I woke up this Monday morning and had all my ducks in a row. Paperwork was in my trusty red 3 ring binder and my day of airport shops was all set. If you've never done these, they're kind of neat. I buy a fully refundable ticket which lets me get past security. I'm scheduled a minimum of 3 hours. Scheduled 6 shops with 4 different MSPs. A credit card kiosk, a gadget place, sports shop, bar, and 2 restaurants, total $110. + $40. reimbursements.

My order of business is determined by daypart and concourse. My highest paying job, the credit card kiosk, is great. No employees showed up to work! Piece of cake report, just notifying the MSP of times, etc. Back and forth to this kiosk watching for employees, I did the bar shop, which required ordering a particular beer. The hard part was trying to drink at least some of it before lunch.

Everything's going great. Next is restaurant #1. Ordered my food and got a table in the food court that was great for observations, and making notes. As I'm enjoying the slight buzz from beer on an empty stomach, and starting to eat my 1st lunch, a man walks toward me with his tray to empty in the trash, which was directly behind me. He coughed, covered his mouth with one hand, at the same time as a child lost control of his bouncy ball, which landed on the man's plate, propelling it upwards off the tray. The next thing I knew, I was wearing barbequed brisket, creamed spinach and blueberry (?) something. Gross doesn't begin to cover it. The left side of my hair! The sleeve and back of my light blue sweater. Apologies and offers of help abound. I'm a mess, I stink, and I still have work to do. I gathered up my purse, stuffed paperwork into my "satchel" and hightailed it to the restroom.

There's just so much I could do. I looked a mess and still smelled. Trying to complete my remaining shops, I'm wondering how to blend in and not be spotted as a shopper. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I got through them, somehow. I'm sure there are morals to the story, and lessons to be learned. After getting home, cleaning up and working on reports, I get one question to be read only by corporate "Is there anything that would make our employees suspect you were a mystery shopper?" . . . My answer could have been phrased many ways. I decided on "No".

I needed to tell my story to those who would understand. Would enjoy reading yours!

Congrats on one of those magnificently memorable and utterly humiliating shop days!

My best airport tale is of needing to do a shop at the end of a concourse that was closed except to outbound passengers. I didn't realize I couldn't get back to the main terminal without assistance. It was my next-to-last shop for the day. I got it done and when it was time to go to another concourse for another shop I discovered that the stairs had had their treads removed as part of concourse reconstruction, the escalators only went up and the elevators required a key. A sympathetic employee showed me how to reverse the escalators, but at the bottom were sitting the Homeland Security guys. Luckily I had known I would be in trouble so dropped my teeth in my pocket (toothless we all look a little dazed and crazy) dissheveled my hair a bit further and adopted that "my feet are killing me with blisters" look before I arrived to do my tired, lost and confused old woman number. Homeland Security took good care of me. They put me on the bus back to the main terminal where I was met with a wheelchair by another Homeland Security guy who took me to my departure gate where he instructed the airline personnel to make sure I got onto my plane. I never did get my last shop finished because I didn't dare leave the departure gate.

You're a hoot, Mert. Love the way you told it.

The moral of the story: Next time someone is going to spill on you, make sure it's just blueberry pie alone. Blueberry, spinach and brisket aromas just don't blend.

Mert--
About 8 months ago we ran a really funny thread about lost business cards, and another about absurd excuses for missing shops. Find them and get some good chuckles. Your story is right up there for laughs.

I went to an Arby's Restaurant and forgot I was at Arby's. I ordered a Whopper. I must have said it loud, because everyone in there looked at me. The cashier got indignant and said, "This is not Burger King, they are next door." I laughed about it later. Note I was not a shopper at this time, but thought this was humerous later.

iI was shopping a zoo, needed to evaluate the gift shop and talk to a couple of zoo employees about different things. As I left the gift shop I heard people squealing excitedly and some laughed. I kept walking and suddenly the crowd parted like Moses at the Red Sea. Running to and fro was Mr. Goat who had escaped from the petting zoo portion of the complex. (No, nothing got eaten in this story) For reasons known only to Mr Goat, he decided I would make a lovely girlfriend and decided to plight his troth. Since I'm already married and decidedly not a lady goat I declined his advances. I discovered that day that a woman who's somewhere in middle age and some 30 years beyond her high school basketball team can still run like the blazes when there is sufficient reason to do so. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I can indeed out-run an amourous goat intent on making me his love-object and in some select circles I am still known as the Goat Queen.

Hahahahah! I wondered about that moniker. :-)

In what manner did he propose to you, Cettie? And since MSF is a select circle, we declare you the Goat Queen here too.

Relate the one about the gas station guy with the rifle. I told that one to my scheduler when I was threatened at the pretzel store audit. My scheduler bothered me no more and paid me for the shop.

Yes, Dee, I was thrown out of a pretzel store. But that's another story. Let Cettie tell hers first.

I remember the pretzel thing. I remember reading it on another forum. :-)

I was doing a gas station shop, pump some gas, buy something inside then reveal and take a few photos. To start with they were located in a town nationally known as the "inbreeding capital of the US" which should have been the tip-off. It was a little general store that happened to carry that brand of gas. As I was doing my thing I noticed right off that they were a seriously unfriendly group of people. They just about had a conniption when I asked for the canopy lights to be turned on and I was told the electricity costs money and who did I think I was asking for that to be done. The woman snarled "and how long do you want those lights on for???" I smiled sweetly and adhered to my credo of "you don't want to get crazy people mad at you" and said "Eleven minutes" It sounded good and I knew that I could take my photos in less time than that for the canopy shots. As I filled out my paperwork I made note of the fact that one small item didn't work correctly out of all that I looked at. When it came time for the manager to sign the paperwork he snatched the papers and when he saw that note he rose to his feet and roared like a belligerent walrus. If I hadn't needed the paperwork to get paid I would have run a lot faster. He went bellowing into the parking lot shouting that it was my @#%$#@ credit card that was to blame and not his card readers, he also threw my papers on the ground and told me that if I wasn't off the property in 30 seconds he was going to shoot me. I grabbed the papers and said "It won't take me that long." Other customers looked horrified at his behavior which was bordering on psychotic at that moment and got back in their cars and drove away quickly. I jumped into my car and succeeded in laying rubber on a dirt road getting out of there. I called MS headquarters and told them what happened, they said to detail it to them in an e-mail and from what I learned later this information was relayed to the client.

Insanity must be a pre-requisite for managers of this brand of gas station because I recently did a shop in a different location in which the manager woudn't let me leave until he had screamed at a lackey to fix every deficiency on the sheet to protect his bonus. He had to let me go when the police arrived and said it was actionable.

Amazing! Was that the guy who chased you into the restroom? I Googled your eponym, and came up with 4 different states: GA, VT, WV, AR, and a tongue-in-cheek reference to DC.

I never have that problem with open gas audits, in fact a few of my regular guys know and welcome me now, but...

I told the story at MSF. This was a pretzel franchise, not Auntie Anne's. I had had to ID myself with my driver's license, a really stupid move on the part of the MSP. The manager didn't like my saying that the soda cooler was the wrong temperature, called the owner on the phone. He threatened to sue the MSP on Monday, to have me removed bodily by security and have my car towed. As this city has or once had a large Mafia constituency, not sure which, I got out so fast. What he didn't know is I had also gone into his freezer to check the temp and contents in there, and he wouldn't have liked that part of the report either.

I refused to file my report because the guy had my name and driver's license #. I told my scheduler the story of Cettie's gas station, and I got paid anyway, WITH ZERO REPORT. Next time one came up in another city, I skipped it.

Has anyone else ever been paid for no report at all? A first?

Cettie, we still want to know how the goat proposed to you. Can you say it on a public forum? We're all adults here.

The goat asked me questions best suited for the adult store shop. ; )


Alas, I'm not located in GA, VT, WV, AR nor is my tongue or any of four cheeks in DC. The second insane gas station manager is the one that followed me into the ladies room. I whirled around, looked him right in the eye and said "EXCUSE ME! I DON'T NEED HELP TO PEE!!" He backed away but hovered right outside the door. At moments like that it would have been nice to have a nice window to the outside.

Cettie Wrote:
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> The goat asked me questions best suited for the
> adult store shop. ; )

So he offered himself, the way dogs often do. That's what I thought.


> Alas, I'm not located in GA, VT, WV, AR nor is my
> tongue or any of four cheeks in DC.

Then you WERE NOT in the "inbreeding capital of the US." I Googled it, and the internet is never wrong about anything (as I learned in first grade in 1953.)

sneakers - I am in ARKANSAS and I can believe it regardless of the brand of gas. I did a gas audit in east Arkansas and it was a bait shop, grocery and gas station because the pump was there. As I drove up I thought about the shot gun story. I almost expected something when I got out and the pump would not work. Inside I met a very unfriendly clerk but I got my gas. I went back to purchase my standard coke and asked where folks fished around there, since I was in a bait shop/grocery and she said she did not know. I knew I was in trouble. I used to live in this town and it not a friendly place. I got the audit finished, got the papers snached out of my hand and was glad to leave. I said in the report I will not go back and told them why. I then called the scheduler and said make a note not to ask me go back to that town. They got a good laugh, I got a trip down menory lane and a reminder as to why when I left I never wanted to go back. Just in case there are a lot of nice people in east Arkansas also.

My husband has relatives in northwestern Arkansas and it seems a very friendly place.

I did an audit that was just outside a small town at the conjunction of two state highways. When I did my report, I remarked that the location was a bar when I was commenting about the lights being on in the game room, etc. The MSP could not believe it. I said, yes, it was a bar, and it also had a snack bar and outside it were the pumps because it was a branded station. I had audited it once before, but apparently I hadn't mentioned that fact. The clientele were men in the 60's and 70's who were discussing oil wells and ranching.

We do run into some strange ones don't we. If you have car trouble that is where you want to break down. They will all come help and if they do not have the answer they know someone who can fix it.

I once did a gas audit in a McDonalds. It looked like a station but on the inside it was all McDonalds. I went to the car and called the scheduler laughing,and asked what do I do. She had to look at the last report to give me an answer. fThe other reports mentined it was a McDonalds, just a station with a register. Come to find out McDanalds was a side part of the station. In small cities here that is not unusual. McDonalds had more business so the station moved out except the gas pumps. There is a gas register at the end of the counter for gas only. I counted the McDonalds uniform as the uniform for the gas clerk. Other than that the audit was the same as the normal stations. Except no restroom since that was MD's. Sometimes I wonder what stange places other ones of us run into.

When I sent Cettie's 2 stories to a friend, she said "You can't make this stuff up."

I was once doing a landfill shop, yes I evaluated a dump (and I already heard the comment about taking one so he beat you to it). I was to get rid of two bags of stuff and evaluate the service by the employees of the municipality, receipts for money etc. They were fine and things went well until I went to the edge of the pit to hurl my bags overboard. Just then a stiff wind came up and I found myself in the direct path of the fallout from an unloading garbage truck. I ended up coated with fine white bits of god-knows-what looking a bit like frosty the snowman. I was able to shake myself off fairly well so I didn't track it into the black interior of my car but I saw fit to wash my hands and sponge off my face at the first opportunity at the next stop--a nice restaurant shop.

That's when part two of my adventure began. In the course of washing my hands somehow my wedding ring managed to slip off and go down the drain. I let out a blat that would have rivaled the horny goat that chased me and I went running for restaurant personnel. Their response was a shrug of the shoulders and a "that's too bad!". I made more of a fuss and ran back to the restroom so no one would wash more water down there and send it out to sea since I could see it down in the U-bend shining up at me. Fortunately it was a newly refurbished restroom and I went under the sink to inspect the situation. By that time a bus boy came out to see what was what and I asked him for a pipe wrench, he went back to get one and by that time the waitress got the owner on the phone who made it plain that he didn't want anyone doing anything to retrieve it and mess up his nice new toidy. Of course I didn't listen and continued on, with the bus boy handing me tools as I called for them like a scrub nurse in the OR. I took the sink apart and there was my ring which went immediately back on my hand before anything more could happen to it. By that time I had drawn an audience who never knew that Josphine the plumber had reincarnated. I was always the little girl that followed her dad around and learned things as he fixed everything at home. By the time the restaurant owner got back to his place I had the sink back together and was eating a much delayed lunch. Try explaining THAT to a MS company.

You really are the queen of these odd MS experiences, Cettie. I wonder if you might meditate on these places first, and see if you can save yourself. I mean, you did see "Angie'! :-)

I think some shops were meant to be learning experiences and they were indeed.

I was doing a post office in a nearby city. I stood in line with about 10 others patiently waiting my turn and we were getting a little restless. It was unusual for this small post office location to have a standing crowd that didn't seem to be moving. We found out that the cause of the delay was an elderly woman, about 85 years old, who was doing her best to convert the postal clerk as well as the rest of us in line to her religion before she'd let the line move. She finally made her way to one intrepid soul who'd had enough and said ever so politely "I'm sorry m'am, but I worship Satan" and began growling and making some rather eccentric noises. The result was that this frail elderly woman literally RAN out of the post office, almost forgetting her cane in her haste to get away. Someone outside the post office commented later they never saw someone of her years run so fast down the street. Of course the story must have made for interesting reading at the MS company when they got to that part of the report detailing "anything unique or unusual that took place during the shop". I have had a couple adventures at the post office, when I get a chance I'll recount the tale of the armed state police.

Cettie, your life is one adventure after another.

dee wrote:
>You really are the queen of these odd MS experiences, Cettie. I wonder if you might meditate on these places first, and >see if you can save yourself. I mean, you did see "Angie'! :-)

Either Cettie lives in an area with a glut of weird people, or she does far more shops than the rest of us. Or maybe something about her causes people to react strangely. Maybe she dresses funny or has only one eye in the center of her face.

sneakers Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dee wrote:
> >You really are the queen of these odd MS
> experiences, Cettie. I wonder if you might
> meditate on these places first, and >see if you
> can save yourself. I mean, you did see "Angie'!
> :-)
>
> Either Cettie lives in an area with a glut of
> weird people, or she does far more shops than the
> rest of us. Or maybe something about her causes
> people to react strangely. Maybe she dresses funny
> or has only one eye in the center of her face.

Too funny!

Or maybe she has a wicked sense of humor and likes to use it while shopping....
:-)

Maybe she made it all up!!!

In which case she is even more talented

Sandra Sue Wrote:
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> Maybe she made it all up!!!


No, I don't need to make these up.

I don't think anyone could invent some of these tales. You have to live them! :-)

We've revived two previous threads of shop tales for newer members. They're filled with a mixture of truth, tall tales and downright lies. Have fun, and please add.