle between plastic rocks while you smash at them) - but all the ones I knew were getting very old and faded, and now I can't think of a single place that has one

tho... i am a sucker for the stuffed animal claws.
i had one night where... i dont know who packed the thing but it was pretty loose so ... at one point i just asked someone... "what do you want?" i forgot what he said, but... when i came back within a couple of minutes with the toy, the look on his face was priceless. i think i won about 14 total that day.

My father went out with a woman who had a knack for those machines - won 2 animals out of one with only 6 or 7 goes altogether, and apparently was always that good with them.

I always really admire those useless little skills people have. Everyone has some, but other peoples are always more impressive.

Victoria J

[LadyAndreca]

I live at the NJ shore, and there's a local boardwalk with four arcades, three open year-round. My husband and I go there every few months with a roll of quarters each and just goof around. I'm really good at the electronic poker and blackjack games, while he's better at things like skeeball and coin drops, so we usually earn about 5000 points per arcade per visit. (To give some sense of perspective, green army men tend to be 5 points, and tealight holders about 1000.) All these places will print you ticket receipts that you can save up, so we just collect them until we see a prize we like. Usually it's 25k-point dragon statues that would probably be about $30ish in stores (we have 7 now, I think), but I keep joking that someday I'm going to save up a million points and get a laptop.

If we only wind up with a couple hundred points, I usually hand them off to a random kid walking by. They always love that!

Though, it's kind of sad when you do that and you get a dirty look from a parent that says "who are you and why are you interacting with my child?"