I am not built for the grind that is the 9-5. I simply am not, and ever since discovering this little fact about myself I’ve thought of countless ways maintain autonomy regarding my time and schedule when it comes to a job. This is especially due to being in graduate school and needing the extra flexibility for classes and study time.

That said I have had some interesting jobs leading up to the one I have now. In this series I will feature a job that I have had which allowed me flexibility and autonomy when it came to my time.

EPMS
www.epmsonline.com

EPMS provides mystery shopping services to apartment companies who want to track the quality of the service being given by their leasing agents and other employees. These mystery shopping reports are completed by folks like myself and then sent into EPMS who then edits the report to be sent off to the corporate office or regional manager of the apartment company. So this is a valuable tool for the company to use when evaluating employees based on the quality of service and following established guidelines when interacting with a potential lessee.

I signed up with EPMS after discovering them on the Volition Forums about a year ago. Unemployed by choice but I wanted to make “pocket change” because I had way too much free time. If you know me then you know that I hate having idle time, well too much of it. So I signed up and got started within 2 days. They require that you fill out the W-9 and review materials on how to proceed as a mystery shopper on an assignment.

The shops pay $40-$50 each and can take up to an hour to complete not including the report time. I found the latter easier to do because I was able to take pictures with my digital camera, upload them to my computer and send them off to the company. Whoaa there fella what pictures? Depending on the shop you have to take pictures of the materials received from the agent during the shop. This is mostly to document that you were actually present for the apartment shop. The shops actually take around 30 minutes depending on the agent. I have had one take upwards of an hour due to waiting for the agent to be finished with a potential lessee.

After the shop is completed you have 12 hours to complete the report and send it in to EPMS. That’s it! They offer direct deposit and paper checks via snail mail and in my experience with them they have been very efficient in paying us on time. The shopper also needs to adhere to the established deadline but they have been flexible in extending due dates due to weather, target not present on site etc etc.

They are a great company to work for should you just need some extra money for holiday shopping or anything else. The shops add up quickly if you have the time and are efficient in getting them in to the editors.

I haven’t accepted a shop in months due to taking on a FT job but if I ever leave my current gig then I wouldn’t mind shopping with them on a regular basis again.

Check it out!

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