I got an email from seelevelhx to for a shop where you only need to take pictures of the menu board. The fee is $6 dollars. The drive is 40 minutes one way. I replied back to the email that I would do it for $6.50 but they said they are not bonusing at this time. Shoot, maybe I should have asked for 25 cent increase.

Just curious, do these shops usually get bonused or do they mostly get taken at the $6 fee?

Dave, I haven't done the menu audits, but I see the emails requesting shoppers. They seem to go pretty quickly in this area, because I don't see any "urgent" requests to get them filled.

Why would you drive 80 minutes total for $6.50?

how many miles? how much gas...even in a new great gas mileage car...that could cost about $4 gas/wear and tear....don't know about electric.....

No, you're not asking for too much! Dam! I use to do them, but they paid $9-12 though. Hard to happy snap w/customers driving in all the time.

Dave is trying to bait us. $20 bonus would have not been out of the question IMHO.

I used to receive emails about them but they stopped coming. I just deleted them or ignored them. Come on, who wants to take pictures of menus for $6? Even as a rookie, I never thought of them as a stepping stone to something greater. I always wondered who thought up those ideas at that rate.

I did one today for $5.00, I took it on as a third job for the town I went to. But under no way would I drive 40 miles for just $5-10 dollars. it cost more in gas not even considering time and paper/ink printing the forms.

I have a shop nearby that takes me about 45-50 minutes to get to and I always ask for $30. It usually gets approved and for the hour of work, hour of reporting, and almost 2 hours of driving, I'm still not sure it's worth it. But it's a fun shop (what, those do exist sometimes) and I get to keep the item.

I fell for one of those photos-of-menu-board shop once. Required purchase as proof of visit, purchase not reimbursed. I was gonna be in the town anyway, so took it as filler. So I figured I'd get something off the "dollar menu", but no such luck. The cheapest item they had was about $3, and it was something I didn't want. Got it anyway, figured after prepping, printing, buying, I paid THEM for the honor of performing labor for them.

Never, ever, EVER again.

My former boss told me if you want to give to charity, that's fine, but never be a "charitable institution."

The purchase required ones paid more, one of the clients did not have a dollar menu but did have coffee and soda the was about 1.50.

The project being discussed here does not have a purchase requirement.

I only check for them if I am, or will be, in the immediate area. I also only perform them during off peak hours, so I have a short per of uninterrupted time to walk up and get clear shots.

I did one of these photo-of-menu board shops that also included photos of pastries, along with the little signs with the pastry's name, that were in a glassed in case. The pastry/coffee shop was dimly lit with LED light fixtures. Bright sunlight shone on the glass case through the shop's front picture window. The glass case was lit, from within, with fluorescent lighting of two different temperatures ( cool white and warm) and one of those fluorescent lights was focused straight at the photographer. Of course, all this photography was to be done in stealth mode which meant no flash and the glass case was right beside the cash register where customers would line up, right in front of the glass case. A photographer's nightmare. You have bright natural sunlight, ceiling mounted LED, cool white and warm white fluorescent, (pointing straight at you) all converging on this little muffin that is parked behind a plexiglass case covered with fingerprints. You ever notice how there is no single little icon on your camera that handles LEDfluorescentincadescentsunshadecloudy light.

The client rejected the photo because part of the word "muffin" was not sharp enough to read. I enlarged the word "muffin", sent it back to the MSC with the comment that its client should invest in a better monitor because I could read m-u-f-f-i-n on my monitor. What was wrong with their's.

I kissed the shop good bye but, much to my surprise, I got my cheque for $6.