The locker store-y
BEN POGGEMILLER STAFF
Many people have fond memories of high school. High school is where boys become men, girls become women, maybe some boys become women, and in some cases, where industrious kids can turn a profit (without narcotics). In any case, high school is what determines who we will be in our university life, and this is certainly true of me and my friend Tom. We learned more about life from our adventures with the Locker Store than we ever could in the classroom.
From 2002 to 2003, I had a job with a marketing company that other companies would hire to demonstrate their products. The lowly peons like me had tasks that included handing out food samples, demonstrating cleaning supplies and even handing out pencils promoting X-Men 2. The best weekend of the year was the candy fair, which is exactly what it sounds like. The absolute best part of the candy fair was that the employees could keep the leftovers after the weekend. Usually it was new or unusual candies being handed out, and thus I was left with an abundance of lemon gum and blueberry Twizzlers after the 2003 candy fair.
My extremely entrepreneurial friend Tom saw the potential for profit arising from this situation, and thus the Locker Store was born. The legality of our store was questionable, since the packages clearly said “not for resale.” Our first sales were tough, since the lemon gum was awful and the blueberry Twizzlers were unfamiliar and unpopular. After struggling for quite some time though, we made our first dollar, which was particularly memorable.
Things snowballed from there. We made enough money to buy 710 mL soft drinks after scouring through flyers for a sale, and we sold them for $1.25. Soon other students were offering suggestions for stock and where we could buy supplies. We found a small supplier of bulk candy, which we put to good use. Soon, we offered up to 10 varieties of chocolate bars for $1 each. We started offering a combo that consisted of a chocolate bar and a 710 mL drink for $2.
Tom, in grade 11 but already a shrewd businessman, kept careful accounting records and ran the store well. He was officially named president of the Locker Store while I was named vice-president and head of marketing. We installed shelves in our lockers to hold the stock.
By the end of grade 12, we had obtained cult status within our school. The workload became too much to handle for the two of us and so we added our best friend Dean as an employee. He worked hard for us and received full dental benefits which consisted of the following:
“You’ve been eating a lot of candy lately, Dean. Maybe you should go to the dentist.”
Through a contact of ours we had 300 custom-made Locker Store pens made up at horrifying cost but it was worth it. The pens provided me with one of my first experiences with creative writing when I came up with the slogan, “C’mon, we’ve got pens.” The pens were extremely expensive so hardly anybody bought them, but I still use them to this day for taking down notes in class.
There are almost endless stories of our adventures that will have to wait until another time. Our biggest point of pride, though, was that we had put no money of our own into the store. In turn, every penny that we earned went into improving the store. It was never about the money. It may not have been Google, Microsoft or YouTube, but we tried to show what two nerdy guys with an idea could do. After graduation, we ended up with a little money of our own, which we spent on school. Tom is now a management student, no surprise to anyone that knows him. As for me, the Locker Store encouraged me to nurture my creative side and adopt a “what’s next?” attitude. We had always considered continuing the life of the Locker Store at the U of M, but tensions with Aramark are just too high right now.
For more information, visit our old website at www.lockerstore.tk.
