I just “served” on a mock jury (almost certainly designed by a law firm looking for qualities to seek in an upcoming voir dire) in which I concluded that a massage therapy company needs to employ “mystery shoppers” to do random quality checks in order to prevent or at least discourage improprieties on the part of their masseuses. (Pretty good gig, btw: I got almost $300 for a day’s work, and the work was pretty interesting. Also breakfast and lunch.) And then I thought: is that the best job in the world. Not being a mock juror, though that was pretty good—being a mystery shopper for a massage company.
Think about it. You’d have to go to different franchises (this was a HUGE nationwide chain), say three times a day, maybe four, and then travel to a different area the next day, getting three or four massages per day, and filing a report on each one. Is that the best job ever? I mean, I recommended to the franchisor that they need to hire a large crew of mystery shoppers to keep sexual impropriety suits to a minimum, so it’s a real job. And I thought: Wow, would I enjoy that job. They wouldn’t even have to pay me, just pay for my expenses as I got my three or four massages per day. What a life!
I could see issues with getting too many massages in a short period of time. Your muscles will not be tense, so the masseuse may not feel like the have to work you too hard. That and your reviews will suffer due to the massages being routine.
Also, do you wait for them to offer you extras at the end or are you directed to hint for them? Could cause some awkward situations, causing stress.
I think you will need a partner to make sure you dont take this heavy burden on your own.
There isn’t any single “best job in the world” for everybody. The job you’re describing involves being touched by a large number of strangers, and spending very little time at home because you’ll need to keep travelling so you won’t be recognized. For some people neither of those things would be downsides. For some other people, one or the other or both of them would be such a large downside that it would instead be one of the worst jobs in the world.
It is, however, possible that you’ve more or less invented a job that would suit you perfectly (though it may have already been invented; in which case you just need to apply. I recommend, however, that you do insist on being paid; you may at some point want something in your life besides massages, if only clothes or a gift for a friend – and it’s very likely that at some time in your life you’ll need savings in reserve.)
No, it was suggested by one of the plaintiff’s attorneys that the entire lawsuit could have been prevented if the company had hired mystery shoppers, but they hadn’t because it would have been expensive, so we (the jury) should award millions in punitive damages so the company would learn how expensive NOT hiring mystery shoppers could be. I didn’t make it up, not at all. I was surprised to find out that some massage spa companies DID have mystery shoppers, and then I thought “What a great gig that would be.”
If you think about it, it’s really a necessity for a massage spa company. How else could you be assured of what goes on behind closed doors which you need because your customers want privacy? Maybe you should hire executives but tell them all that their jobs will consist of 10 hours per week as mystery shoppers, in addition to their office duties? That’s quite a perk.
I’m legitimately concerned about what four massages a day might do the human body. Those things can be pretty rough - I usually find them quite painful. I wonder if there’s such a thing as being over-massaged? Can muscles be too relaxed?
Agree that 4 massages per day on any day would be like eating that third pizza: Easy to brag about wanting; much, much harder in the doing. Especially after age 29. Much less on every day: today, again tomorrow, and tomorrow and …
Back when I lived in Vegas I knew a guy who was a talent scout for “gentlemen’s clubs”. Now that was a job for a single 20-something man of decent appearance and manner.
Now for me, at the age of 64 and a few months, I totally know what the ideal job is: retired. Though I like the one I still have pretty good too. And I’d be willing to consider an offer to talent scout for “gentlemen’s clubs”, even if travel was involved.
OTOH, any job can get boring and stupid. I’ve told this tale before but years ago I owned a laundromat. Back decades before credit cards or smart-phones could be used to pay for washes & dries. The basic idea back then was the coins cycle from the change dispenser to the coin acceptor boxes on the machines then back into the change dispensers, and the store’s income is mostly in the form of bills inserted into the coin change dispensing machines.
I used to count gigantic piles of cash. My cash. Not on behalf of somebody else; it was mine, all mine!! The mounds would cover a large dinner table and spill off the edges onto the floor. Mountains and mountains of glorious fresh green Lucre!! For meeee!!!111!!
It was boring and stupid after the novelty wore off on the third day. Despite the fact it was a damn nice living for a young man. Cash smells bad.
Nowadays, sure. Asking 20yo me to do that versus get it into the bank 3 hours sooner? YGBSM.
Semi-seriously, getting into the ‘mat, emptying all the machines’ coin acceptors, refilling the changers’ coin supplies, and emptying the changers’ bill buckets, then getting out of there without getting mugged was a bit dicey at times.
So despite owning a silly number of washing machines for a single man, getting the hell to safety while looking like Santa Claus with a toy bag over your shoulder but filled with cash was job one. I could have washed the money at home, but IIRC the thought never occurred.
For me the ideal job would be spent mostly alone, in a rural environment, doing something inarguably useful for the world. The mentioned jobs wouldn’t qualify.
Unless someone really loves this, it seems quite un-ideal in many ways. It’s brutal on the body, and you could be paralyzed or burned alive. And if you keep losing, your career is on thin ice.
My job is pretty close to ideal—for me. I work at a small hardware store. I direct customers to the aisle they want, I give advice, I help them look through the 100’s of bins to find just the right bolt they need. I make keys, I mix paint. Nearly all the customers leave in a better mood than they arrived with.
Twice a week, a truck delivers merchandise. I fork lift it off the truck, then sort it onto carts for others to shelve. It’s a lot of lifting, which keeps me in shape.
The job might get dull if done full time, I don’t know. It’s a post retirement job, and for the 15 hrs/week I’m there, it’s close to ideal.
OK, granted. Now I have a slightly different question. Could you simply make “getting a massage and reporting on it” part of several of your executives’ jobs? Say you want to hire an accountant. In fact, say you need an accounting department in the corporate division of Massages-R-Us, but instead of hiring the three accountants you need, you hire five but tell them all that once per week, they’ll need to fly to a distant city after lunch, get two massages there, stay in a hotel overnight, get two more massages the next morning, all at different locations in the distant city, and then fly back for an afternoon of accounting?
The one glitch in this scheme, seems to me, is that you’d need to hire accountants (and other personnel) who are attractive youngish women, since they seem to get most of the unwanted sexual attention from wayward masseuses. At least, based on this one case I heard, where a male masseur was hitting on a young married woman. But maybe I’m wrong about that–maybe you can hire elderly men to be your mystery shoppers, if sex-offending masseurs don’t discriminate by gender, age, and attractiveness.
Not a job, but I used to get called fairly often to do focus group testing. I don’t get called anymore for some reason; I probably aged out of the ideal demographic
Some were on the boring side (lawn care product discussion) but many were kinda fun-- like testing the acceleration and braking effectiveness of several different styles of SUVs. Once I got a pizza testing gig. they brought us several slices and said we could eat as much or as little of each one as we wanted. I came hungry so ended up eating 5 whole slices. Gigs would pay $75-100 for an hour or two of our time.
On the day of the pizza testing group I saw someone pushing a cart with several different types of liquor to another testing room, and thought, that’s the test group I really want to be in. Talk about the ideal job–paid liquor tester! Though, as with the OP’s ‘massage mystery shopper’, I imagine it would go from ‘ideal job’ to ‘too much of a good thing’ fairly quickly.
Massage therapy company in Nevada that does permit impropriety employs “mystery shoppers” to do random quality checks in order to insure satisfaction of its customers.
I recently learned that one of my “dream jobs,” Muppeteer, requires frequent massage therapy due to holding one’s hand above one’s head for extended periods of time and other body contortions required. Perhaps combine that with the OP’s?
Much less on every day: today, again tomorrow, and tomorrow and …
