What is the most unusual shop you've ever seen on a job board?

I'm writing this because (still slightly stunned about this) I just saw one for a mental health facility shop. While of course I believe all business, especially in the field of medicine, should strive to provide excellent service and be held to standards, this just took me aback. I'm not sure if I am a bit horrified or if I want to laugh.

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What was the shop about?

I saw one that's evaluating the automatic billing software for a utility company. The strange part is that I have to give the MSC (and, therefore, their client) access to my utility account. Not excited about doing that.

The changing of the mannequin hands at the department store. Just seems creepy to walk out with just the hands.

On one shop, I had to offer a $100 bribe to a store manager to send a money order and not show an ID. She looked shocked and asked me to leave the store. She did the right thing, I got paid for the shop, but now I won't go back to that store. At least it's store I never go to.

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

@AlexG wrote:

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Love to hear how that goes!

@shopper8 wrote:

What was the shop about?

It was to see if you could get a referral, from what I could tell. However, you had to be willing to talk with the practitioner about your need (or a loved one's need) for help with depression or substance abuse. A bit personal for $20...

I saw another offbeat one today (different company) for eating in an employee cafeteria at an area manufacturing company. You would be met at the gate by a designated employee who would have to escort you in.

@AlexG wrote:

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Out of curiosity - what is the required purchase on this shop?!

Maybe it's a purchase and return!

@blessedmama wrote:

@AlexG wrote:

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Out of curiosity - what is the required purchase on this shop?!

@LindaM wrote:

Maybe it's a purchase and return!

@blessedmama wrote:

@AlexG wrote:

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Out of curiosity - what is the required purchase on this shop?!

UGH!!!!! Besides, who want want to return it after trying it?!! LMAO!

Liquor audit at a strip club. It was on a job board with liquor audits at nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. If you didn't know in advance that "Jiggles" (Not its real name) was a strip club, you would have been quite surprised(pleasantly? unplesantly?)

@blessedmama wrote:

I'm not sure if I am a bit horrified or if I want to laugh.

Is that the scenario?

@elcarev68 wrote:

@blessedmama wrote:

I'm not sure if I am a bit horrified or if I want to laugh.

Is that the scenario?

To be horrified? I think the actual scenario may be to be depressed ;-)

@blessedmama wrote:

@AlexG wrote:

Adult toy store. Picked it up but had to push it off last minute due to route being replanned.

Hoping it's still on the board when I'm back in the area :].

Out of curiosity - what is the required purchase on this shop?!

I've done this. It wasn't as weird as I thought it would be, but there were a few unique questions on the report. For example, it was the first time I'd ever been asked if I felt safe in a store and if the employees used the correct terms for body parts. There was no required purchase, but I did have to give a detailed description of what I was wearing (so I guess they verified with the survelience tape).

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

Most unusual would have to be a route of 50 shops where all I did was count the number of paces for the interior length and width of the store and count the number of registers.

@Kathy, that's awesome! Mine is just slightly different - there is a required purchase for this one.

But I have a feeling "comfort in the store" and anatomy are probably in the questions. If it's still up and I wind up doing it- will definitely post a note in this thread about it.

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

I've done both the one Kathy mentioned and either the same one or similar to Alex's. There have not been purchase shops in St. Louis and the store shopped is not so hard core. The one purchase shop at the hard core store had a generous reimbursement. The purchase had to be made in cash and we weren't allowed to ask for a receipt. This was a place where all the windows were covered and there were booths in the back where customers could watch movies. I was able to get a couple of funny B-day gifts that weren't even sexually oriented. That was the most shocking

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.
"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." -Molly Ivins
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it really annoys the pig.

@Lisa, we're thinking of very similar clients. I have a feeling mine is the same... type of uhhh.. "establishment". Breaks the monotony

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

I would LOVE to do a mental health shop on specific alleged professionals....I used to work in the medical field and have known people trying to get appropriate mental health care. I know of so many cases of attitudes and idiocy...the so called professionals treating patients like insane idiots and these are stories from reliable people who are proactive in their care..highly educated and intelligent.

There was a study done that showed that HALF the people diagnosed with Bipolar don't really have it. I know of someone that was labeled schizophrenic because she reported she had been abused by a male friend who happened to be a 'big shot'.....he admitted it 4 days later....but they insisted she was making it all up.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2015 04:31AM by jmitw.

The blood and urine samples shops are unique

I don't mind giving blood. I've done one of those shops. Those are the easiest for me.

I remember sitting in a certain fast food restaurant thinking that hell must be a lot like this place.

It was a long evening when I took on a bigbox store merchandising assignment, and was there so long I began calling the employees by their first names.

The absolute worst was the day I got kicked out of the yellow sandwich shop while measuring the soda machine, and the owner threatened to call the law.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2015 07:44AM by MelanieOR.

I did this one for the BMW factory in South Carolina. As I had nothing else scheduled that day, I then went on the factory tour and also the museum tour.

@blessedmama wrote:

I saw another offbeat one today (different company) for eating in an employee cafeteria at an area manufacturing company. You would be met at the gate by a designated employee who would have to escort you in.

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Have PV-500 & willing to travel.
"Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard." (The Fourth Doctor, The Face of Evil, 1977)

"Somedays you're the pigeon, somedays you're the statue.” J. Andrew Taylor

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." Galileo Galilei

@LisaSTL wrote:

I've done both the one Kathy mentioned and either the same one or similar to Alex's. There have not been purchase shops in St. Louis and the store shopped is not so hard core. The one purchase shop at the hard core store had a generous reimbursement. The purchase had to be made in cash and we weren't allowed to ask for a receipt. This was a place where all the windows were covered and there were booths in the back where customers could watch movies. I was able to get a couple of funny B-day gifts that weren't even sexually oriented. That was the most shocking

I have done a different one on the west coast that asked something to the effect of, "Did the sales associate put the toy into your hand, turn it on and demonstrate it?" No joke. They almost always did this to. I shopped this chain enough that it did not phase me at all. I even got a frequent buyer card. I put it right next to the grocery card and library card.

Hubby and I dd a 'paint and sip' class. The results looked like we had drank A LOT of wine!

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

@LisaSTL wrote:

I've done both

Why am I not surprised?

@James Bond 007.5 wrote:

I did this one for the BMW factory in South Carolina. As I had nothing else scheduled that day, I then went on the factory tour and also the museum tour.

@blessedmama wrote:

I saw another offbeat one today (different company) for eating in an employee cafeteria at an area manufacturing company. You would be met at the gate by a designated employee who would have to escort you in.

That one looked pretty interesting - I'd be curious to have seen the factory and the production line (if they let you tour it). I had no idea there was a museum on the premises! I'm "just up the mountain" from there yet never make it down that way, sadly.

For me the most unusual shop has to be the 'zero' fee, 'zero" reimbursement shop.

Don't ask for details, I just passed over it.

Happily shopping Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2015 12:27AM by vlade5394.

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