The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Andrew Rae]

Got mine too, as a Xmas gift for my partner who's new to JB's work but loves all the wee details and the intricacy of the drawing. It's a lovely, lovely book.

[nic-e]

£13 as dark sphere

You can afford to offer cheap discounts when you don't pay proper tax ,employee pensions or insurance in case an employee falls of a ladder and refuse shifts to any employee that complains....

[majorsmith]

?

[nic-e]

?

All truth. I've been told by friends who are still there that it's not got better since I left.
There's a reason they went through 14 employees in the time I was there.

I'm not saying don't buy from them cus I know people working there still who I don't want to be out of a job and I don't wish for the failure of any brick and mortar store, but I'd maybe go with Gifts for Geeks or element games or warboar. Even wayland for all their issues do at the very least pay their employees properly and ensure a safe work environment.

[Ray Rivers]

Even wayland for all their issues do at the very least pay their employees properly and ensure a safe work environment.

You need to expound on this statement. Especially concerning a safe work environment.

[nic-e]

You need to expound on this statement. Especially concerning a safe work environment.

very well.

So, staff at dark sphere have no contract.When i started work I was told my contract would be sorted soon, but this had been the owners line for the last 5 years according to the manager.
We had no fire safety routine, This was left to us to make at one point despite us having no fire safety training, and our advise was not impleimented.
(the fire exit was blocked by shelving for spry cans.)

We had to climb ladders regularly. I have had ladder training but none was provided by dark sphere and we had no safety measures should the ladder slip on the smooth concrete floor.

We were not registered as employed, paid only cash in hand (with a drug dealer handshake..i kid you not.) and as such we received no workplace pension, were not insured in case of injury and had no guarantee of sick pay or any rights , which led to staff freqently having wages frozen or being refused hours if they annoyed the owners by asking for things like safety training.

no lifting training was provided. I'm a small guy but on numerous occasions I was told outright to life huge boxes up a ladder. This led to one member of staff getting a serious back injury and another developing knee problems.

The owners seek out and employ recent immigrants to the UK who are not aware of UK employment law and fire them without notice after a couple of weeks.Some of these guys barely spoke english but were put on the shop floor to answer customer issues and then got shouted at by the owners for not knowing what to say, or were new to london and made to travel across the city on errands.

Pay rates and dates were not set, meaning we had no way of ensuring we could even pay our rent on time.this led one employee to quit and LEAVE THE UK because the owners refused outright to give her a guaranteed wage of £300 a month despite her doing work FAR in excess of that rate.

Because we were not officially employed no tax was being paid on our behalf, which has lead past employees to get in trouble with HMRC because they assumed legitimacy on behalf of the owners. One employee is still paying this back. (There were rumours and some evidence that money was being funnelled into a charity registered to the same adress as the company for tax reasons but we were never able to confirm that.)

All of this pales in comparison to the attitude of the owners , Who were frequently rude, threatening or near violent to staff. (and some customers) All of us were threatened with firing multiple times for minor issues. Communication from the owners was non existent and many things handled in private emails were not passed down to us, leading to mistakes on orders which we were then reprimanded for.

Due to the need to handle inter staff communications we were all in a staff facebook page and had to be logged into facebook at all times, Which meant we would often be shouted down via facebook at 3 in the morning or forced to answer work issues during off days, without pay.
our facebook profiles and messages were often read by the owners while we were not at work as they had saved out passwords without our consent, and on numerous occasions they would ask us about private messages between employees.

There is FAR FAR FAR more that I'm leaving out but yeah, After working there I won't buy there.
It was enough of a job to get me through uni, but the other full time staff were often driven to tears (literally) by the working environment.

As i say, in my time there 14 members of staff came and went.

EDIT:there's also the attitude of the owners to other stores. Okay, you are a competitor, but there is communication and agreement between the stores around london of WHO does what games WHEN. When approached to join, the owners fo dark sphere told the other stores to fuck off and deliberatly held events to steal their player base.Ask any of the owners of stores around london about dark sphere and they'll have some stories to tell you.
Likewise their attitude to their suppliers was atrocious, often shouting and swearing down the phone at them.

[FramFramson]

Sorry nic-e but that sounds like a store which does need to fail. Preserving neighbourhood B&M stores isn't worth someone's life, health or livelihood. To say nothing of their sanity or peace of mind.

[nic-e]

Sorry nic-e but that sounds like a store which does need to fail. Preserving neighbourhood B&M stores isn't worth someone's life, health or livelihood. To say nothing of their sanity or peace of mind.

honestly the best thing that could happen to it is that someone else buys it and turns it into a well run store.
but since that won't happen you're right, it does need to go under and someone else open a replacement.
It won't ,because it's the main venue for MTG in central london, But it does need too.

As i say, the reason i don't actively wish for it's demise is for the sake of the staff and community i know, not out of any great love for the store itself.If a replacement came and hired them it'd be fine.

[horridperson]

That book looks awesome!  I saw on a post on Inquisitorium warning of it's sale but 3 hours was too late .  Great looking book.  Would love to rifle through those images.

[thenamelessdead]

Is there a link to the Blanche book please? I've just done a search and couldn't find anything. Am guessing it's limited or out of my price range but you never know.

[horridperson]

The price was nice but the run was too small to grab .

[nic-e]

Is there a link to the Blanche book please? I've just done a search and couldn't find anything. Am guessing it's limited or out of my price range but you never know.

Price was £30 but it sold out quickly, a limited one time run.

[Belligerentparrot]

I would just like to say that I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about the new Necromunda. As someone who seriously lacks for space, I am pleased it has a floorplan version. I can't wait to try it on my old Space Hulk floorplans!

(Also hoping the rules will be less gash than last time. Positive buzz about recent GW rulesets is promising).  

[stone-cold-lead]

very well... lots of bad stuff.

Sounds like great fun! I did some seasonal work at a major toy retailer 12 years ago. On the first day we had to watch one of those crap health and safety videos before being sent off into the warehouse where every rule was broken. Shelves stacked way higher than they should have been requiring some dangerous ladder balancing to stock and pull. Boxes (usually big ride on toys) stacked so high that they had to be climbed on to reach those at the top and thrown down to the floor just to 'safely' get them and yourself down (ever wondered why you've bought a box of smashed stuff?!). Lots of boxes would have 25kg+ weight labels on them and clearly state a two man carry requirement but good luck finding help to lift them when staff were unofficially expected to pull and carry those boxes on their own. It was rather amazing to see some staff shouldering 6 foot snooker tables through the store. I had to drag the bloody things. You should have seen the manager panic when one of the temps put his shoulder out trying to stack a heavy weight box at arms length above his head whilst standing on the top step of a ladder. Of course it was his fault not the store's even though the whole warehouse was expected to be stocked that way.

[majorsmith]

As a customer I've never had anything but great service from dark sphere.