When a PhD student took on a gig as a "secret shopper" in order to get some "extra cash" they were shocked at how dehumanizing the evaluations were. They often found that the evaluations weren't in any way measuring how helpful or personable the workers actually were and instead focused merely on the retail worker's ability to upsell and force customers to buy products that they didn't really want or need. This, unfortunately, is commonplace in a lot of sales-based roles and companies will even fire employees for not lying to customers.
This thread was posted to Reddit's r/antiwork subreddit by Redditor u/DishsoapOnASponge, who shared what they experienced with readers on the popular sub in a thread titled "Recently started as a mystery shopper and honestly can't believe what is expected of these employees!"
Readers weighed in in the comments and shared their own experiences.
"I was once mystery-shopped at a Petsmart by someone who asked for help finding food and toys for her guinea pig," shared Rainyqueer1. "We had a great interaction, talked about guinea pig needs, nutrition, etc."
"80% on my mystery shop score because I forgot to ask the GP's name. My bad I guess, but…wow, I'm glad my retail days are over. I just don't care what your rodent's name is."
"I got fired from bb [Best Buy] years ago for failing a secret shop bc i did what was right for the customer," commented user ch4rding. "Good on you for realizing it's a toxic system."
Scroll on to see screenshots of the thread and reactions below.
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