Hi everyone, I wanted to share a story with you about something that happened to me recently on mturk. I accepted a $35.00 writing assignment. The task was to paraphrase a fairly large amount of work, but it looked simple enough so I figured I might as well go for it. I figured it would take me three days of the seven I was allotted. Since I typically average about ten bucks or so a day on turk assignments, it seemed reasonable enough. The requester was Jason Bodary and he was a dream to work for. After I finished some of the work, I sent it to him for consideration. He emailed back and asked for a slight revision. I understood now what he was doing and that made my task more clear. We shared open communication constantly. He is a very easy going, charming person to work for. Jason offered me a generous bonus if I could complete the task as early as I thought I could. After a day of working, I realized I might be in over my head. I farmed out some of the work on mturk (you can read about that in another thread), spending just over $100.00 out of my own pocket. I told Jason what I was doing and he reassured me I would be reimbursed for my costs and STILL get the bonus. I hoped so! I worked hard and long. Ergo helped me with a template so he also logged some hours, poor guy! But finally, things started to come together and I was able to pick up the pace--though not quickly enough to submit the work as early as I had promised. I did finish with about 1 day or so to spare before the final deadline of the HIT though. I turned in my work via email and only one portion via mturk so the HIT could be accepted by Jason and I could get paid. I was keeping my fingers crossed. I was taking a big leap of faith with my own funds at stake. But my communications with Jason convinced me he would come through, as promised. He accepted the HIT almost immediately and paid me right away. Now I was waiting on the bonus. Jason Bodary is a man of his word, I can assure you. Not only did he reimburse me the hundred dollars I spent to help me get his assignment done, but he gave me the $115.00 bonus, as promised (for a total of $150.00 for the HIT), even though I turned it in a couple days later than I expected to. I wanted to share the story of my good fortune with you because I think it's encouraging to know that there are requesters on mturk that do have integrity; though many may not. And also to drive home the importance of maintaining open and constant communication with requesters so there are no misunderstandings. Working hard can pay off in unexpected ways and when you build a good rapore with some requesters, you increase your chances that even if there is a misunderstanding or you make a mistake, you will be allowed to fix it and still get paid.
Lucky you!!! Good that you got paid for your hard work and paid so well. Wish I too had the capacity for hard work.
Or my favorite-Nobody ever died from doing housework, but why risk it? I think Phyllis Diller said that (maybe?)
Shego, I'm so glad things worked out for you! I hope we'll be seeing more people like Jason finding MTurk.
What a great post to choose to read just before retiring for the night! Thanks for sharing and thanks for the encouragement.
Hi...Riaz... I would like to ask you a quest....What is that you have mentioned? Wishing you all happy mturking except for 2.... Who are the 2?
Please don't go off topic. This is a question you should have to ask in a PM to me and guess what... ??
That is really quite awesome! I like to hear stories about good requesters because often, we are not telling the good ones! Thank you so very much for sharing!