Employee profile
What was the name of your video store?
The Magic Machine
Where was the store located?
Newtown, Connecticut (United States)
When did you start working at this store?
1996
In your own words, how did you get started working in video retail? What
led you to choose the video industry, and this store in particular?
Simply that my parents went out on a wing and bought a closing town video store. The friendly owners were retiring to Maine. I was put to work as slave labor, although most of the time I was paid regular wages.
Describe your store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
It was in an old train station. It had a very high ceiling and video posters coated the walls. It was dusty and old yet homey.
What were your customers like? What particularly memorable customers or events do you remember?
Friendly. Costomers with kids came back every friday night and got the new releases. One quiet man came in every friday night to take out 2 movies. And one man got the two newest releases from that week every Saturday morning even if he had never heard of them.
What was your boss like? How did he or she divide the work in the store?
Parental Bias The managerial work was all thiers. The cleaning, organizing and costomers were everyone elses.
What video formats did your store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
VHS - Primarily DVD - Constantly Growing - Kept all in back shelf to seperate from the 4000 vhs tapes. Laser Disc was dicontinued.
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(children's videos or X-rated tapes, for example) did you rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in your store, and how important were they to the business?
Childrens videos were rented and were an important part of the business. Foreign films were also sold although newer films were not brought in as the years went on. These films weren't very lucrative. X-rated tapes were a minute part of the store until they were totally taken out to give the store a more "family" feel to it.
What other services/products did you offer besides the rental or sale of
programs? Did this change over time?
Candy, DVD Player rental as they emerged, VCR Servicing.
Did you ever rent VCRs or other hardware to your customers? If so,
how important were hardware rentals to the business?
VCRs and DVD Players were rented. They were not rented often but it seemed appropriate to keep them in case. The DVD Players were rented as more people could experiment.
During the period that you worked at the store, what changes did you see take place?
More DVDs.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
Closed in Feb. 2000.