On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:06:42 GMT, Windswept@Home (Jack) wrote:

Auto dealer provides a shuttle service while car is undergoing
maintenance. I held out a $10 note. "No, you don't have to do that
... I'm not allowed to take it."

This young man was no retired millionaire. He had pulled three years
in the US Army, with service at Guantanamo, and was now in the
National Guard. Maybe he thought that I was testing him and would
report him to his boss if he accepted. I dunno.

The obvious and to me most likely reason is that he didn't accept it
because he's not allowed to accept it. When someone accepts a job, he
should dicuss with the boss what the terms are, and if that is one of
the terms, he should abide by them or not take the job. If new
situations come up, if the rules are not tolerable, he should discuss
it again, or resign. That's the honorable thing to do and that's what
most people do. It doesn't mean he thought you were going to report
him. Very few people go looking for trouble like that.

And it's reasonable. He's getting paid his regular salary.

I have a friend who used to be a mystery shopper, until the amount
paid got too low. She would be hired to go into stores and buy
things, often to return things, and she was supposed to write down
(when they weren't looking) if they said hello, how long it took to be
waited on, etc. But she never was asked to see if anyone took a tip
when it wasn't allowed.

BTW, almost all of these stores were chain stores, and about half of
them went out of business within a year or two of hiring her. This
was one of their dying efforts to figure out what was not working
about the store. She usually dind't find much wrong, although
personally I thought many of the forms spent too much time checking on
things I thought weren't so important, like whether the artificial
niceness was present, "Welcome to the store. My name is Cindy" and too
little space, usually none, for comments about unusual or
exceptionally good or bad service. They seemed only to want to rate
the store as a whole, and not any particular person's behaviour. For
example most didn't ask the name of the person who waited on my
friend, even when s/he was wearing her name on her chest. Even when
it was part of the uniform.

Of course my friend wasn't the only one checking these stores (of
various kinds) out. They probably hire people all over the country and
even more than one person at the same time in Baltimore. She limited
herself to the part of the city reasonably near where she lived or
worked.

Starbucks is one place that didn't go out of business which hired her
frequently. (She doesn't deal with the store directly. They all hire
agencies that advertise, hire, receive the reports, and pay.) At
Starbucks she had to order a coffee and a baked good. They sent her a
thermometer so she could take the coffee outside and measure its
temperature. When I went with her, she gave me the baked good,
because she weighs just what she should and she keeps it that way.

The only think he accepted was, "Thank you for your service to our
country."