Pugh Street Unimart: State College Business of the Year

Oh Pugh Street Unimart, how do you still exist?

You have never been a model business. You hire crazy, angry people. Your stock is always low. You routinely run out of cigarettes. You give up your spot as the closest gas station to campus by taking out your pumps.

But now you've really proven yourself as one of the worst businesses to exist in a town full of terrible business strategies (see Crisp, for example).

I walk into the Unimart. The store is practically empty, as it has been all summer. But here we are, the day before school starts, and the shelves are still empty. The employee (who I know, but only through being a patron of the store) explains to me that they bought a new cash register over the summer, which was a "huge" investment, and therefore they have to wait for people to spend money before they can restock the store.

I'm going to keep my analysis short (as I've been told my posts are too long, which only adds to how terribly boring they are). First, the cash register isn't a nice, fancy cash register. It actually looks more like a kids cash register than to a top of the line, computerized register. It looks something like this:

If this was a "huge" investment, then this store is in even worse shape than any of us thought.

Second, this reminds me of one time when I was a kid and I spent my only 20 dollars on a wallet. It remained empty for quite a long time. I suspect the cash register will do the same.