The Journal News reports... Mount Kisco: Longtime Friendly's waitress resigns over corporate policy The 60-year-old Mahopac resident says she's resigning after being suspended for three days for a mediocre review by a so-called "mystery shopper." Corporations like Friendly's hire consulting companies who send "mystery shoppers" into restaurants, movie theaters, retail outlets, etc., to rate the help. Apparently the only problem with her reveiw was: "Did you receive your breakfast entree within 10 minutes of time of order?" The mystery shopper replied, "It took 11 minutes." Most importantly: While the review states that service was average, it notes that Kennedy, who makes $3.30 an hour plus tips, was "very nice." The customer said that Kennedy had a lot of tables to handle and that she frequently apologized to customers who were waiting. Leaving aside the pay rate (isn't minimum wage now like $7.50?), it says that she was very nice. It does NOT say, however, that the restaurant was understaffed that day - meaning that the reviewer was lucky to get their food so quickly. I have to say that this entire story is just stupid. If Friendly's had been smart and flexible, this would be a non-issue. But they're being stupid and rigid, so now they're getting bad press. Back in my retail days (I was an employee of a large chain of pharmacies back in high school/early college) I was "mystery shopped" many times, and never had a problem. Other co-wokers got bad reviews, but they weren't suspended. I'd also like to point out that when an employee was on the cash register, the total on their register was closely watched (obviously). The thing is, I think that unless you were over/under more than $20, they didn't do anything but tell you to be more careful. So I could be taking money out of the register, but as long as I was careful about it, they wouldn't fire me. Where's the sense in that? (By the way, it should go without saying that I never did actually take money - I was just using that as an example)