Today is Labor Day -- a wonderful day to celebrate the people who work so hard and are so important in guiding and supporting mystery shoppers.

Schedulers work very hard to make this industry hum along -- and this is our chance to celebrate them.

As was written in the introduction to last year's contest:

"Their title may be “scheduler”, however most shoppers would agree, they are so much more than just that. Add advisor, clarifier, mediator, hand holder, forgiver, exception maker, pleader, defender and re-scheduler, and you may have made a slight dent in what the schedulers job truly encompasses. Simply put, the schedulers are the shoppers’ lifelines to the Mystery Shopping Companies. "

The "Scheduler of the Year" contest is an opportunity for shoppers to recognize those individuals who have helped them to be successful shoppers throughout the year.

This is a chance to celebrate the many wonderful schedulers out there. I'm sure they will all enjoy being acknowledged for their excellence.

The winning schedulers will be profiled in Mystery Shopper Magazine.

Please nominate your favorite schedulers here: [www.mysteryshopforum.com]

Rules:

Part I

1) Nominations will be accepted on the “Scheduler of the Year Nominations” thread until Monday, September 14th. Here is the "Nominaitions" thread: [www.mysteryshopforum.com]

2) Each shopper can recognize as many schedulers as they wish; however each nomination must be in a separate post.

3) Please identify the nominated scheduler by name and MSC.

4) Briefly explain the reasons behind your nomination.

5) After the nomination period has ended, a separate thread will be created for voting, with each nominated scheduler’s name in a separate post.

Part II
1) To vote, members simply “like” the post of the nominated scheduler. Members may vote for as many schedulers as they wish.

2) Voting will end on Friday, September 18th at 6pm PST.

Part III
1) After the votes are tallied, two winning schedulers will be announced on the “Scheduler of the Year Voting Thread”.

2) One scheduler will win by the receiving the highest number of raw votes.

3) One scheduler will win by receiving the highest total of weighted votes.

4) In the event of a tie, a random panel of three forum members, who have not posted any nominees, will make the final decision.

Weighted votes explanation: Each vote by members with over 50 forum posts count as two; votes by members who subscribed to the forum 1 year or more prior to 9/1/2015 count as two. For example, if someone has been a member since 2011 and has made 64 posts, each of his/her votes count as four. If they have only been a member since last month, but have over 50 posts, each of their votes count as two.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2015 03:13PM by JacobJ.

Just a thought, and I haven't gone back to see when last years' Scheduler of the year contest was, but can I suggest that the date for the weighted vote be done prior to last years' contest. I suggest that purely so that those who signed up a year ago at the urging of schedulers in order to gain votes and have never posted again will only count as a single vote and not double.

@bgriffin -- great idea! Done.

Must get post count up......

Quick question. Shouldn’t the shoppers who are doing the nominating “Like” their own posts, so that their vote gets in as well?

@goldilox wrote:

Quick question. Shouldn’t the shoppers who are doing the nominating “Like” their own posts, so that their vote gets in as well?

There will be a new thread started next week with a summary of all the nominations. The "likes" on THAT thread are the ones that will count as votes, not the thread that is up now.

Ah, yes. Now I see that one bullet point. I must be reading too fast. Thanks

What was the crimp in accurate results last year involving Kern Scheduling?

I wasn't here last year and just looked up and read the threads on last year's contest. Ugh. I don't understand why this is again a contest this year, instead of just a shout-out thread. Is the key purpose to increase forum traffic?

I think I'll sit this one out.

Kimberly Hofbauer from Coyle!
She has been quick and very helpful at clarifying requirements when needed

I would like to nominate Alan Juarez, the incredible and very efficient Scheduler @ KSS International, INC. Very consistent communications and reliable whenever a question comes up and needs to be addressed! Go get'um!

I would also like to nominate Alan Juarez. He is a very efficient scheduler @ KSS International, INC. I have done several shops through him and a couple involved some last minute work on dates and times. Alan was very quick to get right back to me. I enjoy hearing from him!

You might consider accepting votes from accounts that have been opened prior to Sept 1, 2015 only. Note the similarity in posts from new members. *sigh* Really?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2015 08:27PM by MrEToomey.

@MrEToomey wrote:

You might consider accepting votes from accounts that have been opened prior to Sept 1, 2015 only. Note the similarity in posts from new members. *sigh* Really?

This is a great idea. IMHO, nominations should be accepted only from those who were registered forum members before the contest started. That way we would avoid the massive number of new registrants who register to "vote" in response to a scheduler campaigning. Almost 100% of those who registered last year specifically to nominate a scheduler (at that scheduler's request) never returned to the forum.

I know that while I appreciate any votes or nominations for this honor, I will not campaign for it. I'll still do my job either way.

I think there should be an award for the MSC that has the most of their schedulers nominated. It is their policies that spur on the best schedulers, to me, after all.... I also think this because some schedulers may have much bigger markets. For example, I know a good scheduler, but he does not handle my area (Arkansas) at all. I have only talked to him once. Thus, he would never come up in my thoughts of nominating him. However, it may just be that a scheduler I also like, works for the same MSC and it is their very policies that encourage good schedulers!

Any scheduler who has worked with me deserves a medal! Lest I miss an important name, I will not nominate these talented and amazing people. I will just appreciate them here.

@MrEToomey; @AustinMom: As much as I understand your concern, I'm not sure how it's an issue in this year's contest. After closely reviewing the nominations, every scheduler nominated by a new member--one who signed up on or after September 1, 2015--had already been nominated by a member who had previous membership, except one. The one exception was a nomination for a MarketForce scheduler.

(heart)

I also noticed that some of the new members nominated more than one scheduler from various companies. I don't think anyone is trying to stack the deck. Welcome all new members. I'm happy to see you all.

I'm noticing a lot of nominations just have a first name and company. The reason I bring it up, in cases where the scheduler from a scheduling company uses just their first name and the MSC domain, some may not realize it's the same person. For example, Nikki at Summit. For the longest time I thought she was a scheduler for Ridgway despite having dealt with her via email for some other companies.

Yes, it is a problem to sort out. Even when I PMed someone asking them to clarify, their ambiguous post remains. You do the best you can, right?

@LJ wrote:

I don't think anyone is trying to stack the deck.

I'll have to disagree with you. Note the syntax of some of the nominations from "new members" (that will probably now change.) Jacob is smart, though. I'm sure he's logged the IPs and will see that five of six nominations for John Doe of ABC came from the same one. As far as stacking the deck, it wouldn't be the first time. It's pathetic.

Well then, the forum gets it's membership numbers up which is important to the forum's financial health in order to stay up and running. The weighted votes will help to ensure a deserving scheduler wins, so our long-time and chattiest members stepping up to vote will help a lot. Otherwise, it's just a fun little way of recognizing people. It's not like there is a huge cash prize waiting for the winner. Each year this contest brings in more people and lots of discussion. Agree or disagree with the SOTY contest, keep talking about it please - more hits is great! To borrow from Charlie Sheen, "Duh, winning!"

Suzie was late again! So, shout outs to: Kim M at Kern, Christa S at HS Brands, Andrea, Julie, Christine and Lety at QSI. These are the ladies that I shop for, and all are available, patient, helpful and respond to my emails quickly. Some have become friends, and I treasure that.

Since joining the IMSC, I have encountered many, many nice, professional and helpful schedulers. No one can understand the time and effort put into the site (maybe Jacob can) by Pam, Servanne and Jessie. In about a week, thru schedulers on IMSC, I was able to schedule 3 shops while I was in Savannah, first time I have shopped out of NV. Those companies were RBG, Beyond Hello and Goodwin Hospitality. Thank you one and all.