Roadside Research Makes Me Nostalgic About Sales

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Roadside Research Makes Me Nostalgic About Sales

A long time ago, before I had a successful career as a writer, I was just another person working at the cash register at various stores. It wasn’t the best of times, but it had its moments. I wouldn’t say I look back on those days with tinted glasses or anything, but there are still aspects I remember.

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Lately though, a game by the name of Roadside Research has been giving me a longing journey to get better. It’s a game that mixes the mechanics of a typical store sim game with the weird concept that everyone working in the store is an alien doing human research.

Cleaning Up Aisle Four

Roadside Research Customer at Cash Register

Roadside Research finds you doing mundane tasks like pumping gas, stocking shelves, and ringing up customers. However, you and up to three friends can also record and film customers doing certain things, like smoking or wearing certain clothes, to further your tricks and gain access to more tech. The game doesn’t really have an end goal beyond expanding your shop and adding more purchasable items or revolutionary alien technology, it’s mostly about fooling around with your friends. And, of course, there’s a little game to explore.

If you happen to be caught red-handed or someone sees a pile of alien goop that you accidentally spilled on the floor before you cleaned it up, your level of suspicion will increase. If your sus level gets too high, the FBI will show up and make you show your personality in a little game. The idea that you have to blink, breathe, or curl up to prove you’re human might sound simple, but it’s not. I haven’t successfully completed one of these minigames myself, and once the jig is up, you’re going to get busted by the FBI.

There were some customers back in the day that I would like to see the prober gun treatment.

Now, I’ve never had a federal agent come to my office and demand that I prove my identity, but most clients seem to go out of their way to harass me and my colleagues back in the day. Still, we found ways to spend the day together and keep each other entertained. That kind of brings me to my point about why I love the way Roadside Research reminds me of my sales antics.

You see, I think of those times as my halcyon days. I was young and had very little responsibility. The weight of the world was not yet upon my shoulders, so to speak. While being a cashier in a sim game isn’t as situational as it can be in real life, I find myself reminiscing about a time when I could do things like close payday and have cash on hand to do whatever I wanted. I also find it therapeutic to take out the remaining frustrations on these NPCs. There were some customers back in the day that I would like to see the prober gun treatment.

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Friends are another big piece of this puzzle. I really can’t think of a retail job I’ve ever had where I didn’t have a friend or two working alongside me. Many times, it would be how one of us got the interview in the first place. Playing and joking with my friends in the game is a very similar experience to taking time off from work. I can’t help but think about some of the people I’ve worked with over the years who have become lifelong friends and others I no longer keep in touch with. I hope they are doing well today.

Now, I realize I may not have painted myself as a model worker, what with all the wrapping, and maybe I didn’t. But I worked hard and was proud of what I was doing. And I think my friends would agree that that comes from my strong organization of our stockroom at Roadside Research. I’ve committed to stocking the shelves by category, and I’ve been very meticulous about where everything goes in the store in general. I don’t know what it is about my mind that likes all the planning, but I find doing this work oh so cool. I like having a place for everything and everything in its place.

Another great thing about working in stores at Roadside Research is that I can’t be fired! Sure, I might get blown up here and there by a government agent, or hit by a car, but that’s manageable. I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do about bills, rent, or food as I do my in-game routine. I’d rather have fun grinding. And that might be the biggest difference between this game and real life. You know, above all unknown things…

Thank you, Come Again!

Roadside Research aliens in front of the gas pump.

While I don’t think I’ll ever really want to go back to my sales days, as much as I love what I do now, I enjoy the way Roadside Research covers the subtle and common aspects of pumping gas and giving customers a makeover. It’s a great way to go back without having to go back. I’m not sure if it would work for me without the zany and ridiculous twist of being transparent alien creatures with badly drawn paper masks on their big, green heads. Fortunately, though, we don’t have to worry about that.

Part of me also wonders if I can handle being a cashier at work all day, then come home and do it all night on a video game. On the other hand, I already mentioned that it allowed me to sort out some things from the past and gave me a trip down memory lane. However, sales can sometimes be a profession where people can cause all kinds of conflict. In the end, I like to think that coming home to a game where I could say what I wanted, put together product prices, and give those customers a good old-fashioned review would have brightened my day like it does now.