Quality, customer service, compliance, off-loading unpleasant activities to a third party - these are some motives for the use of mystery shoppers.
We knew the store chain that runs one of the markets we frequent uses mystery shoppers. The manager once told us as a way of saying sorry I need to do this when we first showed up and she checked the bags and the cart.
But we had never seen one in action until recently.
Outside of commute hours and after school lets out are the best times to do minimum stress grocery shopping.
As we made our way through the isles, past jams, chocolates & cookies, bread and booze, we noticed her.
She was a young lady in her late twenties or early thirties, and there was something different about her. Nothing that would make most people notice her and pay attention, but then we are not quite like most people. If you have been in a line of work where you deal with strangers a lot, you understand.
She was very methodical about filling her cart, much more so than other shoppers. At the same time, she took in her surroundings in a manner only trained people do.
She was two customers ahead at the cash register, and we paid attention to the checkout process. The young man at the register did not notice anything out of the ordinary as she placed the items into the cart, not into a shopping bag, she asked a question about a loose avocado, he typed the price code and so on.
He was so oblivious, it almost became contagious - maybe we are just seeing things?
The moment he had moved the last item over the scanner and hit the finalize button, she calmly told him he had missed several items and asked for the manager. That's when his expression changed from neutral bored to stressed and alarmed, his cheek flushed.
The manager appeared from the back of the store, and she put out a hand and introduced herself by name. They took the cart, moved to the side, then to the back of the store.
None of the other five or six shoppers in line commented on what had just happened, and the checkout routine proceeded.
Leaving, we wondered about consequences for the cashier and talked about life in a minimum wage job.
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