I've done about ten of these with the new MSC. Everything in Raleigh and Durham and close in suburbs except for some in questionable neighborhoods got snapped up early, but most of the rural ones have been sitting around. I've been getting them on my way back from doing other things (either MS or not MS) on Tuesdays and Saturdays, usually 3 at a time. I certainly would not go out of my way for
I think that the Shake Shack double cheeseburger is as good as some of the sit down burger chains. It's about $10.50-11.00 after tax, so it's something I only get 2-3 times a year. I am not a fan of their fries, but I do like their shakes if they have a promo going.
I don't go to Five Guys because I have a peanut allergy that has gotten worse as I have gotten older. Living in the South
I will do the one near my house for no bonus because it's only about 10 minutes of actual effort and I have a book to read. But I pick up bonuses when I am traveling around the region for other reasons. I've had good luck with locations 25-50 miles outside of Raleigh-Durham with bonuses in the $25-40 range.
I'm heading to Asheville in a few weeks to see the Biltmore Christmas exhibits, and
I saw that as well. Another higher end place from what appears to be the same ownership/(franchise?) group is available as well.
I did the JA a couple of months ago at lunch, for two of us it was $92 against a $75 reimbursement but this was a friend I wanted to take to lunch so I didn't mind.
One thing to note is that the JA closest to me is part of Resy, so if you have an AMEX card whi
I went to weekly boardgaming club with a bunch of friends from 12-3, picked up Cook Out drive thru for my main meal since I hadn't eaten yet, currently doing a load of laundry and a load of dishes, then some reading about destinations on an upcoming vacation to find activities should it be raining. And I will have Sunday Night Football on in the background although I don't even know who will be
@mystery2me wrote:
And, yeah, sun below the horizon for EM means about 40 minutes or so after sunset, when you can't even see a glow on the horizon. That actually makes sense, it's just that they don't bother to change one sentence in the guidance to make it clear. It seems like everyone who does these gets burned at least once.
That's what annoys me the most on various MS survey designs. The
I looked into doing these, and the guidelines were 20+ pages. Nope... I've been tracking the various gas station revealed audits in my area (three different brands) and none of them are being taken, while the various concealed audits of gas stations and C-Stores go quickly.
I've already had trouble with this MSC over poorly written guidelines on other concealed shops (for example telling me
Your local food pantry would probably like donations of those small Kleenex packs. The one I volunteer at has a "household" shelf where the neighbors can pick out one or two items each visit. I will have to remember that.
So I'm only 100 days in after fooling around with this a little 20 years ago. A lot of the time, I don't mind the driving because I'd be driving anyway somewhere, it's one of my hobbies from way back in my pre-cell-phone graduate school days when I'd drive 300 miles while listening to the radio and thinking about how to fine tune one of the algorithms in my dissertation research.
To me, MS is
Beef prices are definitely up. I used to buy 3-4 pounds of beef per month. Now I buy ground beef when I am out in the boonies every seven or eight weeks where there is a butcher with all North Carolina grown beef which has been vacuum sealed by the pound, and occasionally I will also pick up a single steak to cook for myself for dinner the next night.
I get my beef fix from doing steakhouse
Me too.
My former corporate employer had this happen twice in the 26 years I worked for them. Once was a staff shortage issue regarding expense accounts (our salaries posted but our expense reimbursements took an extra week) and the other time was a technical issue with the bank. In my employer was extremely well, capitalized and conservative so it was never an issue of cash flow.
Also far fewer photos. I thought I screwed it up the other night. The relaxed ordering helps as well when I am by myself. It's now a really painless shop and survey form.
They were the first shop I did when I got in MS a couple of months ago. I did a few for reimbursement only at first, for locations very close to my house. Now I pick up the far flung ones when I'm headed out for other purposes and there is a good bonus. The ones I did this week were $25 and $35 bonuses, they were each less than a mile from the freeway, and I had to eat lunch each day anyway.
They couldn't get anyone to do them in my area for Week 1. I got about six emails with different titles (Sports Night, NFL Shops, etc). It's not my thing and I have a Sunday 12-3 group I hang out with all year long, so I am highly uninterested in getting a complementary US Foods' precooked chicken sandwich and a macrobrew as my compensation.
Over on reddit, there were a few anti-corporate po
The ones in my area disappeared, and they came back this weekend and I snagged another 11. I am traveling this Saturday and looked at my destination, and there is a massive dividing line between "lots available" and "absolutely nothing" with a major interstate as the boundary. I know the area and almost every station along either side of the boundary (it's where I lived for over 20 years) , and
I had one a couple of weeks ago where the bartender asked us about dessert before we were even half way done with eating our dinner. My P2 laughed but I hadn't shared the questionnaire specifics with her so it was genuine. The bartender explained the entire mystery shopping program and said that she had to ask the question. Fortunately P2 is a trusting-looking older woman who was like "that's
I got burned on one a couple of weeks ago where the reviewer insists there is a C-Store when there isn't one. I complained but they insisted. The job is back up again and nobody is taking it and I refuse to do so.
I'm doing another 7 in a different part of the metro area tonight. My Bears will be losing on Monday Night Football so the drive on a crisp "false fall" evening with the game on t
I've done some stuff with Field Agent. $4 to photograph an end cap and scan 4 UPC codes on the end cap in a grocery store I'm already at is like finding a couple of dollar bills on the floor. I can do it in under six minutes, so I'm happy. But the instructions are really stupid most of the time.
I totally forgot that I mentioned that book here, I think it was in context of not counting the time I spent between photographing my meal and leaving the fast food place because I bring a book and stack the habit of reading non-fiction on top of the habit of MS.
One of my habits is to go out once a week (usually Tuesday morning) for a relatively long drive to a variety of coffee places and do
I hadn't been to TXRH for years until I visited one a couple of times with a friend. So when I started MS a couple of months ago, I jumped at it. Took a different friend of mine, it was a long drive but we had a lot to catch up on anyway so I didn't mind. And it was a weeknight so it wasn't busy.
Well, the bartender and the manager were so nice to us, and when the manager learned that it wa
I just finished Atomic Habits by James Clear. I haven't decided what to get next. I have been slowly re-reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte, so I will probably take that into this week's fast food shops. I read for about 25 minutes after I have everything I need except the bathroom visit, so that the staff pretty much ignore me.
But I need to pick up something for September. I
The ones in my area went in 6 hours. I noticed it right before I fell asleep at about 1am, and when I woke up at 7am and tried to figure out if I could do a couple that morning on a route to visit my friends at noon, they were all gone. At least 15 of them.
It was a bunch of companies for which the company providing the sticker was arranging for a discount. So it was a mix of fuel, hospital
Doing my first one this weekend. It's at the grocery store closest to my house that I'm in every couple of weeks anyway. The "What about..." question is stupid, but whatever.