Most of my friends had menial, low-paying jobs during high school, and one or two had to support themselves through college.  I didn't go that route.  Right after high school I got out into the real world and took a succession of lousy jobs for little pay and no respect from anyone.  I actually had to struggle just to break into retail. 

RETAIL!  Blind monkeys screwed up on syphilis could do this job!  And I had to fight for it!

It started with a modest seasonal gig at a second-hand bookstore.  Decent sci-fi/fantasy selection, being tucked away in the middle of suburbia and all, but a fairly limited rpg shelf.  I'd found one or two gems in there, like my first print run edition of Vampire, all well-used and loved until some wicked bastard threw it all away for me to find.

My current job is a full-time slave for Barnes & Noble.  Depending on the B&N in your area, you either hate it or loathe it.  Chain bookstores have never given RPGs respect.  Admittedly, it's a niche market.  Even with the employee discount I'm better off going through Amazon.  Only one of my fellow employees is a gamer, and even he can't find a group in this town.

But in between those two was a year of my life that, while still retail, was what many would consider a damned dream job.  Lonestar Comics.  A five minute drive from home.  I'd been a customer since I was thirteen.  Applied there numerous times.  Got hired the second time I got a manager interview.  Sure, some things would annoy me. 

It's retail.  It's geeks.  We are a picky, particular bunch.  But at the end of the day I still miss the place.  We even had some really good, cool people as customers.  But I learned a very important lesson about myself from that experience.  It was actually a bit of a shock when it hit me.  You think you know someone and after all these years they can still pull a surprise on you like this.

I don't like other geeks.

Let me clarify.  I found out that there is a reason for all the geek stereotypes and negative portrayals.  It's really quite simple.  They exist.  It's not exaggeration or dated prejudices or just good old-fashioned narrow-mindedness.  These social misfits are real things that walk around unwashed, obnoxiously butting into every conversation that have nothing to do with them but their nerd-dar detected the word "dicepool" and they have to stop you, mid-conversation, to first regale you with a cloud of halitosis and then assault you with a high-handed, self-important diatribe about how their Shadowrun character blew up a military chopper in a MacGuyver-like burst of ingenuity which he could do in real like because he has all the schematics for real world helicopters downloaded and he's read all these tech manuals that his cousin got while in the army and he showed him how to do jujitsu so he's never taken a class but he's pretty much a green belt and on and on and there's no way to shut him up because you work in the store and you're trapped!  Trapped!

My god will you shut up you bastard you're the reason all those jackholes in high school wouldn't leave me alone just because they saw the dragon sketched on my notebook cover!  You're the guy who spends four hours sitting in the same spot killing people on World of Warcraft and say it's their fault for being thirty levels lower than you! 

You're the guy who won't wash his clothes or his freaking skin and get a real job and stop acting like a self-absorbed shut-in who thinks the guys trying to sell you comics and games are your friends!  You're the guy who tries to hijack every World of Darkness game I've tried to play with your stupid transgender hedge-magicking Kinfolk Kue-jin... in a Changeling game!

These people are real.  They're out there.  And they're just waiting to corner you in the back of some game store and suck your brain out with their pseudo-pods of death.  They'll try to make you one of them.  They'll try to give you their number and insist that you should hang out when you're just trying not to breathe in their stink!

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