Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt

The Hot Wheels treasure hunt is probably the thing I hate most about being a toys associate. For those of you that don't know- Hot Wheels inserts "highly collectable" cars into random cases before they leave the warehouse. There is about one collector's car per 10 cases. These cars are valued anywhere between $10 to $50 and only cost the original consumer $0.97. The idea of the treasure hunt itself isn't bothersome at all. It's the vultures (customers) that come searching for collector's cars that get under my skin.

I have about three customers that come in weekly looking for collectable cars. Two of them I have absolutely no problem with; they are respectful and clean up after themselves for the most part. They also don't make any special requests-- like for me to check the back room for new freight that may contain Hot Wheels.

However, there is one customer in particular that I absolutely despise. He's been given the nickname Hot Wheels Guy. He always comes in around 8:30 pm because he knows that's when freight starts being pulled to the sales floor. As soon as he sees my pallets on the floor he begins circling them looking any box that looks like it may contain Hot Wheels. Once he finds a box he's interested in he'll begin to down stack the pallet until he has access to the box. After getting the box he takes it to a semi-secluded area (usually behind the bike racks) so he's less likely to be caught. He then rips open the box and digs through it, usually to be disappointed at the lack of a collectable car. After riffling through the box he usually doesn't clean up any of his mess and just leaves the carnage on the floor.

Photo courtesy of The Elkhart Truth

The problem has actually gotten so bad that certain members of management have given me permission to intervene when he touches the pallets. Unfortunately for me, one night after I'd returned from my lunch break he had already started going through the pallets. When I intervened I explained to him that I've been told that customers must wait until merchandise is on the shelf-- that way all customers have an equal opportunity to shop the merchandise. He then asked to speak to a manager and I happily paged one for him. Earlier in the day one of our assistant managers informed me that we'd be receiving Hot Wheels on the truck and told me that it was okay for me to say no to the Hot Wheels Guy.

The manager that showed up to talk to him is relatively new and hadn't been briefed on the new policy for Hot Wheels Guy. So following his training he wanted to please the customer and basically told the customer that he would have me stop zoning my department just to stock the Hot Wheels for him. Essentially my manager made me look like the ultimate jackass. So I did my walk of shame and walked over with 5 cases of Hot Wheels. I was already a bit behind that night so I was trying to hurry and throw the cars on to their pegs as quickly as possible so I could resume my regular work. However, the Hot Wheels Guy was actually pretty rude and hovered over me as I was stocking the shelf and would grab cars out of my hand before I even had a chance to put them on the pegs.

Overall the Hot Wheels Guy is so disliked among my store because he lacks certain common etiquette. He's actually made me dread Hot Wheels shipments and made me wish that Hot Wheels would do away with the treasure hunt altogether.