I have to say first that I love gas station audits and though I do several every week for the past couple months I have yet to encounter any issues....until yesterday. Almost all my audits have been through Maritz and have found all the owners/staff to be accomodating and pleasant so far. I had one francishee volunteer that they have meetings with corporate to educate them about the audits and changes that occur in each cycle. I found I enjoyed these so much however that I am now waiting for my rotation cycle to come up to do the same locations again so decided to branch out and sign up with another company. I was a little worried when I saw the 40 pg instruction form, but realized that much of it was just instruction, however this audit was more involved than usual and was new to me so I was on a time crunch to get done and to the next shop in my route.
As usual I completed the mystery part first and after I did that and just by briefly looking around I could tell it was going to be a long day photographing violations. I attempted to introduce myself to the employee to get my visit authorized and he looked suddenly like he was going to be ill. His pupils got large, he started stuttering and suddenly whipped out a cellphone to call the boss. After a good 5 minutes of him talking urgently in another language he stopped and shoves the phone at me. I introduced myself to the owner and got a terse and angry. "It's sunday. You go home and come back tomorrow!". I tried to be professional and polite and explained that sunday was an appropriate day to do a site visit and I could not come back at another time. I explained that the clerk should read the letter of authorization after the owner demanded several times I give a business card and ID. The owner finally agreed to the audit, but then the clerk didn't want to sign the site visit paperwork. I was trying to be nice because he was obviously panicky, but finally had to tell him I needed him to sign the paper immediately or I would report this as a refusal and be on my way. Truthfully I was just hoping he would refuse and save me some time because I don't think there was any way they could pass anyway. All that took at least 30 minutes and then I still has an hour on site due to having to photograph NUMEROUS violations. The clerk basically ignored all customers after that as he was busy running around after me and whenever I would take my camera out to photograph anything he would be on the cellphone again. My only saving grace is that their restroom was not public but for employees only so I did not have to photograph it. I am now thinking of just staying with Maritz for a while, though I know this situation could happen anywhere.