I don't know how much the mystery shopper business has changed since I was judging Friendly's in the late '80s, but I made around minimum wage for the hour or so I was actually in the restaurant plus I was reimbursed for the price of the meal plus 15 percent tip. I picked up one or two mystery shopper gigs a month around upstate New York.

I was given a form and asked to list time in the door, time greeted, time seated, time order was taken, time order arrived, time bill arrived, time to check out.

The form also had a ratings system for restaurant cleanliness, restroom cleanliness, food quality, waitress friendliness, etc.

I specifically noted it if it seemed the restaurant was understaffed, which happened occasionally.

The company seemed more interested in emperical time in and out data and not our interpretation of what the source of their problems was.

I recieved no training for this and have no experience in food service. It was just something I did on the weekend to wrangle a free meal here and there.

I always gave the benefit of the doubt to the waitress unless I received really poor service.

I frequented a number of different Friendly's while living in Connecticut, and they ALL had a severe understaffing problem, all the time. A neighbor who worked for one as a cook told me that it was an unoffical company policy to stay understaffed in order to reduce overhead. Since I witnessed this time after time over a period of about seven years, I tend to believe his interpretation.

Sounds like a management problem, alright. What assholes.

Buzz, your heart is in the right place, but I can see you've never worked in food service. In theory, the difference between a waitress's hourly wage and minimum wage is made up for by the tips she gets. Sometimes it even works out that way in practice.

Consulting firms that send around "mystery shoppers" don't justify their rates by not finding anything wrong. Managers who mindlessly suspend an employee on the basis of such a review have their asses covered; after all, they've shown proper diligence in disciplining the employee's substandard performance.

The "mystery shopper", the consultants, and the managers at Friendly's all doubtless make a great deal more money than that waitress, since their jobs require more education, skill, training, and intelligence. Right?

By the bye, I think Friendly's is gettin' took. How much do you have to know about restaurant service to be able to spot a momentary understaffing problem? Not much, is the answer; and it doesn't take a lot more to be able to recognize the difference between a competent, hardworking waitress who's giving good service under difficult conditions, and one who needs remotivation. This "mystery shopper" isn't displaying an appropriate level of expertise.

(Getting waited on for a living? Sounds like an easy gig, if you ask me -- especially when nobody checks your accuracy and the service staff isn't allowed to answer back.)

Further, if there's an understaffing problem, who's responsible? Hint: It's not the waitress who came in on schedule. And if there's a chronic understaffing problem, it can only be the manager's fault.

Come to think of it, if there's a chronic undermotivation problem, that's the manager's responsibility too. That's why they're, like, managers.

It's simply apalling to me that a long-time employee of any business would be making that much below a living wage.

Something is definitely wrong here. The only negative comment on this waitress recorded in the article was that the meal took 11 minutes to arrive when it should have taken no more than 10.

Never mind that the restaurant was understaffed that day - even if it wasn't, is a single instance of this a good reason to suspend her from work? I've eaten in plenty of restaurants that would benefit enormously from wait-staff whose only flaw was that they took an extra minute to deliver the meal.