Some of my Pet Peeves from schedulers:
1) Multiple emails about the same job, all sent within seconds of each other.
2)Schedulers texting/emailing saying "I need a shopper URGENTLY for xxx" but they don't specify when, where, and how much. Also, automated emailing saying "We have shops in your area." with no further details, are as annoying.
3) Schedulers emailing me from one MSP to tell me to sign up with a second MSP, when I'm already a member of the 2nd MSP.
4) Emails for shops that are no where near my area.
5) Scheduler offering a bonus, but when the shop didn't get filled, scheduler sent out another email, but this time the bonus is less....why...?

What are yours?

Your number 1 pet peeve is definitely mine as well! Seriously...I get at least 100 emails a day, and they are probably for 7 different shops. Is that really necessary??

My other pet peeve is begging for help with an urgent shop but not being willing to offer a reasonable bonus, or any bonus. Money talks.

Definitely no travel pay for an "urgent" shop, especially since in my area that often involves hundreds of miles of travel. I set up routes when there is time, but last minute shops often don't have that luxury.

Okay, I found another one tonight! Having a shop returned with the comment, "There were some oops, please fix." No other info. When I opened the shop, there were no oops markers (I thought it was impossible to submit if you still had an "oops," anyway). I asked for clarification, and was told I left out a name, "and one other question." The name was listed in my comments at least 10 times, and was also in the appropriate box. No clue what the other supposed question was.

I have replied with the .PDF of my original submission, and a screenshot, with the "missing" name circled.

If the scheduler deducts points for "having to contact" me, that will be another peeve.

@stormraven73 wrote:

Okay, I found another one tonight! Having a shop returned with the comment, "There were some oops, please fix." No other info.

If the scheduler deducts points for "having to contact" me, that will be another peeve.

Is it the scheduler who you are talking about or the editor? Usually, schedulers and editors are two different groups. When things are being edited and returned for corrections, and when points are deducted, the scheduler usually has nothing to do with it. Maybe this belongs in a different thread about pet peeves with editors.

The MSC in question is a small one. In this case, I suspect the scheduler is doing the editing. Either way, she was the one who contacted me.

@stormraven73 wrote:

Definitely no travel pay for an "urgent" shop, especially since in my area that often involves hundreds of miles of travel. I set up routes when there is time, but last minute shops often don't have that luxury.

Must whole heartily agree more often than not.

I work with some excellent schedulers who get it. Last month I called a scheduler from the highway and asked do you need me there? I explained what the biggest issue would be time wise and asked if I was allowed to refuse one of the shops if it didn't work out.

She had no problem with my request. Then I asked if I could get some extra cash to help with the gas bill. Not only did she say yes, she was generous.

Then there are the schedulers who will not get a hippopotamus for Christmas. I fully understand a bonus being lower if you're going to be in the area no matter what. But the schedulers on my 10ft pole do not get . Is their shops are a pain. They aren't available is something goes wrong. They do not respond to text or emails in a timely fashion. The shop may be relatively easy, but it takes forever to find a CSR. There are severe restrictions of how to find the non-existent CSR. And then the reports have no flow to write without massive cut and pasting. I will not get into how often the required pictures never magically upload to their end, but show on my end.

It's all part of the many joys of mystery shopping.

We as shoppers are actually lucky with our profession. We can pick and choose when, where and who we choose to work for.

Schedulers who will "get back to you" about a $3 bonus, then wait until the day before it's due to assign it. Um, no. I was being generous with the bonus because I was fitting it into a route. You snooze, you lose.

Schedulers who urgently need a shop filled so I respond asap and then crickets. Never hear from them again. Just say it's been filled people!

@PasswordNotFound wrote:

Schedulers who will "get back to you" about a $3 bonus, then wait until the day before it's due to assign it. Um, no. I was being generous with the bonus because I was fitting it into a route. You snooze, you lose.

Thank you! I recently contacted a scheduler for a shop that never gets done for less than $50 and that's what I offered. Turned down of course. If it has been shopped for less it's because the shopper didn't have a clue. I haven't seen it grabbed for less than $50 in months and normally it goes higher.

My question is why not take the bird in the hand? Last month I could've named my price but the town doesn't have a place to print the massive amount of guidelines, let alone the report. Alright that is an exaggeration, but it is extremely expensive because of all the color in the required printed downloads. It broke my heart. I could've called my other scheduler and she would've rearranged my dates.

I get it. Schedulers need to keep their costs down, but it seems ridiculous when the pattern has been established that they're going to pay out anyways. Why not get the dependable shopper?

Urgent shops needing completed, refusal of offering any additional assistance has to be my biggest. I was offered a shop yesterday and let the scheduler know that it would require $12 in toll booth fees if I were to take the shop and I asked if they could add a bonus of $12. She said she could not and pressed me hard to take on the shop. I declined and let her know that it would have been 30 minutes out of my way and $12 out of my pocket and that I could potentially pick up other fillers. Today, the same shop went out with an email offering $10 more. Really? Come'on.... and tomorrow it will probably be $15.

@MA Smith wrote:

I get it. Schedulers need to keep their costs down, but it seems ridiculous when the pattern has been established that they're going to pay out anyways. Why not get the dependable shopper?

Yep. The shipping shop company seems to be one that has changed their assignments to this model. When you know shopper A is going to get 30 shops done reliably for a total of $200 bonus, isn't that a lot better than filling the 20 that are easy to fill and ending up having to pay bonuses on the other ten, one negotiation at a time? Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

@PasswordNotFound wrote:

@MA Smith wrote:

I get it. Schedulers need to keep their costs down, but it seems ridiculous when the pattern has been established that they're going to pay out anyways. Why not get the dependable shopper?

Yep. The shipping shop company seems to be one that has changed their assignments to this model. When you know shopper A is going to get 30 shops done reliably for a total of $200 bonus, isn't that a lot better than filling the 20 that are easy to fill and ending up having to pay bonuses on the other ten, one negotiation at a time? Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish gets on my last nerve in my every day life. I will never understand the need to buy something that isn't what you wanted, return it, purchase the next item, still not what you wanted, return it and keep doing it until you finally end up purchasing what you wanted in the first place. I know there is something that says crazy/stupid is repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

This beeswax is rampant with the men in my family, It makes the females bonkers. 2014, it was decided I trade in my 18 yr. old Nissan Maxima. I needed a truck. I ended up with a Subaru Forester, that I will never love. I bought it brand new and it's been one royal pain after the other. Leave it to me to buy a Subaru that was a lemon, but not big enough of a lemon for Subaru to live up to the extended warranty that I said was stupid to purchase in the first place. Don't listen to the accounting major that knows the extended warranties are normally free money because of the rules.. Oh, alright, the vehicle never had a chance when less than 24 hours the male drove it and said..."I should've listened and got a truck".

I'll admit this month I had probably had my one of my favorite schedulers on the edge. I overslept. The next day available to shop I was living in my bathroom. The day after the nasty experience in the bathroom; I was on the road with a low grade fever. or one really long hot flash. I managed to get everything done. Took a day off and then drove over another 400 miles for her. Monday, I tried an experiment of taking the dog and spending the night on the road. Barring the mattress that was made of rocks and the temperature spike in TX, it was the best idea I've had in a long time.

My point is I have a scheduler who might be penny-wise but she isn't pound foolish. It behooves every shopper to work for schedulers like her so in theory this thread will go away like the dinosaurs.

Will that ever happen? Nope!

@stormraven73 wrote:

Okay, I found another one tonight! Having a shop returned with the comment, "There were some oops, please fix." No other info. When I opened the shop, there were no oops markers (I thought it was impossible to submit if you still had an "oops," anyway).

***Update***

So it turns out there was a computer glitch on their end. I pointed out the issue to the scheduler, sent multiple screenshots to back up my theory, and got.... Crickets.

After two days of asking if I should just resubmit, as there was nothing to fix, I checked my log tonight and it has been finalized. The comments are still on my log, and the score was left blank.

Sigh.

My pet peeve is a $2 bonus on a $5.00 shop.

@pammie8223 wrote:

My pet peeve is a $2 bonus on a $5.00 shop.

Why is that a peeve? $7 is better than $5.

Uh, there is no shop I would do for $7.

@ChicagoShopper wrote:

@pammie8223 wrote:

My pet peeve is a $2 bonus on a $5.00 shop.

Why is that a peeve? $7 is better than $5.

Because it's invariably advertised as "40% bonus!!!!"

Here is my foremost pet peeve because it's been happening for the past week and it is driving me crazy.

Completed 2 shops, received an e mail that 1 shop was incomplete. Receipt was not received. Surprising because the report was actually finalized. So downloaded receipt but could not finalize because one question should not have been answered, so said the form. So deleted answer. Not accepted. Turned to scheduler. Was told to answer it anyway.

Received email that it went through because the scheduler did something. Received email from editor that the other one which was finalized was incomplete. Went through the same thing. Downloaded and finalized. Confirmed by scheduler.

Received email that both were accepted and would be paid. The next day, the editor emailed that receipt was not received for one. Went through the same thing. Then another editor advising that the other location was incomplete because the receipt was not downloaded.

Went through the same thing. The scheduler confirmed that the receipts were not received. Huh? Requested that I sent them to her but did not seem to remember anything she emailed me or previous problem.

So, here I was again, downloading the receipts. And this time I said, "I give up!" The last time I heard, they had accepted one shop, the other was still in limbo and I had vowed never again to do any shop for them. If they still had no inkling that something was very wrong from their end, I have enough problems of my own.

Tiny bonuses - like a shop that is advertised for $4.50 plus reimbursement (ridiculously small, but that's what it is) and when they get no takers, they raise the fee to $5.25. Really? You think I wouldn't take it because I needed another seventy-five cents? Same MSC, calls me for a last-minute shop fifteen miles away and offers $9. I say, I need at least $15. He counters with, "Couldn't you take $12?" Come on, you need it done today, it's already 3PM and you want me to drive through 15 miles of traffic lights, rush hour and construction (both ways) for $12?

My worst complaint is that our reports must be absolutely perfect in spelling, grammar and punctuation, but the job offer comes full of errors that make me want to scream! "Shopper's" for "shoppers", "Discrete" when they mean "discreet", etc. UGH. What's sauce for the goose . . .

@risinghorizon wrote:

Here is my foremost pet peeve because it's been happening for the past week and it is driving me crazy.

Completed 2 shops, received an e mail that 1 shop was incomplete. Receipt was not received. Surprising because the report was actually finalized. So downloaded receipt but could not finalize because one question should not have been answered, so said the form. So deleted answer. Not accepted. Turned to scheduler. Was told to answer it anyway.

Received email that it went through because the scheduler did something. Received email from editor that the other one which was finalized was incomplete. Went through the same thing. Downloaded and finalized. Confirmed by scheduler.

Received email that both were accepted and would be paid. The next day, the editor emailed that receipt was not received for one. Went through the same thing. Then another editor advising that the other location was incomplete because the receipt was not downloaded.

Went through the same thing. The scheduler confirmed that the receipts were not received. Huh? Requested that I sent them to her but did not seem to remember anything she emailed me or previous problem.

So, here I was again, downloading the receipts. And this time I said, "I give up!" The last time I heard, they had accepted one shop, the other was still in limbo and I had vowed never again to do any shop for them. If they still had no inkling that something was very wrong from their end, I have enough problems of my own.

One company I work with (sorry, don't remember which one) has a quirk with its report. If you attach a document, save it while you are working and then go back in--it loses the attachment. You have to re-attach it before you submit. I noticed the attachments weren't there before I submitted even though I had attached them earlier.

You need to write to the company and tell them their web master needs to fix the web site. In this day of technology they need to be told what is wrong.

One of mine is when they are nice and you negotiate back and forth on a bonus and they assign you the shop. you look over the guidelines and shoot them an email on a question you have and never hear back. Its like once they have gotten the shop assigned they could care less about you anymore.

Well, I always download the required receipt/photo when I am actually finalizing the report. I am not a rookie to miss that at times the downloads do not get saved. And when finalizing a report, there is no way it will go through if you miss a question or Heaven forbid, a required download... Not unless the website is quirky.

Any system which finalizes a report to the point that it issues confirmation that your report has been accepted and you will be paid, has no business going back and forth. For more than a week, I have been downloading the items in the report and attaching the receipts in the emails, I don't know how many times. Funny thing is they have no recollection what they have done or what happened even when I forwarded their previous emails. I have asked them to remind me not to accept any shop from them.

Actually, today, I received another message that the receipt was missing from my report, right after I was told that everything had been received and they sent me my supposed invoice.

My latest annoyance...I started getting a daily text from an MC in the UK (which I won't answer) asking me to PLEASE do a dealership in Pittsburgh, PA....I'm in CA. More texts from a favorite, but annoying., asking me to do a grocery in my town in a hour (no pad)..... I asked him not to text anymore. Long standing pending or not hearing back (Coyle) is rude. I'm good most of the time, but the above is time consuming and not productive.

I would like to thank the OP for starting this thread. Sometimes we just need to vent, and it's nice to know I'm not the only one bothered by these issues!

Loved the offer I got at 1:00 PM to complete a shop that was six hours away by 5:00 PM same day. We'd been negotiating for three days already. The shop was four hours fifteen minutes away by Google maps, not allowing, of course, for comfort stops, wrecks, road construction, and hay wagons behind tractors. I said, "You realize, don't you, this can't be done from here to there by 5:00 PM?" They said, "Well, we could extend it a bit." I asked, "What if I have trouble on the road and when I get there this station is shut down for the night?" The answer was "Well, of course, if that happens we can't pay you." So, well, in that case, I can't go and thanks. In what world is Texas not bigger than Delaware even if the paper maps are the same size?

MA Smith, I appreciate both the moral of your story and the sense of humor you had in telling it. Thanks for sharing!

@MA Smith wrote:

@PasswordNotFound wrote:

@MA Smith wrote:

I get it. Schedulers need to keep their costs down, but it seems ridiculous when the pattern has been established that they're going to pay out anyways. Why not get the dependable shopper?

Yep. The shipping shop company seems to be one that has changed their assignments to this model. When you know shopper A is going to get 30 shops done reliably for a total of $200 bonus, isn't that a lot better than filling the 20 that are easy to fill and ending up having to pay bonuses on the other ten, one negotiation at a time? Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish gets on my last nerve in my every day life. I will never understand the need to buy something that isn't what you wanted, return it, purchase the next item, still not what you wanted, return it and keep doing it until you finally end up purchasing what you wanted in the first place. I know there is something that says crazy/stupid is repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

This beeswax is rampant with the men in my family, It makes the females bonkers. 2014, it was decided I trade in my 18 yr. old Nissan Maxima. I needed a truck. I ended up with a Subaru Forester, that I will never love. I bought it brand new and it's been one royal pain after the other. Leave it to me to buy a Subaru that was a lemon, but not big enough of a lemon for Subaru to live up to the extended warranty that I said was stupid to purchase in the first place. Don't listen to the accounting major that knows the extended warranties are normally free money because of the rules.. Oh, alright, the vehicle never had a chance when less than 24 hours the male drove it and said..."I should've listened and got a truck".

I'll admit this month I had probably had my one of my favorite schedulers on the edge. I overslept. The next day available to shop I was living in my bathroom. The day after the nasty experience in the bathroom; I was on the road with a low grade fever. or one really long hot flash. I managed to get everything done. Took a day off and then drove over another 400 miles for her. Monday, I tried an experiment of taking the dog and spending the night on the road. Barring the mattress that was made of rocks and the temperature spike in TX, it was the best idea I've had in a long time.

My point is I have a scheduler who might be penny-wise but she isn't pound foolish. It behooves every shopper to work for schedulers like her so in theory this thread will go away like the dinosaurs.

Will that ever happen? Nope!

Come on, take this shop please it shows that it is only 12 miles from your home. Ah! But have you looked at a map and not a how far directory. If you look at a map, you will notice the river that is between where I live and the place that you want me to go. Are you willing to wait several years and pay for the EPA study that is required for a bridge and road construction project.