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Pandora's avatar
Pandora H Community Member

Crazy Job Postings Part II

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...

 

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Andrea's avatar
Andrea G Community Manager

Hi all,

 

We are closing this thread due to its size. Feel free to visit this new thread if you'd like to continue sharing your experience with odd and curious jobs.

 

We encourage you to have fun and discuss your experience. That said, please be mindful of our Community Guidelines and refrain from posting links to job postings, names of persons or companies, or any other identifying information. Additionally, if you come across a job that violates Upwork TOS, please flag it as inappropriate following the steps outlined here.

 

~Andrea

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781 REPLIES 781
Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

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's avatar
Martina P Community Member

 

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's avatar
Richard W Community Member

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.

Anneli's avatar
Anneli K Community Member

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's avatar
Martina P Community Member

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!

 

 

Jennifer's avatar
Jennifer R Community Member


@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.

Ray's avatar
Ray C Community Member

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's avatar
Martina P Community Member


@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's avatar
Martina P Community Member

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. 

Camiel's avatar
Camiel V Community Member

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)
Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member


@Camiel V wrote:
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)

 darn, you are right, I read 10000 words, not 10000 characters.... 

SAMTI's avatar
SAMTI I Community Member

I saw a job post asking for experienced video editor, more that 1000 hours to do  app video animation for  a fixed price job 5$ 🙂

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

re: "I saw a job post asking for experienced video editor, more that 1000 hours to do  app video animation for  a fixed price job 5$"

 

Samti:

For clients, specifying dollar amounts for fixed-price projects can be a bit awkward and confusing. Ofcourse if this client actually intends to pay $5.00, that's kind of crazy, and certainly not realistic. But many times when we see $5.00 for a fixed-price job posting, that dollar amount is only a placeholder. It doesn't necessarily mean that's what the client is planning to pay.

Anneli's avatar
Anneli K Community Member

That's true.

When you post a job, you have to put some amount there and 5$ is minimum.

So I guess quite many are just putting it there.

But yes, some do expect ridiculous amounts of work for 5$.

I know an enterprise client who always puts that 5$ and mention it is a placeholder.

They have spent almost 1 million and have not paid just 5 $ to anyone.

Khurram's avatar
Khurram J Community Member

Posted few minutes ago

A client wants to recreate this  travel  website  "TheEliteTravel.Club"
copy text,data,images design everything but reproduce it in wordpress
Budget $10   
Proposals so far: 5-10

And it is not just a placeholder the client has spent $200 in a single $3/hr job and then $227 in 15 fixed price jobs 

Good going .........

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

Found a good one, a few minutes ago, in translation:

Person wants to hire freelancers to write their profile and get them jobs. Must get them 5 jobs. 

Was gone a minute after I flagged it.......................

Laura's avatar
Laura M Community Member

A French-based company is currently looking for a 'Top-Tier English Article Writer', a full-time position for a cool $500 a month. You only have to put in 5-7 hours a day Mon-Fri, so you'll be netting, what, between $3.5-5 an hour. But the hours are flexible, so, worth it I guess. 

Ray's avatar
Ray C Community Member


@Alice M wrote:

A French-based company is currently looking for a 'Top-Tier English Article Writer', a full-time position for a cool $500 a month. You only have to put in 5-7 hours a day Mon-Fri, so you'll be netting, what, between $3.5-5 an hour. But the hours are flexible, so, worth it I guess. 

Um, no. You have to get them to promise you
• 5 stars
• Possible future work
• Good karma
• that it's a great opportunity to have your work seen on the internet!

Then it's a good job. Don't they want you to submit the first 1000 pages of the job as a sample with your bid OR YOU WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED AS A CANDIDATE FOR AWARDING THIS OPPORTUNITY even? Wow they must think we're humans!!!!


 

Laura's avatar
Laura M Community Member


@Ray C wrote:

@Alice M wrote:

A French-based company is currently looking for a 'Top-Tier English Article Writer', a full-time position for a cool $500 a month. You only have to put in 5-7 hours a day Mon-Fri, so you'll be netting, what, between $3.5-5 an hour. But the hours are flexible, so, worth it I guess. 

Um, no. You have to get them to promise you
• 5 stars
• Possible future work
• Good karma
• that it's a great opportunity to have your work seen on the internet!

Then it's a good job. Don't they want you to submit the first 1000 pages of the job as a sample with your bid OR YOU WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED AS A CANDIDATE FOR AWARDING THIS OPPORTUNITY even? Wow they must think we're humans!!!!


 


 You also won't be considered unless you write 'purple monkey dishwasher' in your application. 

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

This is priceless!

Why it landed in my job feed (translation) I don't know, but person wants a contract to be checked for any clause that might the venue allow to back out of the event he is planning. He gets a lot of backlash for his events. His event is wrestling, and it involves little people, and he just can't for the life of him understand why little people should not be allowed to wrestle!

Anneli's avatar
Anneli K Community Member

I have seen lately many jobs posts by digital marketing / social media marketing agencies looking for a digital marketing / social media marketing expert to handle their own digital marketing / social media marketing.

(Not meaning the ones who look to hire to work for their clients)

May not be funny, but I feel sorry for their clients.

 

And yes, I am a professional dog trainer myself (among other things) and yes, my own dog is behaving like the craziest border collie in the world time to time, but still...

Jennifer's avatar
Jennifer R Community Member

Just some background info for all the non-linguist:

There are three forms of compound words:

  • the closed form, in which the words are melded together, such as firefly, secondhand, softball, crosstown, redhead, keyboard, makeup, notebook;
  • the hyphenated form, such as daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-year-old, mass-produced; and
  • the open form, such as post office, real estate, middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney general.

And here is clients request:

for example: found word ¨carpet¨ you will have to find an image for ¨car¨ and another for ¨pet¨.

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member


@Jennifer R wrote:

Just some background info for all the non-linguist:

There are three forms of compound words:

  • the closed form, in which the words are melded together, such as firefly, secondhand, softball, crosstown, redhead, keyboard, makeup, notebook;
  • the hyphenated form, such as daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-year-old, mass-produced; and
  • the open form, such as post office, real estate, middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney general.

And here is clients request:

for example: found word ¨carpet¨ you will have to find an image for ¨car¨ and another for ¨pet¨.


 It's not just a translation job, it's an all out attack on the English language!

Jennifer's avatar
Jennifer R Community Member


@Martina P wrote:

@Jennifer R wrote:

Just some background info for all the non-linguist:

There are three forms of compound words:

  • the closed form, in which the words are melded together, such as firefly, secondhand, softball, crosstown, redhead, keyboard, makeup, notebook;
  • the hyphenated form, such as daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-year-old, mass-produced; and
  • the open form, such as post office, real estate, middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney general.

And here is clients request:

for example: found word ¨carpet¨ you will have to find an image for ¨car¨ and another for ¨pet¨.


 It's not just a translation job, it's an all out attack on the English language!


 It was ment for German. It remind me somehow of "Onepressure-deepness" a translation I once found in a technical document.

Jennifer's avatar
Jennifer R Community Member

We are an Upwork translation agency ... In addition to the Upwork 20% fee, we charge a 15% agency fee.

 

So all you have to do is increase your rate end everything is fine...