Does anyone have to wait a really long time sometimes for a request to be looked at? I've had a lot of ten jobs with some companies and then I request a job and it just sits there sometimes for a week.

This is a frequently discussed annoyance. About the best you can do is pencil the date into your calendar to remind yourself you have requested the job. If something else comes along, go back and cancel your request. The chances are very good that the job has been awarded to someone else and you are being held as a possible backup shopper they can dump the shop on with no bonus if the shopper they gave the job to fails to perform.

Some wait quite a while to see who all requests the shops and then they decide who gets it. It is frustrating to need to schedule shops. It is hard to know if you should apply for others because you do not want to be overbooked. On the other hand, I have had schedulers get back to me in a days time. I do know many of them get 1000 or more emails a day and they keep up. So, I have no clue what to do about it. I hope some others here have some great input! Great topic.

Yup. It can be hard to be a scheduler. Especially if you start getting into people who repeat shops and are known to do well on them, I suspect some schedulers might even think, "I'll bet Shoppers A, B, and/or C will do it, and we still have some time....I'll wait a couple of days to see if they apply, and also see which other applications we might get." It can be frustrating to have to wait, but there are some valid reason for it which we really can't do anything about. Some people have said that contacting their schedulers to say, "If the shop is not filled by such-and-such a date, please disregard the application," tends to help, but depending on the scheduler and who else is applying, this approach could potentially backfire. Me, I just try to be as honest with the schedulers as possible. I also sometimes send them e-mails to say, "I see you are having trouble filling this job, and I can't do it on the specified days or times, but this is when I am anticipating that I could complete it within the next few days to couple of weeks. Please let me know if you would like my help." I have landed a few jobs this way, and it does help to establish your name in the schedulers' mental lists of 'interested, self-starting shoppers who are also good communicators'. If you send them too many e-mails, though, then they will probably think you're a pest. So, I only tend to only do this kind of thing with the jobs in which I'm REALLY interested.

I applied for something last night, and put on the application I need to hear by noon EST to be able to do it as I could fit it into a small route. I shop on my way home from work, or occasionally do a few on a day off, which is what I was doing today. Didn't hear.. shop only had a 3 day window.. Would have liked to have done it, but *shrug*.

I forgot to add this morning, a bad time for me to visit and respond, that I have heard back and the shop was awarded to someone else. Oh pooh, and then boom, I have received an email: I need this shop done today, Can you please do it? If not I will take it off of your list! Eye opener!! Luckily, they were very near by or phone shops. I always take them if possible.. a good way to be thought of by them. However, on the other hand, I don't want shops dumped where there are possible bonuses but this early there would not be a bonus.