End days

The time here is nearly up. Its been a long road. Starting in the Computer Exchange (later to be CeX) shop in Tottenham Court road in the summer of 2000.

I was 20 and had wanted to work for this band of motherfuckers since I was 16. The staff were fucking cool, they smoke and drank in the shop and played obnoxious music at ear drum bleeding levels. What wasn't to like?

A year I stayed in that shop, whilst I returned to uni in the autumn - just working weekends Ive still got great friends from that time. It was like going to school in a way, we used to trade and buy and sell off of each other between serving the customers. Speaking of which came thick and fast in those days, we started at 10 finished at 6 and apart from an hour at lunch did not stop taking money all day long, really busy.

I think I quit for a couple of weeks in the summer of 01 then realizing i needed a job and money as i had to repeat 1 goddamn module at uni that year went back. Ended up working in Watford testing hardware for the Ecommerce dept.Easy job. This eventually morphed into a roaming role helping out stores such as Bromley, Kingston, Hounslow, Harrow, and eventually full circle back to TCR.

After my final uni year in 03 I quit again for about 2 months to go to Peru and North America, then realizing I had no money and an astronomical (for an unemployed person) credit card bill I went back again and ended up managing the Watford store, which after about 4 months morphed into a developer role for the IT department. Which suited me down to the ground.

6 years later and I feel that Ive changed so much that Im not even really a custy anymore. Computer exchange has become CeX. Hundreds of stores around the world. I barely play games anymore, and I think next time my PC needs an upgrade im gonna buy an iMac. Loser. Whilst CeX probably is still my favourite high street store flying the indie flag and I cant give game/gamestation money without feeling sick its time to move on. My life these days is more organic, less digital. More surf, more music, less tech, less gadgetry. I cant be arsed to argue about tech,I couldnt give a shit.

So many highlights, I grew up working for these guys. The old Namco parties I will never forget, I still have the skars. The hectic TCR store I caught the end of an era- worked with my favourite gang of people I have ever worked with - a ragtag bunch of arrogant assholes myself included (Peer, Jamie, Abi, Csaba, Colin, Steve, Boba, nik, moosh, stefan). Standing on roofs in Watford High Street. Smoking on fire escapes. the Ide cable incident in Kingston. Trying to catch 2 thieves in the Watford store. and crashing into a massive shelf haha.Cexfest.

lowlights were few and far betwen and all easily forgotten. No real social side to my time IT due to working in Watford, and havin few drinking buddies left. but it was still a good time. New York was a blast.

the future is unwritten....
...to the f