It's funny, out of all the message boards I go to, I would least expect a Blockbuster topic to appear here.
I work for one of the Blockbusters in my area. Not a bad place to work, if the people are cool, of course. In my case, I love my co workers. Only down side, is the pay.
I find it funny that people bash Blockbuster for their late fees, or as what they are called now, Additional Daily Rates, or just bash Blockbuster in general.
In all honesty, it's simple. You pay $5.45 (at least in my area) for a rental, that is good for five days. It's due back on the 5th day, before store close. AFTER that, its an additional dollar a day, for any days you wish to keep it, hence the name: Additional Daily Rate. That is 120 hours to watch a movie. A movie, on average is an hour, or two long. If you cannot find two hours out of that 120 that you are given, you do not need to be renting movies to begin with. Yet people are late all the time, and then they complain that they can't deal with it, and that they will be going to Netflix, or Redbox. It's just that they are irresponsible people who can't return things in on time.
One customer came up to me, and had the nerve to say "I don't even know why I'm here, I have Netflix." And I thought to myself, I know why you're here, its because you want your movie now, rather than having to wait. And people always forget that, Blockbuster has the SAME things as Netflix and Redbox. Blockbuster Online lets you stream movies, or have them delivered to you. AND you can return your mailers, for movies in the store. Blockbuster also has, what we like to call, Blueboxes. They are just like Redbox Kiosks.
Another thing that Blockbuster has is Direct Access. Which means, if you can't find what you're looking for in the store, we can have it shipped to you. Keep it for five days, then return it.
I'm a formal Netflix user, and I'm in no way defending Blockbuster, but its a shame that they are falling due to these competitors, when in reality, Blockbuster offers more; people just fail to see it.
I sure will miss seeing the stores on each corner, but I have to say, since working at my location since early September 2009, we get pretty damn busy for a company most see as going out of business.
