Crazy Things GNC Clerks Say

So yesterday I was at gnc looking to buy some ZMA. Once the clerk gets it out of the case and brings it to the counter, she asks me about my multi vitamin. I tell her I don’t have one right now and she tries to sell me the gnc brand capsules. I’m debating whether to buy it or not and look over it.

So we talk and we end up talking about vitamin b6 and then she says this, “Vitamin b6 is really good for you, it’s one of your amino acids”. After getting over the shock of her stupidity, I tried to be polite and said “really? I thought it was a vitamin” and she replies “yeah but it’s also an amino acid”. If anyone else has an stories like this please share.

yea, GNC clerks push GNC brand vitamins like it’s crack, they get a fatter commission off GNC products.

I like going in and just asking random questions and pretend like I don’t know about anything. Funny things I’ve heard:

-Kids under 18 shouldn’t supplement with protein (o, so that chicken breast my little brother just ate was dangerous? quick, someone take that bottle of milk out of that baby’s mouth, HES GONNA DIE!)

-I say "what’s the difference between this points at GNC brand protein and this points at isopure ANSWER: The GNC brand is superior because it is made with more better ingredients (yea, MORE BETTER is how it was said)

-I say "I’m trying to gain muscle, what would you reccomend? She recommends a fat burner.

I try to avoid GNC at all costs, but my local GNC has shit ridiculously marked down because its close to expiration because they don’t sell shit, i have no idea how they are even still open.

We actually dont make better commission on GNC products. The thing is we get bitched at if we dont get atleast 13% of our sales coming from multi vitamins.

Some things I have heard by co-workers say:

When asked about the difference between multi vitamins and a fat burner “Our mega-men has more magnesium in it, which is a digestive enzyme”

“You should take digestive ENZYNES so that you can digest all of your chicken, you can only digest 4 oz without extra ENZYNES”

I worked at a GNC part time from the time I was 16 until I was 18, about 8, 9 years ago. I stayed up to date on all the stuff out there and also came here to this site back when it was just testosterone.net.

Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of not-so-smart clerks over the years since I graduated high school and moved on working at GNC, but there are some pretty knowledgeable people working at some locations.

If they paid their people more, I bet you’d notice the ratio of knowledgeable people to morons would go way up.

I remember going into GNC a few years back to buy some whey protein. The clerk asked me what my goals were, so I said (at the time) I wanted to gain muscle and stay pretty lean (I was naturally around 10% then). “Well, then this is not for you, this is for mass, not for leanness”.

The next twilight zone moment occured about 3 months ago. I walked in to buy creatine monohydrate. In a useless attempt, this clerk tries to make me buy the fancy creatine or something like that. I politely declined.

He insisted on showing me the difference, so I gave him a minute. He takes my creatine mono and brings over the “super creatine”. He shows me the ingredients of my choice, “look just 1 type of creatine”. Shows me the “super creatine”, “look about 6 different creatines, that are all better, see?” sigh… lol. I somehow managed to survive.

A little off topic, but while we’re talking about GNC, I heard Optimum Nutrition makes GNC’s protein, anyone know if this is true?

[quote]superthrustjon wrote:
A little off topic, but while we’re talking about GNC, I heard Optimum Nutrition makes GNC’s protein, anyone know if this is true?[/quote]

I believe they both come from the same distributor. The serving size is slightly bigger on the optimum nutrition brand and also it has lactase in it.

yea, the GNC brand says nothing about the Aminogen blend, but i didn’t know if that was just because it would be to obvious, or if even though its the same distributor it’s different mixtures and made different.

I know I like the ON whey and cant stand the GNC crap. It may be better now, but last I tried it it mixed like crap and tasted equally as bad.
If I still didnt work at a different supplement store part time I would buy the drastically makred down stuff about to exprire from GNC. Not the GNC brand however.

I cant stand the chocolate ON whey, for some reason it tastes a bit like cinnamon. I dont mind the taste of the GNC stuff. I think the quality of the protein is the same between the two, but the flavoring is different. Personally my two favorite proteins are Metabolic Drive complete and syntha-6.

Honestly, if you look at the majority of the people that GNC sales clerks make their commissions off of, they dont have to be very smart, because the people who come in there with questions are idiots to begin with.

That being said, a good friend of mine runs one and hooks me up on a regular basis, and he really does know his shit.

Expecting GNC employees to know their ass from their ankles is like expecting McDonald’s employees to be master chefs.

You get what you pay for.