The Blacksburger

We’re cleaning out our basement (again) in hopes of better organizing our supplies. Running a store involves a lot of stuff like clothes racks, shipping bags and boxes, pegs, tools, slat wall, and a boatload of those blaze orange bags you see walking up and down Main Street. Previously we organized our basement using the Pile Method. There were piles of fixtures, piles of fabric, piles of mannequins, piles of boxes. There were even piles of piles.

You see we’ve been in this building a long time- from way back in the Partyrama days- so we’ve accumulated years of, well, crap. All of it is arguably useful- we might need a full-size decorative King Tut sarcophagus someday- but we’ve decided to let a little of it go.

Here’s a brief list of what we’ve discovered in our excavation:

1 hat tree

2 Santa’s helper suits

1 antique sewing machine

3 packs of fake blood

1 King Tut

assorted boxes of ribbon

1 bag of styrofoam heads

732 boxes of pegs

1 box of squiggly pom-pom material in neon pink

1 christmas tree woman- yes, a christmas tree in the shape of a woman

2 cookie jars

1 crock pot

2 space heaters

1 box of tiaras

1 puke-yellow phone

3 instructional videos for theatrical makeup

4 hairy spiders

1 porthole to another dimension

and Jimmy Hoffa.

So you see we can’t possibly have skeletons in our closets- there hasn’t been any room!  We’re actually overwhelmed by the newly found free space (and the YMCA will soon be overwhelmed with a truckload of weirdo stuff), so we’re tossing around ideas as to what to use it for. Of course “bar” was blurted out first. Followed by “ball pit” and “bowling alley”. I’m voting for showers and bunk beds. I think it would make game weekends easier if we just slept downstairs.

With the start of a new year and the lingering lackluster economy, we encourage you to clean out your basement and closets. Find a new use for that old junk, have an epic yard sale, or donate to someone in need. It’s liberating, thrifty, and green.

Unless you find fake blood. Then it’s more red.

We’re already a week into 2010, marking Campus Emporium’s 15th year of doing our thing. While we’re very proud of where we’ve come from and (almost) everything we’ve done, we can always find ways to improve ourselves, both as a business and as individuals.

As a store we always strive to stay grounded and connected. We don’t have customer service agents in India. Hell, we don’t even have voice mail (though we may work on that one). We don’t have scanners on our registers. We hand-write and fax all of our purchase orders.

While that may seem out-of-date or inefficient to some, we see it as a means of staying connected to our customers and our business. We don’t want to get lost in the cold technology of modern retail.

Ever been in a store where the registers “go down”? Not gonna happen at Campus Emporium. We have spares. They may ding, sputter, and click, but they work.

We don’t check stock in a database. We walk downstairs and look.

When you place an Internet order, your order is filled by Connie or John, by hand on the sales floor (you’ll meet them later), not a robot in an echoing warehouse.

There are just some things that should be done the old way. We aren’t Wal-Mart, nor do we strive to be. We’re a family-owned store on Main Street. We want Main Streets everywhere to survive their fights with big box stores, so we hold on to what makes us “Main Street”. Screw the new way if the old way works better.

That being said, there are some new developments in the world of retail we’re embracing. We’re slowly becoming more comfortable with this whole blog thing. And Facebook. And I think we finally figured out what “tweeting” is. We LOVE the idea of social marketing and interaction, because it’s just a new-fangled way of staying Main Street.

We can show you- through photos, videos, and blog entries- why we call ourselves “The Unbookstore”. You can see the face of the person who’ll be packing your web order. You can catch a glimpse of life in Blacksburg. You can get to know us- all ten or fifteen of us- and most importantly, we can get to know you.

“Campus Emporium” is a business. We try to make money. Most of the time we do well enough to keep everyone afloat, and we’re thankful for that. But that’s not why we’re here.
Our little group of oddballs is here for much more than selling t-shirts. We’re here to share and better our lives. We know that every person has a great story to tell that deserves to be heard- the t-shirts are just a way in.

I know it sounds all Oprah, but it’s true. Take it from me. I was rescued from a soulless job at a soulless company, where I was doing a soulless version of what I do now. We had scanners, and voice mail, and databases and SKUs and meetings and motivational posters and name tags- and ZERO FUN. The customers were nameless and faceless, as were the employees. There were dress codes and scripts and planograms. No one had to think and no one had to care.

Fast forward nearly four years and here I sit in jeans and a Hokie shirt with no name tag on. I don’t have a flow-chart ready for how we’re going to do inventory and we don’t have a pre-made Happy New Year sign package to put up around the store, but I wouldn’t go back to that place for all the money in the world. For all their planning and organization, they lost touch with what’s truly important- their community and their customers.

When I come to work here I’m truly seen. And heard. And when I meet you in the store, I’ll see you, too.

So I guess if we HAD to declare a New Year’s Resolution it would be to use some of these new-fangled technologies to stay connected with what really matters- you. It may not all be about football or t-shirts, but neither is life!

So stay tuned for some new things from Campus Emporium. Bear with us, though- we’re old school. In the meantime, talk to us. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, our Blog, and email (support@campusemporium.com, fanpics@campusemporium.com). Oh-and we still have phones. And a mailman.

Happy New Year!

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the shop
Not a person was stirring, all came to a stop;
The hoodies were folded and stacked with care,
The carpets were vacuumed (road salt everywhere!);
The employees walked home to rest in their beds,
While visions of bowl wins danced in their heads;

The owners sat down to a much needed nap,
With their beloved Basenjis curled up in their lap,
When down at the shop there arose such a clatter,
They drove right over to see what was the matter.
Through the front doors they flew like a flash,
Tore open the registers and counted the cash.

The fluorescents with their vibrating glow
Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to their work-weary eyes should appear,
But a maroon and orange sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a fat bearded driver, so lively and quick,
They knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

Faster than Ryan Williams his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As fast as the wind they tore out of the store,
The owners hoped there was no poop on the floor,
So high above Main Street the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full Hokie gear, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on my roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

I lept from my bed at the magical sound,
When down the chimney came St. Nick with a bound.
He was dressed in maroon, from his head to his toes,
With VT logos sewn all over his clothes;
A bundle of gifts he had flung on his back,
With a large VT logo on the side of the sack.

His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, had he been drinking sherry?
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a big ol’ beer belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his neck,
He asked me softly, “You like Virginia Tech?”;
I chuckled and said, “Nope, I’m a Wahoo.”
He grinned and bellowed, “Well, no gifts for you!”,
And laying a finger aside of his nose,
Laughing maniacally, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like heat seeking missile.
But I heard him exclaim, as he pointed at me,
“If you want presents on Christmas, then root for VT!”