Crazy Job Postings Part II

[pandoraharper]

Most of you already know the drill here, but if not........

Folks, feel free to share crazy job postings you see. I've been wanting to create a thread like this for a while, and think it would be fun of we can keep it updated periodically.

Warning: Do not copy paste a job description, do not include a link to the post, or client details. Keep it within forum post guidlines!

Not sure what those guidelines are? Go here: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Upwork-Community-Guidelines/td-p/3/jump-to/first-unrea...

[alice_m_uk]

---

@Maria C wrote:

"Proofread 15348 words Google translated from English to Spanih for $6"

Why Upwork, why?

But that's not the worst part - the job has applicants 

---

 That's such a random number, it's like that's the amount of money they found in their wallet that morning.

[colettelewis]

An offer in my job feed to write someone's essay: You have to answer this question though

"Please provide a before/after sample of a document you have rewritten." So much for plagiarism . . .

I have reported the job, but scrolling down to "similar jobs on Upwork" I counted four people asking for essays to be written. Click on those and about ten more appear. . . 

[mwiggenhorn]

I flag those jobs  all the time.  Sometimes they go away, sometimes they don't.  Sigh.  UW still doesn't understand academic fraud...

[numbsain]

Anyone else get an invitation to a job which read (and i misquote) "Cash" was the job description, "fixed price: $10,000,000.00, additional questions: haha!" ?

[jr-translation]

It is getting really tough for German content writers (original and translation):

"We prefer people working from India "

[liliath_p]

This one sounds interesting, here is an extract:

"THIS IS A SIDE PROJECT FOR AN EXPERIENCED DEVELOPER.

DO NOT QUIT YOUR DAY JOB.

DO NOT APPLY IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A PAID JOB" 

[a_kuntsi]

Someone was looking for a virtual assistant and...

"YOU MUST ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED AS A CANDIDATE
1) AGE
2) MALE OR FEMALE 
3) MARRIED OR SINGLE

4) IF YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND OR A GIRLFRIEND"

Plus:
"START 2 $ PER HOUR"

[prestonhunter]

These questions are easy to answer.

1) AGE

Is just a number.

2) MALE OR FEMALE

Yes.

3) MARRIED OR SINGLE

Yes.

4) IF YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND OR A GIRLFRIEND

For $2 per hour, you can be either.

[alice_m_uk]

---

@Anneli K wrote:

Someone was looking for a virtual assistant and...

"YOU MUST ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED AS A CANDIDATE
1) AGE
2) MALE OR FEMALE 
3) MARRIED OR SINGLE

4) IF YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND OR A GIRLFRIEND"

Plus:
"START 2 $ PER HOUR"

---

 A lot of webcamming involved in the position?

[sergio-soria]

To me it's just totally crazy when they ask for 15 min. of animation Pixar style and then say "We need to keep the cost as low as possible because we are poor. Fixed price $10, take it or leave it." Do people have the slightest idea how much a second of animation costs? Let alone Pixar level!

No wonder why they end up not hiring anyone or being frustrated clients.

[prestonhunter]

Surely you wouldn't deprive a poor person of custom-made Pixar-quality animation clips? Have you no compassion?

[csvanhove]

Honestly the most funny one I've seen was a person who wanted me to look for 2 blogs that each reached more then 2 milion people living in Monaco.

Monaco (a small nation-state in southern Europee) has about 30.000 inhabitants...

[martina_plaschka]

yes. Your task would have been to reach out to the millions of monacoans (is this a word?) ...

btw I am missing my gal Petra. German girl, where are you? Loved the pics of your cats, though...

[petra_r]

---

@Martina P wrote:

btw I am missing my gal Petra. German girl, where are you? Loved the pics of your cats, though...

---

 I'm here, not so (very) far from Monaco 🙂 (in the overall scheme of things) surrounded by cats and Murphy the dog. And my fishies.

I Mainly ignore crazy job posts and concentrate on my mission to never have to look at the job feed again instead 😄

[martina_plaschka]

good stragety, for sure. I did realize recently that you are my competition. I am doomed.  

[petra_r]

---

@Martina P wrote:

good stragety, for sure. I did realize recently that you are my competition. I am doomed.  

---

 I am not (your competition) and you are not (doomed)

I don't apply for the jobs you do (I hardly ever apply at all) and you are doing very well anyway. Good for you!

[prestonhunter]

regarding "competition"...

One needs to consider the numbers and the realities of freelancing via Upwork...

A really successful freelancer is likely to be busy with work, and won't have time to apply to many new jobs.

Even if two freelancers occupy an identical niche in terms of the services and quality that they provide...

There are only so many jobs any freelancer can do. And there are many clients posting many jobs.

[jr-translation]

---

@Petra R wrote:

---

@Martina P wrote:

good stragety, for sure. I did realize recently that you are my competition. I am doomed.  

---

 I am not (your competition) and you are not (doomed)

I don't apply for the jobs you do (I hardly ever apply at all) and you are doing very well anyway. Good for you!

---

 Nor am I. Just keep going Martina. There is more than enough work for all of us.

[csvanhove]

Haha something like that, I had to reach out to every living Monagask
(that's the word 😉 ) about 70 times each

[colettelewis]

---

@Camiel V wrote:
Haha something like that, I had to reach out to every living Monagask
(that's the word 😉 ) about 70 times each

---

 ______________________

Umm - it's actually Monégasque, which is what the people who were born there are called (very few) - the non-Monégasques are the ones who merely reside there (some permanently) and they are called

Monacoians. (Not to be confused with the Japanese monacoin!)

[jr-translation]

Some easy work for a change:

Translating short stories:

"You are allowed to use a tool like google translate. We do not expect literary masterpieces but readable German texts."

$10 per story

[prestonhunter]

re: "We do not expect literary masterpieces"

I guess that's a nicer, more polite way of saying: "We don't actually care if what you give us is garbage."

[filip_knezevic]

Gotta love this.

The client asks for a complicated firewall VPN setup. Of course, he needs experts. His generous 35 dollars offer to finish this 'easy' job on a firewall would barely be enough for a Windows 7 installation by some 17 year old kid in Serbia.

And on top of everything, client (who doesn't now how to configure the firewall) already knows how much time is needed for a skilled Engineer to finish this (an Engineer who knows nothing about the client's network topology, number of devices, existing issues from a poor prior network design etc).

My advice: run away from clients like this. Because, at the end, not only you will have to finish the 'easy' job on the firewall, but you will most likely also have to fix and re-design his entire network at the end. All that for 35 dollars. 

Sounds like a bargain. Or maybe not?

[jr-translation]

Writing a proposal for this job will take ages since the only information is

"Please add your previous experience"

[jr-translation]

"We are looking for a native french writer who can create product descriptions that makes sense to German people buying on Amazon."

[lizablau]

Did any other writers receive one of the 250 invites to write for the website that sells "used underwear" complete with racy photos that's obviously a not-so-cleverly disquised porn site? Kudos to Upwork for removing it, yet not before this client has spent well over $50,000. 

[martina_plaschka]

---

@Lisa B wrote:

Did any other writers receive one of the 250 invites to write for the website that sells "used underwear" complete with racy photos that's obviously a not-so-cleverly disquised porn site? Kudos to Upwork for removing it, yet not before this client has spent well over $50,000. 

---

 I did not! I am quite outraged, too!

[colettelewis]

---

@Lisa B wrote:

Did any other writers receive one of the 250 invites to write for the website that sells "used underwear" complete with racy photos that's obviously a not-so-cleverly disquised porn site? Kudos to Upwork for removing it, yet not before this client has spent well over $50,000. 

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 _____________________________

This has to win the crazy job post award since it started!  But Lisa, I hope you reported it. 

[lizablau]

Yes, I went to report it, but somebody else beat me to it and the job post was already removed. The site was so gross that I almost lost my lunch!  They asked for website help, and only posted the link without stating what their "business" is upfront.  

[colettelewis]

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@Lisa B wrote:

Yes, I went to report it, but somebody else beat me to it and the job post was already removed. The site was so gross that I almost lost my lunch!  They asked for website help, and only posted the link without stating what their "business" is upfront.  

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 _______________________

The client's account should be removed. I know that this will not happen. This is where Upwork falls down. It cares so much about dodgy clients who bring some money to the table, that it doesn't see the irreparable harm this type of client can do to the site in the long-term. 

[prestonhunter]

re: "We are looking for a native french writer who can create product descriptions that makes sense to German people buying on Amazon."

Maybe "French" is the German word for "European."

(I don't speak European, so I can't be certain.)

[martina_plaschka]

I really don't want to make fun of anyone, but this is just too precious....

My company is looking for a Swedish translator to translate some text from English to German.

[richard_wein]

Sometimes clients invite me to play Dungeons and Dragons. I've been asked to be a wizard, a ninja and even a god. At least no one's yet asked me to be a thief. But I've just seen a post asking me to be a wizard AND a ninja. I'm sorry but these are two different character types. You can't be both. Learn the basic rules of D&D before you invite me to play.

[a_kuntsi]

Martina, I also saw someone looking for native Finnish speakers located in the Philippines. 

Sure there may live a few, but finding them is another thing...

[martina_plaschka]

so, an "interesting job" as per upwork:

write 1000 words in 2 hours. Pay is 5$ a day. 

So just that I understand: if I write 2000 words in 4 hours, I still get 5$? THAT does NOT sound like a great deal!

Btw, no subject required. Seems you can write about anything!

[jr-translation]

---

@Martina P wrote:

so, an "interesting job" as per upwork:

write 1000 words in 2 hours. Pay is 5$ a day. 

So just that I understand: if I write 2000 words in 4 hours, I still get 5$? THAT does NOT sound like a great deal!

Btw, no subject required. Seems you can write about anything!

---

 Just send 1k the first day and the second k the next day. And I think it is very interesting because you can speculate about the work.

[numbsain]

Can they all be the same word? And do they let you out of the cage so you
can go to another job for the other 6 hours of the day? Do you get any
perks like, say, a bowl of gruel?

Well it is an interesting job, we're still talking about it!

I get lists of fifteen "relevant"jobs from upwork not a single one of which
has anything to do with my skills as I have listed them in my profile. Then
they send me surveys asking me how they can improve the job choices they
send me.
I use to fill them out and explain that they have me confused with someone
else. I stopped wasting my time and finally I unsubscribed and told them
it's okay if i want that service I'll open up the want ads and have my dog
put his paw on the "relevant' jobs. So far it's working out pretty well
except Crotchester wants a 20% finders fee now.

[martina_plaschka]

---

@Ray C wrote:
Can they all be the same word? And do they let you out of the cage so you
can go to another job for the other 6 hours of the day? Do you get any
perks like, say, a bowl of gruel?

Well it is an interesting job, we're still talking about it!

I get lists of fifteen "relevant"jobs from upwork not a single one of which
has anything to do with my skills as I have listed them in my profile. Then
they send me surveys asking me how they can improve the job choices they
send me.
I use to fill them out and explain that they have me confused with someone
else. I stopped wasting my time and finally I unsubscribed and told them
it's okay if i want that service I'll open up the want ads and have my dog
put his paw on the "relevant' jobs. So far it's working out pretty well
except Crotchester wants a 20% finders fee now.

---

 ah, dogs! Maybe try your cat, they should be able to produce the 1000 words in less than an hour!

[martina_plaschka]

Attention translators! 

We are looking for someone who could translate about 11.000 characters from English to German.
Deadline: within 6 hours

pays 30 bucks. 

[csvanhove]

Honestly not even that crazy:
11.000 characters is about a 1000 words,

1000 words in 6 hours means 150 words/hour

1000 words for 30 bucks means 3 cent per word, meaning that a lot of
starting translators would be happy about that price on upwork.

However, I have seen those in which characters is changed for words:

"Need a translator for 30.000 words, done by tomorrow.

Please send us your master degree diploma in Dutch language or English
language studies, certification as a translator, portfolio and references
that can confirm 3 years of experience in the translation field.

As we are a start up we can't afford agency prices, so we'll pay the fee
listed above plus $0,01 per word in stocks."

Budget 50 bucks... (meaning less than 0,005 per word)