In high spirits, smiling from how I had just been paid to get a whistle stop tour of the adult entertainment industry, I ambled back to where my car was parked. I had already begun entering some of the report already on the oh so handy app, this was basic information such as the date and time. I’d like to think what happened next was pure chance, in retrospect though I suspect my use of the app meant that I was targeted as being in the area and no doubt in a smiling mood.

My phone buzzed into life with the very same client I had just done the visit for, the staff who try to ensure all client visits get completed, known as “allocators” are often the ones calling trying to match mystery shoppers with suitable visits.

This allocator who shall remain nameless touched on the visit I had just done asking how I had gotten to grips with it, yes that was the exact phrase used for my recent sex shop visit, and being such a cunning linguist in doing so, further disarmed me and distracted me from the upcoming request.

They say the devil is in the detail and over my years of doing all manner of weird and wonderful visits I have learned that this saying is paramount. Some visits will want a gargantuan amount of information and work put in for very little in the way of remuneration, others will offer something amazing like say a 5* hotel stay or an international holiday which can sometimes be an experience worth 4 figures which make it an enjoyable freebie. The bottom line is that no two visits are alike and it is for the individual to determine if what is being offered is advantageous or if this is a bum steer that you will soon regret.

Now I’m not adverse to picking up poorly paid work, this ties back in with the point I made in part 1, taking on less than attractive tasks in all walks of life can often help others out building up the bank balance in The Royal Bank of Karma as well as building relationships. Such decisions are made with consideration of the time taken to undertake the work and what benefits it may yield. I generally determine thus by reading instructions and briefs from clients cover to cover and working out the time involved. There are a wide range of jobs that take next to no time to complete but require war and peace to be written up after, similarly some jobs are very laborious but have a simple tick box approach to the report which may only take minutes.

In this instance my guard was down and I was blindsided with having to acknowledge my location, this then leads to being offered work. I say offered, because in any walk of life when people call you up about any potential offer trying to sell it to you, it is generally because they are the ones in need trying to sell something to you, not that you are by any means lucky or fortunate enough to have been called.

One skill I have yet to master is the skill of saying no, that is not to say I am some pathetic yes man, but generally I lack the skills of saying no while maintaining a relationship as my assertive nature can mean I come off as rude and abrupt. While this is hardly a selling point to list in this blog, the flip side of this is that having done debt recovery and litigation I’m not one to be flannelled and I am a great blunt instrument to be wheeled out in times of need.

Getting back to the fateful call, I was asked if I would be able to carry out a pharmacy assignment, it was a very simple job where I go into a pharmacy, specifically one that was only a 5 minute walk away and proceed to make a simple enquiry. I was sold that the job was only 5 minutes and checking if I am asked a few specific questions before being sold an over the counter remedy. I would be paid £10 and reimbursed whatever the cost was as well as being allowed to keep the remedy.

I’m never a big fan of chemist mystery shopping jobs as you end up with cupboards full of weird and wonderful medicines or basic generic household items such as boxes and boxes of paracetamol and multipacks of toilet roll. It is not as if having cupboards full of these staple items will ever be of any benefit to me in the future.

Notwithstanding this if and when I do ever fall ill then I prefer to rely on amoxicillin prescribed by my GP rather than some form of Northern backwater homeopathy. The cunning caller engaged me in conversation about my prior visit and purchases and this further weakened my resolve, classic disarming tactics of my name were also used and I broke and accepted the job, as I was sure I could palm the purchase off.

No sooner had the call ended than the email came through, my fingers danced across the touchscreen of my smartphone, I looked at the postcode and sent this over to Google and within seconds a routemap with only a few minutes walk came up. I laughed to myself at how easy this was and what a great day this was actually turning into as I reset all the stopwatch timers on my phone for the next visit.

As I strolled over towards my next job, I browsed the questionnaire and things all seemed quite simple and straightforward;

• check for the speed of service
• was eye contact made
• was I asked about my medical history

This all seemed run of the mill with nothing overly hard within the visit. I then read the detailed section of the brief, this was usually a generic brief as they always are with image and timing requirements being edited with specific picture examples, I scrolled down to the specifics and felt a sudden unease rising within me.

I had totally been sold a bum steer here, there was no going back though and as I had agreed to do this I proceeded towards the shop.

The shop was clearly visible as I approached it, in your mind’s eye see the small little street it was on. It was one of those tiny little chemists that isn’t quite in the town centre but still in a built up enough area to get lots of footfall both from the local community and passing trade. I made my way inside to be greeted by a lovely elderly woman, the sort of kind hearted face that you’d expect to see at a charity tombola or as the poster as someone’s grandmother. I was aware of the several customers already in the shop within the two tiny aisles that compromised the shop floor, there was bugger all square footage with more privacy able to be found on a member of Love Island’s Instagram account. I was approached and asked if I was looking for anything specific or needed any help, I took a deep breath and braced myself before uttering the words I was paid to ask.

“Hello, I need to get some Viagra please!”

Yes that’s right, I was asking a lovely elderly lady about drugs needed to help with sexual arousal, as I stood there in a suit at 2 in the afternoon, looking like some kind of sexual deviant, all I was missing was a brown paper bag and a flashers mac. The little sweet old lady went from a well disguised look of shock and horror to one of mild disgust, her face tightened and she morphed into some hard-faced mean old cow and began barraging me with questions. I can only speculate over her motives, perhaps this was just how she handled stressful situations, in any case this woman had done a remarkable transformation and her unfriendly interrogation made the process that much more uncomfortable.

The following exchange was perfectly executed by both of us with the correct questions being asked to me and the questions answered all according to the guide I had been sent. I was taken to a private area to sit down and be questioned further, I say private as this was all of 2 feet away from the till and in full view of everyone else browsing the shop.

According to my scenario, I was apparently a man in his mid to late 40s who struggled to perform sexually. I have no idea if this was a grim glimpse into any future that may befall me nor do I really wish to know, I explained how I was 46 (hard to believe with my Eastern European genes helping me avoid looking like someone in their 30s) and 5 minutes of bedroom gymnastics was all that I could sustain.

The next bout of questions were covered in the brief, but as ever they only gave a very brief overview and I was not prepared for the sequence of events. Cerberus the elderly female pharmacist who was firing questions in guard of the medication asked if I knew if I suffered from high blood pressure or not, I explained that I did not know. The reason for this is that they are not allowed to sell Viagra over the counter to anyone who may have high blood pressure. My answer triggered an even sourer look on her face, she asked if I was aware that high blood pressure kills more men in their late 40s than anything else.

I remonstrated asking about what happens to the men older than 40, she told me that they don’t get there. I mean now, when she’s telling you that, your blood pressure has to go up for Christ’s sake, she’s just told me that I don’t have long to live! Without any warning or explanation she then takes out a little black box from under the table where we were sat at, the first thing that struck me was that the shape and design of the box meant that this looked remarkably like a small coffin. She takes out a black armband which she proceeds to then puts on me.

Confusion and panic begins to wash over me, none of this was covered in the brief and she explains none of this beyond her grim prediction of impending death and she then starts doing something with this contraption attached to my arm, my arm then starts to tighten with each hand movement, I am beginning to sweat and just want to know what the hell she is doing. She presses a little button and a hiss of air gets let out while a dial on a thermometer like device falls down simultaneously releasing the tension on my arm. “Ah yes!” she says with confidence, “You have all the signs of suffering from high blood pressure!”

Well of course I have you wicked old cow, you just gave it to me just then! A brief exchange ensued about my sexual activity that even though totally fabricated, was uncomfortable to the extreme. The questions answered to her satisfaction she then left me and proceeded to get my medication from behind the counter.

If this experience couldn’t get any worse as I was seated at the little table waiting for Cerberus to return I was greeted by a sales executive from a nearby car dealership that I was due to visit the following day, he was entering the pharmacy to make a purchase. As generally happens when you see someone you know but do not see outside of work you do the standard shock and double take. We saw each other and were both shocked and were about to make generic pleasantries, I never to this day learned what he was coming into the pharmacy for, he however left being very aware of what I had ventured in for, as well as being aware of my other recent purchases.

Due to the shock at seeing him at the same time as being told “This 12 pack of Viagra connect is £8.95 sir!” this caused me to stand up quickly in a state of shock and in the process of this, drop my bags from the last shop I had been into to make a purchase, as the bag hit the floor, sex toys, gimp mask and chocolate body paint all fell onto the floor and scattered in various directions. I scrambled around trying to retrieve the items as I questioned at this point if the small fee was worth the level of embarrassment that I was currently going through, it mattered little as the damage had already been done. This was a question I continued to ponder as I hurried out of the shop with my array or purchases onto my next visit of the day, and in a far worse mood than what I had been in no less than 15 minutes before.

I returned into my car and angrily threw the bags on the back seat to which ironically nothing fell out at all. I made my way to my next car audit of the day, this could only be done after 2pm due to the name of the location not just being anecdotal and the island part of the name really was an island. Said island meant that the single road in and out was tidal and as I had discovered before, going at the wrong times mean being denied entry to the island, or worse being on the island and being stranded there and unable to leave. I really disliked going to this location as it costal it was miles off course and very difficult to plan into any route, the added variable of limiting when you could travel there meant it was nearly impossible to route plan a day with this location where you got a lot else done.

With multiple pockets of 4G signal and DAB radio blackspots as we ventured further and further away from society, I skipped through my CD collection and immersed myself in 90s Eurodance to while away the boring drive.

My mood was just about back to normal as I approached the car park and it improved slightly with the realisation that there were ample car parking spaces before the reality hit me. Not only were there no other cars parked, there was not a great lot of anything else around apart from security fencing. The manufacturers sign removed and all remnants of life removed from inside the showroom. I called my operations manager to question what had happened to be me with a somewhat sheepish and apologetic explanation how the site had been closed for the past 6 months and should have been deleted from the location list, but this had been overlooked when allocating me my usual 3 months of work.

This is where the uncomfortable conversation comes into play as without any work actually being undertaken, the company I work for do not bill their client and thus there is nothing to pay me. It is a judgement call on whether you choose to force the issue of wanting a partial payment for still being sent on a fool’s errand wasting your time and petrol or if in the interests of goodwill you let it slide. I quickly assessed the situation and after the dildo Viagra incident of the previous visit that was no doubt going to be the talk of the water cooler at the car dealer I had to visit tomorrow, I figured my bad mood influencing my behaviour may well win me this payment but would likely undo 3 years’ worth of positive relationship building with my account manager, as a result I agreed to no payment but made a subtle comment about wanting points for my cooperation, mentally filing this for the next time I needed leeway.

With today fast morphing from the cure to cancer into the cause of Aids I made my way to what I had appointed my final visit of the day ready to draw a line under this calamitous day. This was a new project and something of an interesting one. It was an audit of sorts with a twist, there was no financial penalty for not doing well but rather a reward for doing something outstanding, think more carrot and less stick.

This was funded by the industry and showcased independent retailers and their innovation ideas, so that these could be shared with other retailers so everyone nationwide could leverage their skills and experience. There exists a misconception that smaller independent retailers are somehow inferior to the big national giants of Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda and Morrisons. In reality all ideas tend to come from a single person or innovation, the larger chains just have bigger teams to collect, collate and analyse data and then replicate successes, far quicker than a one man band running his own business acting as CEO, Human Resources manager, accountant, credit controller and security all rolled into one.

The innovations at a smaller shop can be harder to grasp as successful without seeing the bigger picture, for example if we look at the new Coke Energy – a vile tasting drink I encourage you all to avoid unless you enjoy the nostalgic taste of Happy Shopper 19p Cola your parents insisted on giving you during the hot summer months.

If we have a shopkeeper who maybe only sells 2 cans of this hideous concoction a day, he might try a new point of sale fridge next to his tills and his sales jump to 10 cans a day. It is hard to gross this figure up and see if that is a real 5 fold increase in sales or if he has just triggered 8 lazy shoppers into making an impulse purchase.

There was a certain kinship that I felt with the little one man band, as such this helped raised my spirits after vibrators and Viagra earlier. I parked up and made sure my purchases were secreted away from the back seat and into the boot before putting on my most professional looking face and making my way to the shop to introduce myself.

Something that I should try to convey here is that in a role where I am only seen once every few months or maybe once a year, from the staff working at the sharp end I can often be seen as an important figure. The kind of person whose decisions carry significant weight and who has influence to approve or lambaste whatever I saw when doing a compliance check. While it is quite the ego boost to walk in and to be revered and respected, in truth I am quite humble. I am a relative nobody simply paid to do all the donkey work, while I may report into senior people within business and my opinions are listened to, the final decisions are not mine. To this end I try to convey a sense of professionalism but without being arrogant and condescending. I am no more important than the receptionist, cleaner or any other manual worker I encounter and it is crucial to remember that and never convey a sense of arrogance about my position, after all you never know what is around the corner and how life can deal you radical shifts and reversals of fortune. Today’s auditor may well end up being tomorrow’s toilet cleaner.

That said, I do however have an ego the size of Zone 1 and with a Mensa graded genius IQ in the 99^th percentile making me smarter than 65 million other folks in the UK (yes I do like to plug that fact) then you can develop a superiority complex about your abilities. This is a tricky tightrope to walk by not coming off as a total tool with a sense of self importance but at the same time being able to confidently suggest and produce workable ideas, to put this in context folks if you could ever download and play what goes on in my mind’s eye as a HD movie when entering any business it would be something like this.

You’d see my 3rd person point of view with me walking into a business with a gracious yet commanding stride, all the staff turning to look at me in awe as I try to acknowledge them with eye contact and a slight head tilt, trying to smile at everyone around me, all in slow motion with Chariots of Fire playing as the backing music.

The point to this little ego stroking revelation is that in this particular shop, there were staff I had to interview with a few questions to see how well they knew the customer values of their stores, what their own ideas were and how they treated customers in certain scenarios. Having started off as a low level retailer worker myself, I was petrified whenever what I dubbed as suits came into work.

By suits, I meant a head office or official type figure. They came in without warning and started looking around, asking questions and generally putting everyone on edge as they seemed to hold the fate of everyone’s jobs in the balance, including the manager. This in turn meant the managers were on edge and stressed and barked at the staff even more through a trickle down effect.

For a long time I held visiting suits in some sort of reverence and was very nervous of insulting or upsetting them. This behaviour being displayed is something I understand when I see it from the other side now as a suit. One of the staff that I had to interview was a young lad called Liam who had Autism, this was clear a few minutes into the interview and I was informed of this by the store owner.

My unexpected questions had left him quite unnerved and he was looking at me in my cheap Debenhams Jasper Conran grey waistcoat suit combo, with the same fear that I used to look at suits when I was in his role.

Once my work was complete and I took away lots of valuable insights, shared my own knowledge and insights with the owner about the customer journey, products placements and how to maximise sales with secondary purchases, I took the opportunity to utilise my perceived importance to positive effect.

I went over to Liam who was stacking up the shelves in the store and made a point to talk to him on a 1-2-1 basis, thanking him personally and making a note of his efforts, explaining how I would be mentioning him in my reports. This was a tiny inconsequential action by me, but more often than not, entry level workers often remember their encounter with presumed important suits and it helps give them a boost by empowering them with a sense of importance through positive reinforcement.

With this being my final visit of the day and my good deed for the day done, I made my way back to the car playing back similar incidents at the start of my own career and feeling a cyclic sense of balance at being able to repay these kind deeds that others took the time out to show to help me. I took a moment to sit in my car, winding the window down, breathing in the fresh air and sunshine and appreciating being able to self-manage my own time and day, choosing to sit around for 15 minutes without a manager to judge or berate me.

Thus concludes the first day in my life entry as I made my way down an infamous A road to my hotel for the evening. In real terms being ill for months last year and a host of other calamities (all of which will be explained in the coming weeks) prevented me from picking up this blog but rest assured I am back on it now, further entries on a more regular basis will be forthcoming.