Company Overview: Albatross Global Solutions is a worldwide mystery shopping company with some 20 offices in various cities around the world. The business was founded in 2005 by Christophe Cais and Nicholas Jeanjean, both 1991 graduates from the Institut Superieur de Gastion. The company website is http://www.albatrossonline.com/. The company’s shops tend to focus on high dollar items.
From the company’s website one can find the characteristics of the Albatross:
Big and Strong: An Albatross is among the largest flying birds, and the Great Albatross has the largest wingspan of any living bird species, with a dimension of 340 cm (11 ft).
Faithful: in the animal world, the Albatross is one of the 11 species that mate for life : an Albatross may fly great distances over the oceans, but despite its extensive travels, this bird will always return to the same place — and the same partner — when it is time to breed.
High Performer: It has been recorded that an Albatross can fly up to 550 miles per day at speeds of 50 mph, and in a single foraging flight they can cover an incredible 9300 miles, which is longer than the diameter of the Earth.
Efficient: An Albatross can sleep while it is flying.
Personal Experience: I recently completed my first assignment for Albatross at a jewelry store. I was searching for an engagement ring and had to observe what was said about a certain brand of diamond. The short version, I was looking at a 1 carat diamond that was $10k…without the setting, the diamond alone was that much.
These shops require the shopper portray having a very high income, as well as being poker-faced. You don’t want to show sticker shock at a $10,000 price tag on a diamond or a watch.
What Others Have to Say: There are few discussions on www.mysteryshopforum.com about Albatross Global Solutions. In general, most people tend to be happy with the company and the payment schedule is relatively fast, 30-45 days in most cases. The one drawback is that some shoppers feel the reporting is too much work for the money.
Overall: The word albatross is sometimes used as a metaphor to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. That comes from the Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the poem, an albatross starts to follow a ship — being followed by an albatross was generally considered an omen of good luck. However, the titular mariner shoots the albatross with a crossbow, which is regarded as an act that will curse the ship (which indeed suffers terrible mishaps). To punish him, his companions induce him to wear the dead albatross around his neck indefinitely (until they all die). Thus the albatross can be both an omen of good or bad luck, as well as a metaphor for a burden to be carried as penance. That was the context in which I understood “albatross”.
In the context of the qualities of an Albatross, and based on the comments I’ve read, the name does indeed fit the company.
While I would not necessarily seek out a job with this MSC on its own, mainly because the reporting can be tedious, it is a company that I would gladly add to a route as a filler to help complete the day.