What a horrible job
 

I was just going through the jobs on the job centre website and I came across this and thought this is a really horrible job.

http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/Inte...ref=CFB/108165

It basically involves spying on people at work and reporting back. It's like negative reenforcement to get you to work better. Instead of giving better wages they just increase the threat of losing our job.

Re: What a horrible job
 

No doesn´t work for me...

http://www.tomfoolery.nl/images/borat2.jpg

But it sounds relaxed. As in, not a strain on you.

Re: What a horrible job
 

Re: What a horrible job
 

Oh but that is a GREAT job and if you have nothing else waiting I´d definately take it. All you do is rate people. If they are good for you you rte them good. Assholes you rate as assholes. Simple and straightforward.

You actually are improving other peoples shopping experience with this.

Re: What a horrible job
 

I was a mystery shopper. I don't have a problem with it, as I've also been mystery shopped while working at my local supermarket.

What goes around comes around.

Re: What a horrible job
 

Most retail businesses will use them, and it's really hard to get a bad assessment as long as you don't actually insult people.
It's more to test selling-up and product-knowledge than it is anything else, and where I worked (two different places) the general state of the shop (where signs were placed, fullness of shelves etc.) counted for about 70% of the 'grade', while individual performance was the rest, and getting a score of less than 90 was quite difficult to do.

Re: What a horrible job
 

'Carrott and Stick'

Clearly there have to be some standards and I doubt you would support the following conversation:

Billy: Why is Sid paid twice what I am when we do the same job???
Manager: Why because Sid is incompetent at the job and I wanted to encourage him to work harder.

Re: What a horrible job
 

Re: What a horrible job
 

It's about the idea of being spied on at all times. I find it really creepy.

Re: What a horrible job
 

it's not 'at all times'.
The first place I worked had one every 2 months, the 2nd place was every two weeks (but was a 24hr place, the visits were to different shifts).

Now stop being shit.

Re: What a horrible job
 

But you don't know when you're being spied on so it could be any time.

Re: What a horrible job
 

We used to have a mystery shopper when I was a teenager working at the cinema.

It was more of a carrot system (if you achieve 20 ticks out of 25 from their list etc) though, as we'd get a bonus if it was all ok.

Re: What a horrible job
 

Maybe working in retail isn't the place for you.

Re: What a horrible job
 

You have to ask yourself if your firm is actively doing this is it the right firm for me to be working at?
Same time if I was an employer I would be thinking surely I am not having to resort to ths type of tactic to get my workers to go that extra mile?

I guess you could look at it as a form of quality control / auditing.
I noticed that the firm is an consultancy, So the firms in question that are using their services will probily be paying a handsomly sum to them.

Rather than doing inhouse auditing / paying higher wages for a better calibre of workers.

Re: What a horrible job
 

We do a mystery shopper where I work. The primary reason given is to audit the quality of customer service in a given example (i.e. the mystery shopper phones up with a real problem and reports back on the level of service they've been given). The secondary reason (which may have a larger impact) is perhaps to increase service by implying that anyone could be selected in such an example. I suppose the only difference is we use our actual customers to do them, I think they get £15 or some sort of voucher which won't effect their benefit entitlement or something like that.

I'm not sure I have a real problem with the process. If you treated a customer badly they'd probably complain anyway, and so it's not like you're normally working without "being seen" anyway. A workplace which got some shocking feedback (i.e. their staff gave terrible service) is probably one with abysmal morale, training, renumeration and/or management anyway. Then again any customer service type job I've worked in there was always a random chance your phone call would be recorded anyway, so I suppose it doesn't seem that strange.

It's probably not a policy I'd institute if I was a manager, but it doesn't seem to be much worse than a lot of other things that are done.

Re: What a horrible job
 

Get used to it. In the USA most companies use in house electronic survelliance to monitor employees, customers, and for security. Retail jobs can be monitored more than non-retail positions. At my Job for instance every keystroke on the computer is recorded and logged along with every e-mail sent and received and every website visited. The doors to the building require special electronic keys to get in where a security guard verifies that the person walking in the door is the same as the picture that just popped up on his computer screen. Each entrance is monitored with cameras that have enough resolution to get a closeup of a fly on the windshield of a car out in the parking lot. Do I find it creapy? Not really. I know that in the event of criminal or terrorist activity I could have those records subpoenaed if needed.

Mystery shoppers are less intrusive in my opinion that my own workplace environment. True that you do not know who the person is and the company is wanting to know how the average shopper is treated. Its not so much spying as its more about performance evaluation. Yes if the mystery shopper noticed you taking full boxes of product out the back door it is likely you would be fired and arrested very soon. But if you accidentally called a Mr. Miss or a Ms. Mister and then apologized it would most likely be overlooked. Basically mystery shopppers are going over a checklist in their heads of things they need to look for such as the proper sale prices being put on display or the greeting being used by store personel. They also check the cleanliness of the store and how products are displayed and stored.

If you are a manager of such a location then you have good reason to be nervous. Your livelyhood could be at stake. If you are a regular store employee then as long as there are no major blunders you have nothing to worry about.

Re: What a horrible job
 

why should it be a horrible job? the only time you should have something to fear is if you arent doing your job properly, anyone working in retail should always be polite and helpful to all their customers, so the mystery shopper should get treated just the same as everyone else

Re: What a horrible job
 

I think not.

It is just an assessment of shop effectivity and the whole experience.
If you want you can even bullshit them by saying it was fab.

Ofcourse you will be rated by a mistery shopper mistery assessor, who will follow you to see if you visited the shop at the right time etc.

Re: What a horrible job
 

No, T+F is right.

Our Mystery Shopper had a whole load of different sections on his "marksheet" (which we were allowed to see after he/she'd finished).

The "phone" section, for example, required you to say "Good morning/afternoon/evening, Odeon Jersey, Tom speaking, how may I help you?"

If you deviated at all from this (there was 1 point for each of the 4 bits there - so 1 point for saying "Odeon Jersey", another for "Tom speaking" etc) you lost points.

The "concessions" section involved us having to try to upsell everything and make the consumer aware of all special offers on with popcorn and stuff, even if they didn't really want to know.

There was a list of things you had to do exactly and if you didn't do them, you lost points.

It wasn't just about giving a decent level of service, as that's subjective and hard to quantify.

Re: What a horrible job
 

our mystery shoppers have been alright when we've had them.

but I really don't have a problem with the idea. If the questionnaire is stupid then the questionnaire is stupid, but applied sensibly this is an easy way for management to find out something that actually they do have a right to know.