Saulė Tolstych

In the ‘40s of the last century, wanting to radically improve the level of service, businesses came up with the concept of mystery shopping (or secret shopping, as it is also often called). The concept is simple, like everything ingenious – a random person is paid a small amount of money to use the services of an establishment, and then evaluate the level of their service.

All sorts of things can happen during your employment! Office pranks, odd coworkers, mystery food thieves, awkward elevator silences, and perhaps even bosses of financially struggling companies that decide to turn up at your door uninvited at 7 in the morning claiming to bear “bad news” and then proceeding to fire you. Intrigued?

Where I’m from, we say that no one problem walks alone. The English language equivalent of this is when it rains, it pours. All beautiful too, but let’s call it what it is—a problem. A very human problem, in this case. A woman recently shared a predicament she found herself in. Namely, her husband went against her wishes of never inviting his problematic brother into their home.