A question of ethics or integrity

I recently accepted an assignment to evaluate several locations of a well known convenience store in our area. Unbeknownst to me, someone I am personally acquainted with works at one of those locations I had selected to evaluate. As soon as I discovered that this person worked for the chain, I immediately ended the evaluation and cancelled all of the assignments for that chain of stores.

My reasoning for this is that It is my policy not to evaluate a company where I am personally acquainted with an employee or a member of management. I set this policy to prevent any possibility of bias, be it real or perceived, either for or against a company based on said acquaintance.

When I cancelled these assignments, the scheduler replied by stating that I could only cancel the assignment where this individual actually works, but that I should continue to perform the assignments at the other locations. I disagreed with the scheduler and cancelled the remaining three assignments as well.

Was I wrong to stand by my principles, or should I have completed the remaining assignments as scheduled.

Shopping the Florida Panhandle and surrounding areas.

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For me it would depend on a few things...how well do you know this person? If it is your spouse or someone very close to you so that you might be involved with "company issues" conversation with them at home you could consider it a conflict of interest. Also it depends on what level of employee your friend is. If the person is in management they very well might be involved with other locations and you could run into them on a shop. If it is a lower level employee who would probably not be floated to another location I would think it would be safe to shop them. In this case the msc gave you the go ahead to shop the other locations so the choice is up to you whether you feel comfortable or not.
I know the owner of a local 3-4 chain restaurant. I have not seen her for years but she probably would recognize me and start a conversation if she happened to be at a location when I was shopping. The only location I do is their food truck since it is unlikely the owner of this upscale place would be slaving away on the food truck.
I hope you did not sever the relationship with this company by cancelling all shops especially if it was close to the due dates for them. You might send a nice note to the scheduler explaining your reasons once again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2015 09:01AM by sandyf.

I sent an email explaining the conflict, and so for it looks as though I still have a working relationship with the company. I also do my level best to schedule new places well in advance of the due dates just for this reason. In this case it was the grandson of a close family friend whom we had buried just the previous month. Unfortunately for the grandson, he has a rather colorful history with our family that taints pretty much anything he touches. This includes his current job. Had I completed the evaluation, he would have received some rather low marks. As would have the store in general. Another shopper might not have been as tough on either him or the store. Or, conversely, they might have been even tougher on them than would I have been. I guess we'll never know.

Shopping the Florida Panhandle and surrounding areas.

Considering your perception of this acquaintance with the colorful history, I think you definitely did the right thing. I'm glad it sounds like the scheduler understood too so you can continue to accept other shops with this MSC.

I would only have cancelled the shop at the location where the person worked. Knowing that person would not affect my evaluation any where else in the chain. If I felt I didn't want to shop that entire chain any more; I would have canceled the one location where I knew the person; completed the other locations this once and would never select them again.

It looks like the guidelines and general requirements for this client did not exclude you from shopping other locations. This means for integrity purposes you only needed to cancel the location where the acquaintance works.

As for ethics, unfortunately that is subjective in today's world. In this situation, ethics and integrity are relational.

My posts are solely based on my opinions and for my entertainment, contact a professional if you need real advice.

When you get in debt you become a slave. - Andrew Jackson

Obviously you should not shop the location with an individual who you know and about whom you have strong feelings. As a real customer I suspect your knowledge of that individual would impact whether you went to that location again in the future or not. If that knowledge would not impact your overall view of the chain and you would be just as likely to visit other locations as before your discovery, then I see no conflict in shopping other locations.

Depends on the company. I was doing a retail shop in which I saw a few of my old high school classmates. I completed the shop, submitted it then QUICKLY sent an email explaining the situation. Their take was.. since I didn't know when I accepted the shop, I was ok. I just couldn't do that location in the future.

Another company, I e-mailed them because I found out my co-worker's son works in the LP department of that store and I had a shop scheduled. They pulled me from that shop (even though I didn't know his son).

I think any honest shopper will know on a gut level when a relationship is one that might bias a shop. I don't know that I would pull the plug on a shop where it was a co-worker's child if I didn't know the child and the child didn't know me. The exception would be if the co-worker confided so much about their child that I felt I almost knew them and could pick them out in a crowd. If you have lived in any community for more than a couple of years you will see people you recognize, some of whom you may know their names, some of whom you may have chatted with in the past. My sense is that 'knowing them' on that level is a neutral, at least in my evaluations.

I am more likely to be biased against the guy who was such a jerk the last time I did the shop and here he is again, even though I don't know his name and we have only interacted on a previous shop at that location. I keep being asked to do a particular bank I refuse to do because the staff has not changed in 5 years and I keep talking to the same employee who is a gossipy jerk and no amount of reports has made a difference. When I could probably write the negative report with accuracy before I walked into the bank, I shouldn't be doing the shop.

There is a difference in an being friends with someone and simply being an acquaintance. In a very small community, you may know the faces and half the names of everyone in town. That would not mean you could not do a shop in that town because you knew someone who worked there.

The same holds true with shopping a grocery store. I have shopped a store that I have shopped at as a customer on and off for over 30 years. I know every employees face and they recognize me as a regular customer. I know a couple of employees names from many interactions over the years. This does not change how I shop that location. In reality, this location did not do as well as a location that I never shop at that is a few miles further away.

The only thing that may effect behavior is that they may react to seeing me as a regular customer and not feel the need to ask if I need additional help. They are still required to ask and are graded on that requirement.

I would have checked with the MSC to see what they wanted me to do. You can't be well acquainted, otherwise you would have known where they work. Generally you cannot evaluate any chains where a relative or CLOSE friend works....I shop a couple chains that neighbors work at, but as we are only casual acquaintances, I only avoid the locations they work at. With the one I could do his location in the evening as he works days, but I choose not to do that.

If the MSC wanted me to complete the other locations, I would, but if it was against my personal rules, I wouldn't accept any more assignments for that chain.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2015 09:24PM by jmitw.

@Laotzu1862 wrote:

In this case it was the grandson of a close family friend whom we had buried just the previous month. Unfortunately for the grandson, he has a rather colorful history with our family that taints pretty much anything he touches. This includes his current job. Had I completed the evaluation, he would have received some rather low marks. As would have the store in general. Another shopper might not have been as tough on either him or the store. Or, conversely, they might have been even tougher on them than would I have been. I guess we'll never know.

You were right to let your scheduler know of the situation and cancel this ONE location. Since the scheduler gave you permission to complete the other locations, you should have met your obligations. You said something about scheduling your shops in advance but it is the holiday season/end of quarter/end of year so deadlines have been bumped up big time. What you may think is "in advance" may not be for the scheduler who is going on vacation or the client who wants to complete their year asap.

As far as your preconceptions of this family acquaintance, maybe he/she has been a f-up in the past but people can and do change. Maybe the death of his family member awakened something inside of him and now he has a new focus of work and life. You have to report each and every shop on its own merit. So what if you had the same employee the last five visits. Maybe the sixth visit will be a turnaround moment, You need to empty your mind of any preconceived notions before performing a shop. Be Switzerland.

@scanman1 wrote:

The same holds true with shopping a grocery store. I have shopped a store that I have shopped at as a customer on and off for over 30 years. I know every employees face and they recognize me as a regular customer. I know a couple of employees names from many interactions over the years. This does not change how I shop that location. In reality, this location did not do as well as a location that I never shop at that is a few miles further away..

I was in this exact situation and I felt uncomfortable doing the shop. I live a block from the store and stop in a lot. I shopped it once but i don't think I will again. I don't think it's unethical, but i didn't feel totally comfortable with it. I live in a big city so i can go to other neighborhoods and feel more comfortable/anonymous.

I think it was going over the top to cancel every shop in the chain even after the scheduler said you would be fine to shop them. If knowing this one person works there would affect your ability to be objective about any of the other locations, then of course you would have to, but I guess if I were the scheduler I would feel that was unlikely to be the case with a reliable shopper.

We are all here on earth to help others....What on earth the others are here for I don't know.

--W. H. Auden

I am now trying to understand the original post. The first paragraph indicates that your first action included cancelling all assignments you already had for the chain of stores. The third paragraph indicates that when the scheduler did not agree with your logic for cancelling all of the assignments for the same client, you proceeded to cancel three assignments?

My posts are solely based on my opinions and for my entertainment, contact a professional if you need real advice.

When you get in debt you become a slave. - Andrew Jackson

I would have only cancelled this shop; however would take other shops where your friend did not work. Good for you to have your principles.

To be clear, there were a total of four shops. One where someone I know all too well works and three others.

Shopping the Florida Panhandle and surrounding areas.

Make your heart happy. Just now I am avoiding several local locations because I often go there on personal time and/or have discovered that someone I know works there. It makes my heart happy to make an effort to shop elsewhere, slash the budget, or otherwise avoid evaluating people and places where I am fairly certain that I would not be as objective as I would be in other locations and/or with other people. This results in less local and less efficient shopping money for me. I have to live with that. It might mean that a greater degree of objectivity fills reports that are submitted to clients by other shoppers who, presumably, are neutral for the locations and people that I am not evaluating. I can live with that, too.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

Earlier in the year I accepted an Aldi shop at the location I do most of my shopping. I know several of the employees by sight but have no relationship with any of them. It felt so uncomfortable to complete the shop I mentally took that location off my future list

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

I am a volunteer for a local group that gets donations to auction off. Two of the donors that I work with also get mystery shopped. I would never "shop" them since I could lose a good donor if they ever figured out it was me. I could not be impartial because I would not want to report a negative event.

I would have only cancelled the shop at the location where I knew the person. I actually completed an auto shop last summer at a location, where i knew the salesperson, just enough to say, "Hello," when I saw him. I did not know he worked there and I was actually shopping for a new car for myself. I did buy a new car in July, but from a different dealership that I had also done a mystery shop at.

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