A few years back when I was manager of a dollar store belonging to a certain chain headquartered in an Atlantic coast state south of the Mason Dixon, honchos would assign me to secret-shop from time to time. One of the things they would have us do is purposely and outrageously provoke a clerk to gauge their reaction.
I thought that this was absolutely despicable.
Retail clerks have enough naturally occurring stress in their lives and on the job. They don't need some overpaid stuffed shirt executive sending people in to antagonize them even further.
I'm still in retail, and so many times I can spot these secret shoppers a mile off, it's sad. Some are real slick and get by me, others are definitely not. I can tell who they are because they follow the exact same script every time they come in. When a real, legitimate customer is unhappy, I know how to handle them and help them to be satisfied. It's the ones who literally go out of their way to specifically insult me and refuse every effort to make them happy, even when I'm offering them the farm, that I can tell are the shoppers sent in to antagonize. They use the exact same words, fling the exact same insults, complain about the exact same policies, ask the exact same questions about the exact same merchandise, in ways I can tell that the average customer wouldn't even really care about.
Let me say something to retail executives who send in antagonistic secret shoppers:
I curse you.
I curse you and your spies, I curse the filthy lucre blood money used to line your paycheck earned from the blood and suffering of third world laborers you outsourced your production to. I curse you to an eternity of hell working the complaints counter in a department store. I curse you to an eternity of injured backs, pulled muscles, high blood pressure, hand callouses, toe corns, and hardening veins in your feet. I curse you to an eternity of nasty people shouting profanities at you.
I curse you, executives.
[spit].
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