The Best Daily - Faerieland Employment Agency, Part Two

     So...what do you do?

     Step 1: Take some job coupons *out* of your Safety Deposit Box.

     Seriously, you don't want to get to the job coupon selection screen a Purple Job in the first refresh you've caught all day, only to be met with "You don't have any job coupons for this job!".

     Keep a few each of Gold and Pink Job Coupons in your inventory. If you have Silver and Purple ones (because they were cheaper per job to buy, or because you used Gold and Pink ones!), pull those out too.

     Step 2: Find the day's refresh time.

     New jobs appear at the Faerieland Employment Agency every ten minutes and change, at the *end* of the list of jobs. That "and change" is important -- a few seconds get added to the refresh every time it happens. For example, the last refresh time today was 8:40:50ish. That means the next refresh today will be a few seconds after 8:50:50. Sometimes a few seconds is 1. Sometimes it's closer to 10. The refresh is *never* early. You might have to keep refreshing for a few seconds, but it'll never happen *less* then ten minutes after the previous refresh.

     That few seconds adds up to about 3-4 minutes of drift every day. If you keep track of the refresh time from day to day, you can save yourself a bit of effort -- if this morning's refresh is at about X:X0:50, tomorrow morning's will probably be between X:03:XX and X:05:XX.

     Once you know the refresh time, be there on time to see what new jobs pop up!

     A couple tips --

     * The refresh takes a second or two. The first thing that happens is that a batch of the oldest jobs (the ones on the front page of listings) disappear. Then new jobs appear. None of this happens all at once, which means you can end up refreshing the job listing in, well, the middle of the refresh! Between 4 and 15ish new jobs appear at every refresh. If you see jobs disappear and don't see a bunch of new ones, *refresh again*.

     * When the refresh is in progress (or if someone takes a job and there's only one left on the last page, refresh time or not), the last page of listings can become totally blank when the old jobs disappear. If you're refreshing that page, you won't see any jobs -- instead you'll see a link back to the front page of the listings. You can navigate back to the last active page of listings and refresh that, but sometimes it makes more sense to keep refreshing that blank page -- if the previous page is full, new jobs will overflow onto the page you're refreshing, and that may give you a little bit of an edge on picking up jobs that appear on that page! Conversely, if there's only a single job or two on the last page, you may want to refresh the second-to-last page of jobs instead, because more of the new jobs are likely to appear on that page once the old batch disappears. This may sound like gibberish right now, but the more time you spend at the employment agency counters, the more sense it will make ^.^ Try to be refreshing the page you think more of the new jobs will appear on -- there's no way to know for sure how many old jobs are going and new ones are coming, but you can make a good guess :)

     Step 3: Pick up jobs.

     Pink and Purple jobs are your priority -- if you see one of those, click on it!

     Gold and Silver are also excellent choices.

     Everything else is worthless.

     Don't take the time to research the prices of the items the jobs are asking for -- if you do this, someone else will take that job while you're waiting for the Shop Wizard to work his magic.

     There are *very few* Silver, Gold, Purple, and Pink jobs that won't be profitable. They all ask for Usukicon Y26 Goodie Bags. So don't take those ^.^ Everything else is profitable. Sometimes the items you're asked for cost 1 NP. Sometimes they cost 3k each. The 3k each ones are usually Bears and Baby Dolls, so you can avoid those too if you want, but it doesn't really matter -- you will make NP on every Silver, Gold, Purple, or Pink job that doesn't ask for Usukicon Y26 Goodie Bags.

     It's true that you'll make more profit if you focus on jobs that only ask for 2-3 items and that have a generous time limit, but the time it takes to assess these details about a job means you'll miss out on far more of them, so trying to maximize this way is really just a waste of time. If you want to make more NP for your Employment Agency efforts, take higher-tier jobs instead -- wait for Gold jobs instead of Silver, or Purple and Pink if you've been taking Gold.

     But also keep in mind that the more you limit yourself, the more time you'll spend at the Faerieland Employment Agency every day, and the less time you'll have to do other things. You *can* make 400k in a day taking only Purple and Pink jobs, but it takes *far* longer than doing Silver jobs. If you take Silver jobs, you can usually get all five of your daily jobs done while you do your other dailies around Neopia, and 150k profit a day from five Silver jobs *is still more profit than any other daily you can do*. Remember that your time is valuable, and set your strategy accordingly!

     Step 4: Use your coupon.

     When you click "Apply for this job," you'll be taken to a screen that asks what job coupon you want to use. *The job is not yours until you choose a coupon!* Even if you're on this screen, someone else can take the job you're applying for if they click on their coupon first.

     Only the ones you *can* use for that job will be shown -- so coupons of that job tier and higher. Obviously you want to use the lowest-tier coupon you can, so you can save your higher-tier coupons for higher-tier jobs. *But don't spend any time thinking about it* -- if you use a Gold Job Coupon for a Silver job, or a Pink one for a Purple job, that's fine. You'll still be filling up your vault at the National Neopian at an astounding rate.

     Just click on a coupon :D

     Step 5: Do the job!

     If you snag the job before anyone else, you'll see the details of what you need to do after you click on your coupon. (If not, you'll see a message that someone else took your job -- how dare they! In that case, go back to step 3.)

     You want to be quick about this, because your bonus depends on it!

     Here are the details of that bonus we keep talking about: If you complete your job with less than 20% of the time you're given, you get a bonus on top of the job's base payout (which is the number you saw, but didn't pay any attention to, when you applied for the job). The amount of the bonus scales with how little time you take -- if you complete the job instantly because you have the items in your inventory already, you get all 20% (but this is never going to happen to you, because you're taking the job *first* and then hunting for the items, because if you do it the other way around for Silver, Gold, Purple, and Pink jobs, you'll never get any of them!). If you use 19% of your time, you'll get a 1% bonus. And so on.

     Consult the shop wizard. Cape version if you can. If the job has a generous time limit (more than 30 or so minutes) and you don't have the Super Shop Wizard, it doesn't hurt to refresh the regular Shop Wizard a couple times -- those few extra seconds can reduce your bonus, but it can save you more on item costs, which increases your overall profit.

     Step 6: Turn in your items.

     Go back to the Faerieland Employment Agency to turn in your items, and collect your rewards!

     If you do your shopping with the Super Shop Wizard or in another tab, you can just click the link on the page to turn your items in. If you're not on that page anymore, click "Status" near the top of the page, scroll down to the Pet with the job, and click into the job that way.

     If multiple Silver, Gold, Purple, and/or Pink jobs popped up in the refresh and the employment agency is slow (usually in the mornings NST), you may be able to snag a second job from the same refresh, so go back and check! Doing two in the same refresh will save you some time.

     You may *not* be able to do a second job in the same refresh window, even if there is one and you haven't hit your limit of five for the day -- sometimes, usually after you've already done a few jobs -- you'll incorrectly see a message telling you that you've already completed the maximum number of jobs for the day. If you haven't, what this message really means is that you've completed the maximum number of jobs *you* are allowed to complete *for this refresh*. Just wait until new jobs appear, and you'll be able to take jobs again, up to the daily maximum of five.

     If you use the same active Pet to do all your Faerieland Employment Agency jobs, you can check their Resume to double-check how many jobs you've completed -- on the "Status" page, you'll see a link over your Pet's portrait that says "View this Neopet's resume." This shows the last 100 jobs that Pet has completed, most recent at the top.

     Step 7: Do it again!

     And then laugh all the way to the National Neopian! :)