Crazy Job Postings

[pandoraharper]

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...

Here's something I saw tonight:

US client, average pay under $6 per hour, no hourly hires so far, decent feedback, looking for 1 person to do:

Article Copywriting, Editing and Proofreading

Customer Service (Phone and Email)

Business Growth & Development

Blog Posting

Stand Operating Procedures Creation and Documentation

Online Research

Social Media Management

Event planning and scheduling

And finally: "Knowlege of WordPress Development, Facebook Ads, InfusionSoft, Bookkeeping, etc. a PLUS "

No mention in this posting if some of these items would be handled by other members of the team.

One word: Sheesh!

[jmlaidlaw]

Client wants translation French to English. Okay.

But wait! There's more!

Translation is 80 pages long. (page density/ word count not specified)

But wait! There's more!

Subject area is physics.

But wait! There's more!

Subject sub-specialization is nanomaterials.

But wait! There's more!

Freelancer must hold a PhD in Physics!  (presumably in addition to being a qualified translator)

And, now, wait! There's less!

Total price, which does not appear to be a placeholder: $100.

(...At least it isn't listed as a "rush" job.)

[numbsain]

interviewing 10, each must translate a different 8 test pages to be considered. 

Must speak fluent Mandarin but live in Saudii Arabia...

Job must be formatted for etch-a-sketch.

triple black belt in ninjitzu a plus.

Please put the word "nystatintriamcinoloneacetadyne" in the cover letter.

[indieovenfilm]

[yuni12]

There's a lot of funny things I saw in upwork, is it OK to post those thing here?

I saw this guy who said that he would spend his entire life the client because the client is his best friend (which I assume they never met).

He said "I definitely stay with him until death. Thanks buddy."

[yngve]

Aaaand that physics paper is likely to be full of equations, graphs and pictures which absolutely must stay in alignment. So in addtition to the translator being a linguist with a physics background he has to be a layout wizard. 

[jmlaidlaw]

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@yngve D wrote:

Aaaand that physics paper is likely to be full of equations, graphs and pictures which absolutely must stay in alignment. So in addtition to the translator being a linguist with a physics background he has to be a layout wizard. 

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And (I can add, from my experience editing a series of complicated astrophysics papers, as well as other mathematical, medical, and scientific texts) the translator/physicist/graphic designer must also be adept at using various "insert" tools and special characters -- many of which exist only in certain fonts and not in other fonts, and which go all awry when made bold, italicized, etc.

[yitwail]

At least the client doesn't require the freelancer to correct errors in his formulae. 

[reinierb]

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@John K wrote:

At least the client doesn't require the freelancer to correct errors in his formulae. 

---

 Formulae themselves are the least of the hapless freelancer's (who takes on this job) problems. These are standard and can be found in various places; the biggest issue here is that the calculations based on those formulae have to be checked and verified. Sounds like a great way to earn a quick $3000 or so for the entire job.

[mwiggenhorn]

I just got a job recommendation - the job is to take an online continuing education real estate course for the client.  I flagged it already (4 minutes after the job was posted!).

Obviously academic fraud - would you buy a house from this person??

[katrinabeaver]

Three hours of transcription due tomorrow afternoon. For the grand price of $15!!!  

[pavel_black]

Not sure, if crazy or trolling, but...

title: "**Edited for Community Guidelines**

"

"An Android and iOS Mobile application for corporates that enables them to hire freelances easily, rate them and Pay them fees.**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[VladimirG]

Hi Pavel,

Thanks for the heads-up, I found the job post you referenced and will ask our team to address it.

[gnakeur]

"We are ########, soft and app developer. We are searching and Sr Dev .Net, freelance developer, with knowledge on C#, and with stronge backend esperience. With Angular exp, and oracle exp. The position can be remote. This excelent english."

Didn't you get? He wants a developer with excellent English...

[xyphonik]

That sounds impossible. There isn't enough time in the day to do all of those things and make a decent living. WOW!

[zoomconcepts]

Posted in the Expert tier: 

Budget: $500 (fixed-price)

Seeking: 2500-3000 creative illustration images

That's a full scene illustration for the amazingly generous $0.17 per scene. I barely resisted applying. 

[numbsain]

OMG!!!!! you must be really fast haha! I got a job once (not here) to do 200 original paintings in two weeks to give to guests at a big corporate christmas party. I think i got $500. many of those paintings still adorn those clients walls. The trick was an unlimited expense account (practically) so i went out and bought every kind of paint and paint additive, medium, solvents and tools i could find and started experimenting. with one week left i made an amazing discovery. I found a way to make the paint paint itself! It turned into a huge body of work which ive sold quite a few of. I know you don't believe me so ive attached one. this is one of the better ones and it took about 15 minutes to make!

[numbsain]

Just got one of those "please include this demeaning phrase in your application so you feel like an idiot and don't charge as much!" (I'll change the phrase to protect the guilty) lets say it was "Festering postule of bilious putrescence." So you wanna know what i did? Okay, Yer gonna love this, and i'm sure no one else ever thought of doing it. Okay ya ready? okay check this out. So what i did (oh gosh this is just too good) so i started my cover letter thusly:

Hello Festering postule of bilious putrescence... Hahahahaha YESSSSS I done got 'em good! Yeah! They'll think twice before making me say something that undermines my intelligence. Only 40 million left to go! I probably won't get the job. but i showeed them haha (sigh).

[mwiggenhorn]

Ray, I LOVE the painting! 

[numbsain]

Thank you Mary! Imagine my surprise when it basically happened all by itself under very specific conditions and i had to retrace my steps to get it to happen again. Now they've taken the products i use off the market completely! but you should see what these evolved into. That one was untouched by any brush except for a little palette knife on the edges. this next one took a bit longer but it started the same way. (see attachment)

[mwiggenhorn]

I can't draw a straight line with a ruler but I saw a video on FB recently that showed a painter getting similar results.  Put paint (different colors) and I think silicone and something else in a paper cup and poured it onto a canvas.  Remarkable!

[numbsain]

I saw that video too Mary her technique is completey different but a similar effect!

[versailles]

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@Ray C wrote:

Now they've taken the products i use off the market completely! 

---

I feel you Ray. Saw the painting. Man, the product must have been really good. I would so love to have some!

🙂

[numbsain]

The truth is Rene that the product itself won't do that except for under very specific conditions which i belaborously worked out. It's a very delicate procedure that involves putting the colors down in the right order and at the right temperature the paints have to be allowed to dry a little bit and skin over, they have to dry at just the right angle and i use sponges and tissues to absoeb the excess liquid before it has a chance to turn to mud or form dross. And a lot of other very suble tricks. Still i get about 1 in 3 to come out good and i recycle the bad ones. The white has to be put down first and allowed to dry a little bit because its titanium which is heavy so when i put the phthalos and other vegetabloe pigments on top they run off and dry quickly so the white bursts up from underneith and thats how you get the features and shapes. three different kinds of paints are used too. check this one out, This is heavily inked after the first process dried

[versailles]

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@Ray C wrote:

The truth is Rene that the product itself won't do that except for under very specific conditions 

---

Oh, you mean that kind of product. I was meaning, eh, you know... product.

[colettelewis]

Such a flattering job in my job feed. The algorithm is working overtime.

The client - who appears not to have heard of Google - requires an experienced translator and editor to convert men's UK trouser sizes to correspond with those in the rest of Europe.

Upwork, you have really surpassed yourself on this - WELL DONE - what tremendous INSIGHT - what an intelligent little robot you have.

Seriously, seriously pissed off. . . .

[reinierb]

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@Rene K wrote:

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@Ray C wrote:

The truth is Rene that the product itself won't do that except for under very specific conditions 

---

Oh, you mean that kind of product. I was meaning, eh, you know... product.

---

Yep, I can see how some products can produce the results shown in Ray's artwork.

[numbsain]

they are just acrylic paints but it's a matter of combining different ones in the right conditions it takes some experimentation i use glass paints and high gloss enamels, straight pigments all waterbased and just carefully monitor it while its drying. here's another one using different paints.

[numbsain]

hahaha i just got what you were implying about "products" believe it or not i was not high when i did these. probably what i did in my younger days warped my brain permanently though. This helps me relax cause it's like the opposite of writing bids.

[yitwail]

Ray, I see several faces inside the last one you uploaded. Surely those were brushed in by you?

[numbsain]

Yes of course! After i do the original technique it dries perfectly flat so i went over it with ink. yes i've done a whole series of these.

[mwiggenhorn]

Once again, I have received an invitation to write an ebook for $100 (10,000 words).  Every time I get invited, I block the client and it pops up with yet another client name, same job.  This time they only invited 500+ freelancers - last week it was over 2,000.  The client has spent $70k on Upwork, average hourly rate is less than $1.  They have 1700+ open jobs.

Really, Upwork?  Really??

[ravi_iitian]

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@Mary W wrote:

Once again, I have received an invitation to write an ebook for $100 (10,000 words).  Every time I get invited, I block the client and it pops up with yet another client name, same job.  This time they only invited 500+ freelancers - last week it was over 2,000.  The client has spent $70k on Upwork, average hourly rate is less than $1.  They have 1700+ open jobs.

Really, Upwork?  Really??

---

 Wow!

[mwiggenhorn]

Well, they've spent $70k so they must be really good clients....

[indieovenfilm]

They are really good at **Edited for Community Guidelines** - can´t believe we freelance need to do this, and don´t do that and avoid this - and clients gets free pass on every crappy attitude 

[numbsain]

seems like the 2000 invitations should trip a red flag. A lot of things should like the words "sample" and "consider" in the same sentence. Or the words "please include your concept for my logo with your bid." What irks me about this is manifold: A. They know full well that coming up with the concept is 80% of logo design B. They overlook the fact that without asking a bunch of questions to understand the company, the product, the customers, the client him/herself etc. a professional designer would never attempt to come up with a concept! You would be stabbing in the dark and, as they say, ain't jnobody got time for that. C. That they would expect us to be so desperate as to put thought into a job we haven't even been hired for, much less do work, is preposterous and makes us sound like 3rd graders running a lemonade stand. And D. I assume they know because upwork has told them design contests are not acceptable as they fall under the category of free work.  So flock those flunkin iceholes and though I know I should probably keep my mouth shut upwork really should put the El Kibosh on that type of tom foolery pronto.

[mwiggenhorn]

And I just got the same **bleep** invitation today although I blocked the client on 5/20 and again on 5/27.  When I went to decline, it said that the job (posted 3 days ago) had expired and I couldn't decline or accept.

I opened a chat with Upwork and they are escalating it.  It's such an annoying invitation,but as I said before the client has spent $70k here so...

[jmlaidlaw]

This one was sent to me specially by Upwork. Not sure if they are trying to make amends for intemperate account suspension, or if they are trying to send me a message about what kind of an obnoxious person they think I am:

Someone needs a "French Interruptor."  (Expert at it, too!)

[colettelewis]

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@Janean L wrote:

This one was sent to me specially by Upwork. Not sure if they are trying to make amends for intemperate account suspension, or if they are trying to send me a message about what kind of an obnoxious person they think I am:

Someone needs a "French Interruptor."  (Expert at it, too!)

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 LOL!  I just saw this one for a "French Interruptor" too - a perfect illustration of a native /bilingual client who  does not qualify for this label, even if they have a US/UK college degree.  🙂

[numbsain]

in response to the French interruptor

I have got to make a cartoon of this:

Tourist: "Excuse me, which way is the Eiffel tow-"
F.I. "Monsieur! You do not want to go zere!"
T: "Uh, I was just asking this gentleme-"
FI: "Shush! Do not talk to zat fool! He knows nussing!"
T; "Hey why do you keep interru-"
F.I. "Monsieur! Do you not know who I am?..."

[colettelewis]

It's "monsieur" or "messieurs" (plural) - but that's OK - most of us will forgive you - 😛