As everyone knows that there are 24 hours a day in which one spends eight hours sleeping, six-eight hours in household work or office work. The rest eight-ten hours are more than enough to do a lot many things. People have different tastes and attributes which incline them to different avocations. Some follow the saying "Idle Brain is Satan’s Workshop” whereas some have their aims at profit maximization and earning money keeping themselves busy. I felt that doing something is better than nothing. I also preferred to have my avocation something special that fetches me money. I have a passion for shopping since childhood. Especially I opt for window shopping for relief and outings in the evenings.

Once in a while I had a thought ‘Why not have my avocation and vocation as one thing? ’ I started surfing the internet looking out for a job that can give me money and which satisfies my passion. After long hours of internet research and my subsistent perseverance to find out a special job I came across an article "Mystery Shopping”. The heading of the article impressed me. The word came to my sight for the first time. I wanted to know the meaning of mystery shopping. Then I opened the Wikipedia and came to know that mystery shopping will be something like window shopping. A mystery shopper poses like a real customer and evaluates the brand services through personal experience and observes the establishment for its ambience, infrastructure, processes, sales, facilities, service delivery, operations, employee integrity, merchandising, product quality and everything that is additional to a particular service. Mystery Shopping also involves independent audit processes giving actionable input for improvement of a brands customer service.

This job seemed interesting to me. I keenly looked into its activities and decided to go for it. I get a chance to express my opinion. It became my favourite past time. Whenever I feel bored I just log into my account, provided by the mystery shopping companies to find out any assignments to be completed in my city. I ask my scheduler to give me any assignments at my flexible timings. Once the task is assigned I visit the required establishment for evaluation. The visit may last from ten minutes-thirty minutes depending on the client’s requirements. I need to take notice of the specified things given for the task, ask questions to the establishment’s employees and even make a purchase sometimes. After completion of the visit I need to fill up the questionnaire related to a particular task and submit it to my scheduler online. All this takes just five minutes. As a proof to the visit business cards, brochures, bills, quotations are submitted. After approval I get reimbursement for my purchases and shop fee for every visit done. The things I buy need not be returned. As a part of mystery shopping sometimes I need to visit restaurants and have food in the restaurantor watch a movie in a theatre where I can enjoy myself and get back my spent money.

I have fun and profit from this job. My communication skills, versatility to Hindi, English and Telugu, excellent written and communication skills, an eye for details, good memory of details, ability to meet deadlines made me fit for the job. I need to follow the given guidelines and rules given by the mystery shopping provider. Moreover I need to be organized, objective, flexible, honest and thorough. My regular access to a computer and the internet helped me perform more and more tasks associated with excitement and fun and ultimately fetched me money. How do you feel about opting mystery shopping at your favourite past time and have enjoyment in it. Just think once!