Secret Hopper: Drinking Undercover

Discussion in 'Article Comments' started by BeerAdvocate, Aug 16, 2017.

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  1. BeerAdvocate

    BeerAdvocate Admin (4,017) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    Staff Pooh-Bah

    When a Secret Hopper goes “undercover,” they are expected to order a flight, followed by a pint, and pay attention to 25 points that they will later critique in a report.

    Read the full article: Secret Hopper: Drinking Undercover
     
  2. B_Horne

    B_Horne Aspirant (293) Jun 12, 2014 California

    I was expecting to see a ton of responses along the lines of...

    "Where do I sign up?"
    "I will do it for $30"
     
  3. Squire

    Squire Grand Pooh-Bah (4,081) Jul 16, 2015 Mississippi
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    I want in. I'll even pretend to be a feeble old guy to throw 'em off.
     
    tobelerone, 2beerdogs and Harrison8 like this.
  4. captaincoffee

    captaincoffee Pooh-Bah (2,194) Jul 10, 2011 Virginia
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Is this an advertisement disguised as an article?
     
    blassor, moshea, eldoctorador and 2 others like this.
  5. NeroFiddled

    NeroFiddled Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,122) Jul 8, 2002 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    I used to do secret shopping for a large grocery chain and I got paid a lot better than that!
     
  6. Sabtos

    Sabtos Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,486) Dec 15, 2015 Ohio
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Hey, they're a half decade behind on my paychecks!
     
    2beerdogs likes this.
  7. Wolfhead

    Wolfhead Initiate (0) Sep 1, 2009 Illinois

    I thought the same thing
     
    LuskusDelph and anfield86 like this.
  8. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,837) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Super Mod Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Looking at their website, it is a little interesting... you get paid what they determine for the job but it does not include covering the costs (in their example, you get paid $20 and it costs $30 for the flight + pint - you lose $10). Also thought it was interesting that everyone is treated as an independent contractor.
     
  9. Sabtos

    Sabtos Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,486) Dec 15, 2015 Ohio
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    God wtf is with these jobs? I tried working for a local newspaper, it felt like I spent more money on gas than I made on a paycheck and I wrote up to 12 articles a week. After doing the math, pay turned out to be $3/hour for the time I was putting into it, and this was a job that required a college degree. I was doing this on top of a desk job and just finally had to throw in the towel and get out of my actual field of study. Had to fully commit to the totally irrelevant desk job.
     
  10. NeroFiddled

    NeroFiddled Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,122) Jul 8, 2002 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    In my past job I got paid for travel time and miles to and from the location if it was over 10 miles from my home, and then I was paid for my time there, and the time it took to fill out my report, usually about an hour and a half. I was responsible for my purchases unless they were specified, as this is. Maybe the pay is enough for some people to look at it as if they're getting a discount on the beer they'd already be drinking. "Secret shoppers" coming into the brewpub that I used to work paid for their own drinks and food but got paid $150 each visit, and that was back in 1997.
     
    DonicBoom and Sabtos like this.
  11. NeroFiddled

    NeroFiddled Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,122) Jul 8, 2002 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    This is why journalism is dead - all of the people who could actually write starved to death! Now we've got people who can't spell and don't know what a semicolon is running the show.
     
  12. Leebo

    Leebo Initiate (0) Feb 7, 2013 Massachusetts

    Don't evaluate the quality of beer? Super fail, imho. Isn't that the whole point? Great service, clean bathrooms, helpful, knowledgeable staff all good, bad beer? Yikes.
     
    AZBeerDude72 likes this.
  13. rgordon

    rgordon Pooh-Bah (2,677) Apr 26, 2012 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Not hardly. There has been quite a bit of contraction, but quality journalism is very much alive. There is a bunch of crap out there- especially in the ether. Finding good quality, "real" news is easy to do. My local paper is excellent, but it is smaller these days, with lots of format changes over the past few years. I like reading Wapo, NYT, WSJ, and The Guardian, but what the heck......Lots of folks like believing the Pershing pig blood story.
    I would feel really weird being a secret shopper/hopper. Let's see if they make a go of it.
     
    DonicBoom and 2beerdogs like this.
  14. AZBeerDude72

    AZBeerDude72 Initiate (0) Jun 10, 2016 Arizona

    I thought it was cool till I saw the part that stated you don't critique the beers? Is that not what the most important part is, you can have perfect walk ways, perfect paint, but if the beer is bad who cares. I would be all in if beer was as part of the review as the rest but it seems for some reason they don't want feedback on the most importation item.
    LOL
     
  15. 2beerdogs

    2beerdogs Grand Pooh-Bah (4,878) Jan 31, 2005 California
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    I can see hiring somebody to do just as the article details. As a person who frequents breweries (I guess that is obvious due to present forum-:grin:), I have been to many breweries who have great product yet are seriously deficient in areas of customer service, atmosphere, and attention to details in general.
    Even a few of my favorite locales, one of which treats me splendidly, have some employees (their front line of customer contact) who need a serious course in the common sense of dealing with the public. So I can see using a service like this to specifically gather info to remedy these types of issues.
     
  16. bilbobrewer

    bilbobrewer Zealot (676) Jul 16, 2014 Oregon

    Someone else complained about transit time and expense, and yet another made a guess at what the reward equates to as an "hourly wage".

    You're drinking $30 of beer for $10....how awful.
    If anyone expects to actually MAKE money drinking beer...Dude. Give it a shake.
    I have some more bad news for you....that T-shirt you saw in 1982 that said "Official Boob Inspector"....that wasn't a real job.
     
  17. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,837) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Super Mod Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    I don't think anyone in this forum believes this would be a full time paying gig but once you get through buying the "required" flight and pint + paying your taxes (both employee and employer parts) + additional travel expenses, you are almost definitely going to be losing money.

    In addition to the visit and drinking of the beer, I believe that the secret shopper is responsible for writing up a "report" on the visit which will be presented to the brewery. I'm guessing that they are charging the brewery far more than $20 and they are owning none of the tax responsibility of the people performing the work (kind of reminds me of the flack/lawsuits that Uber has been seeing about treating all drivers as independent contractors) so I can see how they will be making money but it seems to be at the cost of the contract employees.

    I was more commenting on the fact that there are other industries that have secret shopper type programs and they pay the people... for the visit, for the work performed/report, and for their expenses.
     
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  18. BBThunderbolt

    BBThunderbolt Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,282) Sep 24, 2007 Kiribati
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    A place can brew the greatest beers, but, if it's dirty, poorly maintained, and has bad staff, I ain't going.
     
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  19. moshea

    moshea Initiate (0) Jul 16, 2007 Michigan

  20. nc41

    nc41 Initiate (0) Sep 25, 2008 North Carolina
    Trader

    Lost me at they don't rate on beer quality. What? That's really the bottom line. If they do everything else perfectly and the beers blows so what, it blows. I'm not going back no matter how clean, and how gracious the staff.
     
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