I've been the guy getting yelled at for running out of Yeezys and it's not fun. Here’s my best advice to help you queue properly next time...
It’s only April and Nike have already dropped three of the most hyped releases of the year; the Air Max 98 “Gundam”, the Atmos “Animal” 2.0 Air Max 1 and 95 pack and the Sean Wotherspoon Air Max 1/97.
The hype around these shoes and the releases themselves have been unreal, and I should know – I worked at all three.
After university the only thing I was sure of was getting a job in the sneaker shop back in my hometown. I didn’t know what I wanted to do straight away and figured it would be a good way to make some money in an interesting environment. And overall it was.
But by far the hardest part of the job was dealing with the hyped releases.
For the most part everyone who queued behaved themselves, and it was good to see there’s still a sense of community among the scene despite its growing popularity – but without fail there was always someone who’d kill the vibe.
One of the last drops I worked was a huge double release (the Animal 2.0 pack and a vintage Adidas release), which started off fairly normal but ended with me breaking up a fight between a Supreme-clad hypebeast and an old-school football casual after accusations of line-cutting got serious. I’m a retail assistant, not a bouncer. I'm not paid enough to referee the world's most pathetic fight.
With that being said, here are a few tips to help you avoid being ‘that’ person next time you’re lining up overnight...
1. Don’t try to make the politics of the queue my business
I’ve literally just arrived to start a shift and you’ve been camped outside the front of the store all night, so I have no idea who got here when. Please don’t shout at me because the person I’m about to let in “pushed in at 4am” – how I am I meant to know if that’s true or not? Get organised and stay cool, because it’ll be so much easier for both of us.
2. Understand that the staff want to cop the shoes as well
A lot of the time stores get sent a few extra pairs on top of their allocated amount so that one or two members of staff get the chance to buy them as well. But for the mad limited drops this tends to not happen, so we have to watch as they all walk out the door and smile and remain professional while getting called a prick when they’ve all sold out. So please be nice. We’re hurting too.
3. Don’t get angry when we sell out
I once had a full grown man almost in tears because we had completely sold out of a vintage Adidas re-release. When I told him the stock was mad limited he asked to speak to my manager, who then told him the same thing. This guy then tries to square up to us both (at the same time) and accuses us of lying. Don’t try and blame me G - you’ll have to find something else to wear with your dead Asda jeans.
4. Don’t try and offer me money to hold you a pair
It was almost a guarantee that the day before a big drop someone would come into the store and try and offer me or one of my colleges money to hold a pair of shoes for them. Sometimes it would be a lot of money... other times only a tenner. Once someone offered to give us a shoutout on Instagram (safe to say we turned it down). But here’s the thing: we could literally lose our job for taking any kind of bribe, so please just stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
5 - Please try and be a bit less obvious that you’re a reseller
To be fair, I respect the hustle, and nowadays reselling trainers can be a totally legitimate business. But it's the people who’ve just watched Sold Out on Complex and now think they're the Wolf of Wall Street that ruin it for the rest of you entrepreneurs. Also, not every shoe is actually going to resell for hundreds, so do your research first – because it’ll be pretty hard to explain all the shoes in your room to your mum. And nope, we aren’t taking them back.
Can't hack the line up? Shop our men's and women's trainers on SHS now!
Illustrations by @ranimariaa
