Re: This is truly sad...

bundie702 · ‎02-20-2019

Someone in Liverpool, England just posted this ad. I can hardly believe what they are asking for vs. what they are paying.

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**edited for Community Guidelines**
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Can you BELIEVE that? $5 for what will likely be at least 3 hours worth of work and very possibly more (of which Upwork will take 20%)? The really sad part is that than 5-10 people have applied.

I usually shrug off these low-paid jobs, but this is so incredible I just had to comment on it. How desperate can people be to be willing to work for $1.50 an hour or less. This is truly sad.

yitwail · ‎02-20-2019

Thanks for posting that, though moderators will edit it shortly. But consider that she'll consider new freelancers looking for their first job; that's her hook. It was always difficult to get your first freelancing job, even before oDesk and Elance combined to become Upwork, but now that Upwork can suspend freelancers for submitting too many unsuccessful proposals, it's understable many new freelancers will be desperate to land their first job, and clients like this one know this and will exploit it.

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

bundie702 · ‎02-20-2019

Good point, John, about clients going after newbies.

I recently lost my Top Rated status because I wasn't active for about 60 days. I suspect I won't be getting it back anytime soon, because good-paying editing jobs are too hard to find on the platform and things are getting worse all the time. I'll probably just stick to my existing clients and the work I get from my website.

Odd that moderators would see the need to edit a posting that's on the feed. It's okay for it to be on the feed, but not okay to repeat it here? I must be missing something...

yitwail · ‎02-20-2019

Bettye U wrote:

Odd that moderators would see the need to edit a posting that's on the feed. It's okay for it to be on the feed, but not okay to repeat it here? I must be missing something...

Maybe it won't be. Upwork Community Guidelines are open to interpretation. For instance, it *might* be suppressed as an instance of "Posting advertisements for any products or services" even though that's not the intent. There's also "Posting content determined to be inappropriate, overly negative, in poor taste, or otherwise contrary to the purposes of this forum, in the sole discretion of Upwork." (I added the underlining.)

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

petra_r · ‎02-20-2019

Bettye U wrote:

I recently lost my Top Rated status because I wasn't active for about 60 days.

No. You lost it because your JSS is below 90%

bundie702 · ‎02-21-2019

Let me try this again. My JSS dropped below 90% because I wasn't active for 60 days, and as a result I lost my Top Rated status.

vulani · ‎02-25-2019

Upwork can suspend freelancers for submitting too many unsuccessful proposals?!

I'm an Upwork Newbie. Could you please explain the details of this statement or where I can read more about it? What is the threshold and do you get a warning?

I'm trying to determine my niche on this platform and seem to have to kiss a lot of frogs.

Thanks

bmhumphreys · ‎02-26-2019

Denise B wrote:
Upwork can suspend freelancers for submitting too many unsuccessful proposals?!
I'm an Upwork Newbie. Could you please explain the details of this statement or where I can read more about it? What is the threshold and do you get a warning?
I'm trying to determine my niche on this platform and seem to have to kiss a lot of frogs.
Thanks

I'd like an answer on this, too, please. Is this real? I've sent out about 30 proposals in the last few days, because I'm trying to get my number of active clients back up (don't worry, I'm not applying for the bottom feeders' posts), but I'm worried that my "been interviewed" rate hasn't been as high lately. If this is really an UpWork policy, can you, Avery, or one of the other gurus please post a link?

Thanks!

lysis10 · ‎02-20-2019

haha the ol' "I'm injured can you work cheap to help a poor feller out?" trick. It's a good attempt. Plenty of idiots will do it.

bundie702 · ‎02-20-2019

Someone invited me to a job that included the words, "I'm on a tight budget..." I thanked them, but declined. In my experience that phrase usually means they want a lot of high-quality work for very little pay...

AveryO · ‎02-20-2019

Hi Bettye,

I had to edit the post as it violated this specific Community Guideline:

Including names of persons or companies (or other identifying information) in an accusation of misconduct, incompetence or other wrongdoing.

In this case, anyone can try to locate the job post by copy-pasting phrases from the post, and searching it in the marketplace. I hope this clarifies things, Bettye. Let me know if you have further questions!

~ Avery

bundie702 · ‎02-20-2019

Thank you Jennifer, but I did not accuse anyone of misconduct, incompetence, or other wrongdoing. My issue was with the people applying to transcribe and edit an hour's worth of dictation for $1.50 an hour, not with the client (actually, more power to them for getting work done for practically nothing)!

I appreciate your attempt to clarify this for me, but frankly, I've long since given up on trying to understand some of the platform's violations. It seems to be okay to post jobs for suspicious or illegal activity, like plagiarizing, but it's a violation to cut and paste a job posting on the community boards. Why is no one looking at the contents of some of these postings? I mean, someone could post a job looking to hire a hitman, and it would stay up longer than a cut and paste job on these boards! (I'm not trying to be difficult, but I just find this ironically funny.) The rule should probably be no cutting and pasting, period.

Thanks again.

bundie702 · ‎02-21-2019

Oops, I meant, thank you, Avery.

yitwail · ‎02-21-2019

Bettye U wrote:
Thank you Jennifer, but I did not accuse anyone of misconduct, incompetence, or other wrongdoing. My issue was with the people applying to transcribe and edit an hour's worth of dictation for $1.50 an hour, not with the client (actually, more power to them for getting work done for practically nothing)!

Bettye, I was going to mention accusation of misconduct as one possible reason for editing your post, but decided it was a bit of a stretch. However, I looked up the word misconduct and one definition is improper behavior, and we both think paying $5 for transcribing then editing a 40 minute audio file is improper behavior, so I can appreciate Avery's viewpoint.

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

e_gasparini · ‎02-21-2019

Hello everyone,

such low rates come as no surprise, to me. But not only in translation; how many times have you read something like "New to Upwork?" This is a great chance for you!", and it turns out you're asked to write a 3,000-word article for $5 and "a great 5-star feedback!". Just wow.

Needless to say, these job posts must be avoided. I understand when someone points out that newbies are desperately trying to land their first job, so that they won't have their account suspended for too many unsuccessful applications, but there's more than that: working for those rates has a huge, negative influence on the translator and his/her career, and it also negatively affects the whole translation field, it diminishes fellow translators' work!

I haven't had any luck on Upwork so far, despite putting a lot of effort into it by polishing up my profile, my proposals...
Who knows if I will actually have my account suspended because of that! But that doesn't matter, as I have no intention to negatively impact my career, just to avoid getting suspended on Upwork -- maybe people forget that Upwork is very, very far from being the only place where freelance translators can get jobs.

I wish so bad that, as time passes, less and less translators accepted shameful rates like those. We'll see (and hope)!

Have a great day you all.

luce-neidert · ‎02-22-2019

What really breaks my heart is when the client offers a reasonable price and you can see (with the Freelancer Plus plan) that some freelancers have offered to work for a pittance instead.

uaecalling · ‎02-24-2019

It is a buyers' market out there

luce-neidert · ‎02-24-2019

It shouldn't be. It's up to us freelancers not to play this game, as it hurts our intererest.

mtngigi · ‎02-25-2019

A simple fix if Upwork would chose to do so ... is to set the minimum at $25. That's still not great, but it sure doesn't look as shameful as $5 - why Upwork wants to align itself with that other $5 site is beyond my ken.

prestonhunter · ‎02-26-2019

A $5.00 minimum is fine.

There are jobs I'll do for $5.00.

If Upwork allows this freedom to freelancers, it doesn't mean you need to do jobs for that amount. You can establish any mininum you want for yourself.

mtngigi · ‎02-26-2019

Preston H wrote:
A $5.00 minimum is fine.

There are jobs I'll do for $5.00.

If Upwork allows this freedom to freelancers, it doesn't mean you need to do jobs for that amount. You can establish any mininum you want for yourself.

No ... it's not fine. You make enough $ that you can afford to work for free once in awhile (because when all is said and done, it is essentially working for free). And you know as well as I do that most people who take those jobs are being taken advantage of - they end up being way more than a $5 job. But more than anything, I do not understand how UW is not embarrassed to allow such jobs.

jr-translation · ‎02-26-2019

Virginia F wrote:
Preston H wrote:
A $5.00 minimum is fine.

There are jobs I'll do for $5.00.

If Upwork allows this freedom to freelancers, it doesn't mean you need to do jobs for that amount. You can establish any mininum you want for yourself.
No ... it's not fine. You make enough $ that you can afford to work for free once in awhile (because when all is said and done, it is essentially working for free). And you know as well as I do that most people who take those jobs are being taken advantage of - they end up being way more than a $5 job. But more than anything, I do not understand how UW is not embarrassed to allow such jobs.

It depends on the amount of work. I have a regular client that need translation with max 80 words every now and then. It takes less then 5 minutes but it is a new contract everytime and I just crossed the $100 line. I always celebrate a completed job and sometimes these translations cheer me up when I really need it.

mtngigi · ‎02-26-2019

Jennifer R wrote:
Virginia F wrote:
Preston H wrote:
A $5.00 minimum is fine.

There are jobs I'll do for $5.00.

If Upwork allows this freedom to freelancers, it doesn't mean you need to do jobs for that amount. You can establish any mininum you want for yourself.
No ... it's not fine. You make enough $ that you can afford to work for free once in awhile (because when all is said and done, it is essentially working for free). And you know as well as I do that most people who take those jobs are being taken advantage of - they end up being way more than a $5 job. But more than anything, I do not understand how UW is not embarrassed to allow such jobs.
It depends on the amount of work. I have a regular client that need translation with max 80 words every now and then. It takes less then 5 minutes but it is a new contract everytime and I just crossed the $100 line. I always celebrate a completed job and sometimes these translations cheer me up when I really need it.

You and Preston both are missing my point, so I'll give up. Yes, $5 is fine, and what's also fine is how much is left after Upwork's fees and self-employment taxes. Yeah, that's just fine.

kfarnell · ‎02-26-2019

Apart from anything else, a more sensible minimum (though I would prefer $50) would immediately raise the perceived standard of Upwork as higher than those other places that instantly spring to mind. My mind boggles at the thought that Upwork prefers not to try to attract people who are prepared to spend more money...

wendy_writes · ‎02-27-2019

I agree with Kim. Settting a $50 minimum on jobs reflects a more professional aspect that I would think U wanrts and needs to develop.

This is even more true in light of the announcement of Upwork Plus for Clients (see here:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Introducing-Upwork-Plus-for-Clients/td-p/567998)

It is tantamount to impossible to create the image of competency that large corporations demand while allowing $1 or $5 jobs. It is equally impossible to retain top tier freelancers when stabbing them in the back as per full details in the link above.