Tales of the Mystery Shopper

"Let's play a game, Stan," he flashed a wicked little grin, tight and self-confident, "can you think of the one I'm going to suggest?" "You've always been partial to amateur turnabout," I responded, this was a game Joe had devised wherein a mystery shopper actually shopped other mystery shoppers. It had begun as a relatively harmless form of entertainment with Joe going out of his way to befuddle less skilled mystery shoppers in an attempt to force them inadvertently into revealing themselves, particularly in front of the employees of whichever establishment they were shopping. I say relatively harmless, yet I had seen Joe take it to extremes if he spotted a mystery shopper being unnecessarily harsh to a blameless employee. Joe could and would come down hard on sloppy and negligent employees himself, but he always favored the innocent. On one occasion he actually managed to have a mystery shopper whom he considered to be disgracing the profession arrested on the spot and taken from the store in handcuffs on the charge of shoplifting. I was never able afterwards to get a clear admission from him on whether or not he had actually planted items on the unfortunate mystery shopper, but with his background in magic and sleight of hand he certainly possessed the ability. The charges were later dropped when he declined to testify. Though what began as a game soon turned into a valuable niche profession within the larger mystery shopper industry, that of mystery shopper supervision. And it was Joe who had pioneered its development. However, that was not part of our assignment tonight. We were merely to complement all the other mystery shoppers who had been contracted for the grand opening. The particular agency which had contracted Joe for this event had informed me they already had someone signed on for the 'supervise,' as it was know, but they wouldn't tell me who, only that it was an industry veteran. I could well pull up half a dozen names off the top of my head, and they were all good professionals, don't get me wrong, just not in Joe's class.