Working in the Arcade

By ArgabargaJones

December 31, 2011


12 years ago

My second job ever was in an arcade in Eastland Mall. I figure I got the job because I was there 24-7 playing either the 2-3 pinball machines in the back or queuing up at the huge Street Fighter II machine in the front.

It was at this arcade where my love of pinball started. I feel like we had some of the best games ever made go through there in the early 90s, including TZ and TAF. I remember being able to play T2 pretty much all day on one or two credits.

Seeing my initials in the top scores week after week always made my day. We had quite a few competitive folks in the arcade so we were always trying to one up each other.

For the last 15 years or so, life was too complicated to think about taking up the hobby again but I still stopped and played a game when I saw a machine I liked.

Luckily for me, I've finally arrived at a nice place where I can start to consider buying a pinball machine. So here I am, looking for a first machine to start my hobby.

Story photos

No photos are attached to this story.



Comments

12 years ago

Welcome back

12 years ago

nice story - must have been a hard job watching others play pinball all day and not being able to

12 years ago

Great story, glad you have come back!!!! The pinball disease nevr truely heals, it'll lay in wait for years and then spring back to life at the mere site of that "just right" machine!

12 years ago

I have seen lots of great deals on CL near the Orlando/Tampa area. Good luck!

12 years ago

Hope you get your first real soon!! After that I think you will discover one is never enough....

12 years ago

When I was a kid (in the 80's) our neighborhood arcade guy was named Jose, or Joe as everyone called him. He would watch us play all day long trying to beat a high score. When we would finally get that top spot. He would just smile and say it was time for his break put a quarter and beat our scores with little or no effort but just enough to beat us and then he would let the balls drain or kill off what lives he had left. Very frustrating but it kept our egos in check!

12 years ago

Thanks everyone for the kind welcome.

Sometimes I couldn't resist the temptation and would play while I was on the clock (I was only a 17 year old kid), but so did most of the other guys that worked at that arcade. :-)

I am proud to say I've acquired my first machine. I decided to go for my holy grail and purchase a Twilight Zone. It's not here yet but I'm already itching with excitement!

12 years ago

Great story AJ. I envied the arcade's tech job at Aladdin's Castle so much while growing up. Glad you got your grail machine. TZ is tops.

11 years ago

Hey AJ great story, I live in Orlando as well, hit me up whenever you want to play some pinball :-)

-Ralph

Add a comment

Wanna make a comment? Click here to sign in or register.



This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/argabargajones/stories/working-in-the-arcade and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.