Feelancer vs Worker

[alexzk]

I would like to know official answers from Upwork if possible please.

So lets define terms:

1. Worker - is a hired man who does ANYTHING boss asks related to position and gets payment. For example worker-programmer writes any program (and in some companies can even do electrical fixes to computer) which boss needs.

Worker does not have personal rating outside (or even inside) company, so if he fails too much and gets fired- he just changes company.

2. Freelancer - man who wants exact (agreed with customer) thing to be done fast & with quality. Succession rate is tracked by Upwork. So if freelancer lost rate, he lost job for long. Freelancer should reject work if he knows he can't do it (for example programmer is asked to make car).

I.e. important for this text difference, worker may not know what will be doing at 8am. Freelancer always knows from start till end.

Now I'm getting at least 1 invite per week to be a worker. How to detect? 

1. a lot of things to know, huge list for couple pages of exact names.

2. never answer on question "what to do", or start things like "we do agile and command decideds earch morning" (this is most important, see below).

3. want personal interviews in 1st sentence, etc.

So let's see cycle if company hires worker:

1. each morning agile makes new task list, can be complete new then yesterday, not even related.

2. workers trie to do that, if failed that is moved to another worker. if all workers failed, then they revise/change this thing using (1) and repeat loop.

3. all workers are paid at end of month. somebody who had 99% of fails is replaced by new worker.

Now if company hired me from Upwrok as freelancer I have 1 important difference - I have fails track. So to avoid fails I should avoid things which I cannot do and I know it. But in hire "as worker" I cannot avoid all. Tommorrow they will decide to do facebook in 1 day, I will fail that, and that will be recorded.

Also such hires tend to lure me out of Upwork (i.e. upwork looses money).

So I was declining such for long, but time to ask a question if company Upwork proposes some protection from such hires? When they try to hire worker but I'm freelancer.

As it gets so popular latelly, maybe need some checkbox "i'm worker on this job, not freelancer" which will ensure rating correction? Or ban those "clients" more active.

[prestonhunter]

Did you have an actual question, or are you just thinking out loud?

[alexzk]

Last paragraph.

That is not supposed to read fast or collect 10000 answers.

I have exact problem - people try to hire me as worker which will gurantee drop my rating at least, as they decide what to do once per day. Some day in future they will decide something I can't do. But I'm already hired. This means -> rating dropped.

[prestonhunter]

On Upwork, there is no user interface element that allows clients to specify that they are hiring someone as a "worker" versus a "freelancer."

Upwork is not going to provide an official statement based on the terminology you wrote to describe how you feel about the distinction between the two words or concepts.

[alexzk]

Well, it would be ok if they disappear from my feed and my email box such "clients".

Some days they just overflow. It started with COVID19.

[feed_my_eyes]

As a freelancer, you can refuse to work on a project, or stop working on a project, at any time. If a client asks you to do something that you don't know how to do, then you should politely recommend that they hire somebody else. No rational client is going to suddenly insist that you do something that's outside your skillset, or give you a bad score if you don't know how. (And if you find yourself frequently working for irrational clients, then you need to improve your vetting skills.)

[alexzk]

I have no idea what they ask to do.

Usually after 1st question "please explain what will we do" they're gone.

Only  1 answered in details "we do morning 1 hour meetings and decide".

So that does not fit concept of freelancing, which means "task + time + money = agreement".

[martina_plaschka]

To me the main distinction is that a freelancer is running a business, while a worker is not. As a freelancer one of your most important skills is client management. I don't know why you even talk about taking work that you are not 100% qualified to do, that is a no-no for about a million reasons. 

[alexzk]

I never said I take it.

I say about typical invites lately. Once COVID-19 started it is everyday. Whole feed is spammed by those.

They look for worker, no details.

So Upwork should filter it somehow, or give me a tool to safely accept them. Maybe I could work with 1 or 2. If it was safe.

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Aleksey Z wrote:

I never said I take it.

I say about typical invites lately. Once COVID-19 started it is everyday. Whole feed is spammed by those.

They look for worker, no details.

So Upwork should filter it somehow, or give me a tool to safely accept them. Maybe I could work with 1 or 2. If it was safe.

---

What do you mean by "safe"? I'm not sure that I'm following. Is your main complaint that sometimes clients waste your time? Sorry, but that's part of being a freelancer - not all of your efforts will pay off. 

[alexzk]

I already made big text what I mean safe. 1st post.

In short if they hire me as 'worker" then it should be known to upwork as "worker" and judge rules apply different then for "freelancer". As it is different things.

However, I'm not really sure why Upwork allows to hire "workers" at all. This platform is about "freelancers".

[prestonhunter]

re: "I'm not really sure why Upwork allows to hire "workers" at all. This platform is about "freelancers"."

Unfortunately, Upwork is not planning to change this, even though you pointed out the problem. You should create your own platform on which you handle this matter the correct way.

[martina_plaschka]

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Aleksey Z wrote:

I already made big text what I mean safe. 1st post.

In short if they hire me as 'worker" then it should be known to upwork as "worker" and judge rules apply different then for "freelancer". As it is different things.

However, I'm not really sure why Upwork allows to hire "workers" at all. This platform is about "freelancers".

---

You seem to be saying that if you mindlessly perform a task (the worker), you should not be punished by bad feedback if the client is not happy, or something like that. 

Do you really believe that clients will happily divide their tasks into: looking for a mindless worker/ looking for somebody who applies himself?

[alexzk]

They have special sites for "workers", like toptotal or linkedin.

That what I wonder too, why they spam such on Upwork. Just got another similar invite.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Aleksey Z wrote:

They have special sites for "workers", like toptotal or linkedin.

That what I wonder too, why they spam such on Upwork. Just got another similar invite.

---

So what exactly are you asking for? Do you want Upwork to read all of your invitations and decide which ones are worthy of your attention, then tell all of the other clients to go elsewhere? 

(BTW, I get lots of good clients from Linked In.)

[alexzk]

Giving exact solution to product owner on forums never works.

I pay em 25% from each new contract so they could find some way to please me.

Currently I dislake that I have tonns of that "worker" spam everywhere, which hides from me true jobs. Also if I accept one of that "workers" i'm in big risk to break my profile by current rules.

So it's just pure waste for me to see those.

What I need - to remove "pure waste" in any way by changing one of mentioned things.

[petra_r]

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Aleksey Z wrote:

I pay em 25% from each new contract so they could find some way to please me.

---

You don't pay them 25% of each new contract and Upwork aren't going to completely reprogram their site just because you want some obscure solution to some obscure issue nobody else seems to have.

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Aleksey Z wrote:

What I need - to remove "pure waste" in any way by changing one of mentioned things.

---

Not going to happen.

[alexzk]

Actually, I think it is part of bigger problem that customers aren't formalized. 

There are many jobs like "make me happy, details in chat". They allow that because freelancer pays to start chat.

Next, those "worker hires" are big lists with plenty of keywords. So search engine just rank up it better then simple "make me happy", and here we go. Big problem to find some good job between those 2.

[alexzk]

Any way, thanks everybody. I said everything I had to at this moment. Nothing to add.