Cettie, I wasn't accusing you of lying. You were there with a false name and under false pretences, weren't you? Hehehe.

While waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square on TV last evening, I closed out my books for 2008. This led to remembrances of the best and worst shops of the year.

Best Shop - observing closing procedures at a shoe store in a mall. Employees did precisely what they were supposed to be doing, from a bench in the mall nearby I was able to get the photos of them doing so without detection, the report and uploads were easy and the fee was fat.

Worst Shop - a home improvement shop where I was to get written estimates. The employee handed me a piece of paper and offered a pencil for me to note prices and do my own estimation and in the middle of the conversation when his cell phone rang, answered, "Hi, sweetie" as he wandered away never to return. I reported exactly what happened and the shop got rejected because I did not obtain the written estimate.

Best Restaurant Shop - a poetic experience at a seafood restaurant. The food was extraordinarily well prepared, beautifully plated and fantastically good. The service was attentive, polite and well trained.

Worst Restaurant Shop - a casual dining where it took almost two hours for a two course dinner in a restaurant only half full. Wrong entrees were served and the server argued with us that it WAS what we had ordered (sooo tempting to pull out the DVR and prove her wrong, but didn't). Even prior to the entrees we had needed to ask the manager who was passing for beverage refills as we waited about 25 minutes for the appetizer because our server was MIA in the area.

Best coup of the year - a menu 'collection' shop requiring obtaining all prices from a casual dining restaurant. Not greeted at the hostess stand so picked up a menu to photograph. My camera would not take a photo without the flash due to lighting conditions, so I stepped outside the front door to take photos rather than disturb diners. Laid out the menu on a convenient bench and started to take pictures when suddenly it started raining. Ran to my vehicle, menu in hand and went home, where I got great photos. Returned the menu the following day, thanking them for the 'loan' of it and telling them that my boss looked it over and thought it would be a great place for 'the farewell party', could they handle a party of 18? The host fell all over himself pointing out the arrangements that could be made. When I mentioned that 'my boss' had been concerned that there were no kids' items or desserts, the host found me paper menus of those items to take with me.

Biggest shopping frustration of the year - trying to get paid for 4 shops done for Datatron, three of which were nicely bonused because they required a 100 mile route to complete them. Of course these guys just closed their doors when they could no longer pay salaries and shoppers didn't get paid.

I am no where near as fast or organized as you, Flash, so I am a long way from closing my year. And then after I spent hours typing into the darn spreadsheet the HD died and I lost tons of stuff, 1 day before backup. Mad!

Off the top of my head, I think I can give these though...

Best FD Shop:
Morton's. I had to do BD or anniversary, and it really was my 10th anniversary. The service was outstanding, the food exquisite. QUITE a difference from the one time we had gone to the B-more one, got ignored and spent 4 hours there on our own money. Hula Grill, second; Kincade's, third.

Worst FD Shop:
Ryan's-Server greeted us and then did not return for 45 minutes. Flagged down manager, got server to take orders, both orders took too long and we not prepared as ordered (one undercooked, one way overcooked.) Manager again. New food, more wait. Free dinner (like it wasn't already!) Manager to get check. Wrote in report that it was the worst service I had received ANYWHERE. The report was a horror to write. Gordon Biersch, with the paper still attached to the cheeseburger, a close second; Roy's, third.

Worst Shop:
Getting shoe leather for a sandwich at Arby's and then having the shop rejected as I sent the sandwich back. Second: Bank new accounts rep who applied lotion to her arms, hands and shoulders the whole time she interacted with me. Third-Yard House waitress who spilled my drink on me as she passed, and then only said "sorry." No new drink, no dry cleaning.

Best shop:
Getting paid to take a one hour walk by the beach in Waikiki and interact with
1 cop and 3 aloha ambassadors. Fat fee for nice walk!

Frustration:
Getting my own dining reimbursement money and the contractor fees from Orilio and Freeman (the latter I still don't have-from APRIL.)

dee shops Wrote:
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> I am no where near as fast or organized as you,
> Flash, so I am a long way from closing my year.
> And then after I spent hours typing into the darn
> spreadsheet the HD died and I lost tons of stuff,
> 1 day before backup. Mad!


New year, fresh start. Nice thing with an excel spreadsheet is the stuff can all be resorted any which way and additional fields added temporarily or permanently to do whatever calculations you want Starting mid-year is a PITA. Dead hard drive is even more of a PITA.

My Dec work is now backed up both from the laptop and the thumb drive to the desktop machine. The desktop is backed up to a second, separate hard drive inside the desktop machine (not just a partition on the main drive) and currently the external backup drive is doing a full backup of the desktop machine that will be sealed in a ziplock and dropped off in the bank safety deposit box probably Monday, when the other external backup drive (currently stored in the box with June 30, 2008 data) will be brought home to use for June 30, 2009 external backup. I do so hate it when a hard drive dies and I have spent too many hours of my life trying to recover data after a crash. Before hefty external backup drives were cheap and available, I used to back up to an internal hard drive and pull it to bag and take to the safe deposit box.

HAPPY NEW YEAR I sit here reading all the comments and enjoy them completely. I say that because I do not know where to look for a lot of shops that you'al do or they are just not in Arkansas. Probably they are just not here. So I do my three PO shops and two gas stations in a day and call myself very busy.

Best shop was a FF that was perfect from the order to the food delivery. Everything by the book. I like those. Wish I had a gift for them like we used to have.

Best waiting on a store to open to shop was waiting in a parking lot next door for the store to open. I watched three bald eagles soaring over the mountain behind the store for over an hour. They would perch on a limb of a tree near the parking lot and then fly some more. I didn't know the store opened in that resort town 2 hours later than same store in my town so I watched the eagles.

WORST EVER FF waited for 45 min for my food. I watched them try to give the same sack to three different cars. Finally called and asked where my food was. I belive that is a NO NO but I did. All I got was a sack with a burger and none of the rest of it . I did not get paid because I asked where the rest of it was. Another big NO NO I got the rest of it at no charge but the burger was a rock the fries cold and the coke watered with melted ice. All that and 110 in the shade was the end of the FF shops for me.

WORST WORST

Again I was at a post office, lucky me. In the news pertaining to our area there was a manhunt for a guy that escaped from prison. He made a monkey of the cops who looked for him for over 6 weeks before he finally gave himself up due to illness. In true TV-show fashion he escaped by going through the prison roof with a can opener.

I still remember it was a bright and sunny Friday morning, I had dropped off husband at work and ironically a few miles downt he road got my car stopped and searched at a roadblock looking for this guy. They looked carefully at some big packages sitting in my station wagon and thumped on a few to see if maybe a man was hiding inside (it was the big-box shops I had to do). To their surprise the boxes moved around as though empty. I had to ad-lib an excuse so the cops didn't bust me for carrying empty boxes in their great paranoia.

I get to the post office and do my shop and was about to leave when a very tall state police officer walked in and matter of factly announced to the people inside "No one can leave we have the place surrounded". A glance outside revealed that there were about a dozen state police officers surrounding this little post office located in a sleepy little college town with their guns drawn. The drama increased when the officer told everyone to get away from the windows and one nutty broad started to whine and get all bent out of shape because she had to get to exercise class. One person told her straight out to just shut the F*** up which yielded some applause. We were stuck there for 16 minutes 49 seconds (the shopper in me doesn't quit sometimes.) They finally determined that the guy wasn't anywhere near the post office, it was someone they thought looked like him.

Between satan at one post office and a possible escaped felon at another the MS company editors tend to look forward to my reports, according to one of them.

Worst shop--a cell phone shop in which the clerk talked personal stuff on his own cell phone while supposedly taking care of my needs.

Best shop--anything I was not hassled about by the MSP and then got paid.

Most wasted energy --last week I opened a new account at a bank, and eagerly signed up for 2 teller shops. The second was in a downtown area. Got stuck in awful shopping and rush hour traffic, .and I circled the block twice but couldn't find parking. ( I can't walk too far because of my knees.) I finally found a space about 2 blocks away, dutifully did the shop, hobbled back to car. Got stuck in traffic again getting out of downtown.

Got home--the confirmation email for that one had never come. Hehe.

Deech Wrote:
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> WORST EVER FF waited for 45 min for my food. I
> watched them try to give the same sack to three
> different cars. Finally called and asked where my
> food was. I belive that is a NO NO but I did.
> All I got was a sack with a burger and none of the
> rest of it . I did not get paid because I asked
> where the rest of it was. Another big NO NO I got
> the rest of it at no charge but the burger was a
> rock the fries cold and the coke watered with
> melted ice. All that and 110 in the shade was the
> end of the FF shops for me.
>
>
These people are redefining the "fast" in fast food. In forty-five minutes, you could have gone to a much nicer casual sit-down place!