Working in a gunshop/surplus store would be my dream job and other fantasies.

Worked in a gun shop in the late 70s. One guy showed up every day and just hung around for hours, babbling on incessantly about Sig Sauers. Doubt if he ever fired one.

Other strange characters were a group of what appeared to be East Indian types in long white robes, wearing turbans and smelling strongly of garlic. Pretty sure they weren't Muslims, closer perhaps to Sikhs judging by the style of the turbans. They'd show up in a group, same people every time. Other than the unusual dress and the odor they didn't seem radical, were well behaved and almost soft-spoken. Can't remember what they bought if anything.

If given a choice between them and the Sig Sauer babbler for company, I could get used to the garlic..'nuff said.

Overall I had little customer contact, only covering the front when it was needed. Most of my time was spent operating a casting machine in the back. The store owner used to supply practice ammunition reloads to local police departments and we'd cast our own bullets, mainly .38 wadcutters and semi-wadcutters back when revolvers were the standard police carrying fare.

 

Years back I had a friend who worked at a gun shop as a gunsmith and he used to reload a lot and we would go out and "test fire" customers guns. He didn't make much money. A funny story is he was working late and the shop's lights were all off except where he was in the back and people were trying to break into the front so he pointed a laser at them and moved it around until they finally noticed it. Then they high tailed it out of there.

 

The only place I shouldn't work is a scrap metal yard but that's another story.
I don't think I'd ever want to work in a gun shop , not for the weird customers but for the fact I could not afford the product I'm selling ,nor would I have a clue as to what they were actually going to do with their guns.
About every other product in the world is not as controversial as guns , on top of that I'm not a sales man , I'm not one of those that can sell ice cubes to eskimos .
Family had an air compressor shop an I was happy being a mechanic , I had nothing to do with sales . I have more air compressors than any man needs .
I also have a surplus of guns, but that's another story as well.
I find that my mentality ,similar to my dad's is being prepared and having spares ,simply because in hard times the spares often become a necessity not a luxury .
But at the same time a burden having to preserve and protect and the thing become the owner ,and you the caretaker.
Now what would be fun is to be the good friend of a person with an extensive collection, so much so that you are privileged to have the unrestrained access to borrow any of the guns out of the collection any time you want, bringing it back of course in the condition you received it. (Or better) .
I had a friend that his job for the military was to tune up guns for competition , that for him was the dream job .

 

Only twice have I worked in retail sales. Hated it. Whoever said, "The customer is always right" should be castrated thun hung. Customers are too often rock stupid. Never again......
Years ago I frequented a new gunshop close to home. Small shop in a strip mall, had guns and shooting stuff as well as "survivalist/prepper" stuff. We'd be there when the ammo orders came in. I was ordering cheap 7.62X39 Norinco and East German make, and Winchester .45 Colt Silvertip for my Blackhawk Convertible.
Had some good conversation, and the guys were decent if a little redneckish. I fit right in!
Unfortunately they folded.

 

Interesting tale...strange people behaviour.... the shop I ran was out in the bush. Guy from the city arrived, knew little about guns but was going shooting on a friends property, pigs and such. Wanted a shotgun, he haggled HARD on a Mossberg pump 12ga (well Maverick I think they were then - the budget line) and a single box of 12ga rounds. He was nice enough driving a hard deal, one I made because he was actually good humoured about it all. Packed it up for him wished him luck and sent him along the way. Local Police Sgt (a customer) came to see me about an hour later, asked if I just sold a 12ga to this guy, sure did (it was all above board of course), I asked was there an issue, he said nope not for you but it looks like he drove right away from here and into a dirt lane up behind town, loaded one round and put the barrel in his mouth..

 

What no pictures ?
No one should feel guilty over this kind of event . Sad may be but not guilty.
many people are good at hiding their motives .
People determined to off them selves is nothing new, and if it were not the gun they would jump off a bridge into traffic or some other thing involving other peoples lives .
I was a part of search teams after people that left a note, and we had to find the remains . We had to deal with these issues all the time. It' s a hard thing to deal with, but you were not the instrument .

 

In this case I didn't feel as though I was, I was MUCH younger back then and lacking the experience in life I have now dealing with suicidal and homicidal individuals. Even in reflection there was no indication to me that he had intent to harm himself (or anyone else). One significant thing about people who are having self harm ideation is that once the decision is made their mood/attitude may improve and present as a "new lease on life", generally because they have in their own mind at least, found a "way out" of whatever situation it is causing the issues. Unless you know them well enough (so as to see this often extreme change for the better) then they just present as a happy enough/well adjust individual. I did refuse to sell firearms to a couple of people back then as well, just because there was something very off about them.

 

An interesting thread would be, The $hit you hear at a The Gun Shop/Range
I bet that's a hoot!

 

I worked in a gas station while in college (back when employees pumped gas and washed windows)

Plenty strange.

Worked at a Comp USA store for about a month (back office tech stuff) before telling the manager to shove it.

Retail? Never again. The only thing worse, if thtat's even possible, is doing customer facing IT Help Desk (shudder)

 

I couldn't work in a gun/ pawn shop either. I'd never bring home a paycheck! LOL. Being in the auto repair business I have to deal with customers who think they know everything about their cars. Corvette owners are the worst!

 

I thought BMW owners were the worst ??

 

BMW= Bring Money With you!

 

Worked at a gun store/range for about 5 years. The things that were said and the actions of people with loaded guns and the ones taking classes, scary at best.
Got some of my best deals on firearms there. We had a consignment program, come in and put your firearm up for sale, store keeps $50.00 of the sale price or you pay $50.00 (plus background) to get your gun back if it doesn't sell.

Guy comes out of the range one day "I wanna sell this piece of crap!" OK, so I ask whats wrong with it and he says it wont eject the shells. Fine, how much do you want to sell it for? He puts $50.00 on the price. After explaining he's giving the gun away he says he's fine, fills out the paper work and leaves.
I set the gun to the side cause I'm taking it. Employees got to buy consignment guns for asking price minus the $50.00 that the range would keep. Yup, I got a Henry Survival rifle for the cost of a background check. Contacted Henry and they gave me a shipping label to return the gun for work. 2 weeks later I had a working rifle. Later I sold it, don't remember how much I got for it.

Managed to get quite a few guns while working there, still have most.

 

Like a kid in a candy store!