Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2012. Zhang Yumo’s two years in the job, the more than 200 hotels tested and her pay refer to that time.
There are so many little-known corners of the business world that every now and then you come across jobs that make you envious. A few months ago someone told me about the job of price checker in large supermarkets and retail stores, used to analyze price differences between brands across different stores. Interestingly, the work consists of recording the prices of every product on the supermarket shelves and sending them to a head office for analysis.
While you’re tracking down the cheapest prices on the market, you’re doing work that may be repetitive but comes with flexible hours, time you organize yourself and comfort: no heavy lifting, no stress, no rush.
To my surprise, I came across another curious and enviable job, one that revolves around life’s pleasures: comfort, sleep and food. The job consists of…
Hotel mattress tester
A curious job in one of the most curious countries: China. The woman who does it is named Zhang Yumo, and for the past two years her job has been to test the service, quality, cleanliness, restaurant, location and rooms of the hotels she visits.
It’s not all rosy. The selection process that landed her this “sweet” job drew 7,800 candidates, who applied for a vacancy advertised by Qunar, which ended up offering three positions.
The information comes from the Reuters news agency, which ran a feature on this woman, who has tested more than 200 hotels over the past two years. Her job is to assess each hotel’s rooms and service and publish her verdict on the website.
The job conditions
On hotel websites and travel portals we’ve all seen hotels accompanied by ratings and comments from their guests. In many cases those plain-spoken comments help us see past the grand claims of the hotels’ own websites, and they have often helped us choose a hotel for our time off.
That is Zhang Yumo’s job, except that she is paid 1,500 euros for her comments. They cover the general condition of the room (cleanliness, bed, shower…), the hotel’s quality relative to its price, the service, and so on. All of it without anyone knowing the identity of this hotel quality and service “spy”, who tries to turn up at hotels without them knowing, so they can’t “pamper” her into a favorable review.
According to some reports, the British also have people working under similar conditions: eating and drinking.
Featured image: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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