Times are tough. The economy is in the dumps. Companies are closing their doors, and those that remain open are forced to reduce the size of their workforce. If you currently have a good job, you are one of the fortunate ones. If you are stuck in a bad job, well, at least you have a job. If you are unemployed, chances are you’ll stay that way. If you are lucky enough to find a job, you’ll probably be underemployed and hate it. Such is the sad state of affairs for many people in our society right now. I fall into the unemployed category. Well, I am self-employed, but my various revenue streams have all but dried up. Nobody has the money to spend on what they would consider a non-essential product or service. Those who can afford it are hesitant to spend their money right now, not knowing where this economy will lead. I don’t blame them. I’m holding my cards close to my vest as well, and looking for other opportunities and new revenue streams. I’ve tried to find a job, over the past couple of years, and even had a few interviews. But I haven’t been able to land a job. Now that I’m advancing into my 50s, I’m not so attractive to potential employers. Yes, age discrimination does exist in employment, as do other kinds of discrimination. Mechanical Turk offers a unique opportunity for me to pick and choose which jobs (HITs) to accept, work in the comfort of my own home, on a schedule that works well for me. No pressures. No hassles. No commuting. No strict schedule. No discrimination. If I want to do something, I do it. If I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to. This freedom does have its cost. Nobody will ever get rich, or even earn a comfortable living, doing Mechanical Turk HITs. But it’s better than sitting at home not making any money, or driving yourself crazy trying to find a job that doesn’t exist. Mechanical Turk has helped me retain my sanity, doing tasks I enjoy, while making a few bucks in the process.

Once i was just searching on internet about money earning sites, then i came to know about mturk. I made an account on this site and did a little bit of work. After few days i was paid, at time i was really very happy. I and my friend started doing work on this site after we are finished with our college. We go to our college at 9 am till 4 pm in the evening. After our college we used to do hits on mturk. We started ordering things from amazon. My friend always insisted on me to order first. I was so happy that i have got such a good friend. He always use to order after me. After this once i had done some amount of work in one of my accounts. There was around 100 dollars in that account. I had gone on holiday to my home. I thought that i would order something for my mother. One day i took my mother for ordering. that day she did not like anything. So we did not order any thing on that day. Next day when again i came with my mother to order , my password had been changed. It was a shock for me. I really did [not] expect this. I had trusted my friend so much. I came to know that he only changed my password by looking in the cart of my amazon account. The cart had that thing which he was wishing for. In this way my friend had betrayed me for few bucks. Actually i had used secondary mail for unlocking my gmail then only i came to know that he had done this to me. From that day i came to know that not to believe any body in this world.

At the recommendation of close friends, I have come to earn money on as a Mechanical Turk worker. Earning money could never be more fun than this. I enjoy what I do tremendously here and can pick and choose tasks that are of interest to me and do them in a reasonable amount of time at my discretion. What could be easier? I never believed that work could be fun online, but now I know it is possible to assist my fellow man, do something worthwhile and of service, and also get monetary gain. So far, I have chosen things such as answering questions, writing blog articles with a specific url link requested and matching words tasks. I am looking forward to doing a few transcription tasks as well, as I do have some experience doing so. The pay has been swift and timely and I couldn’t be happier. There is a world of opportunity set here before me and working at my leisure and from home is an immense pleasure. I would recommend joining the forces of Mechanical Turk to anyone of my good friends.

I joined Mechanical Turk thanks to the current financial crisis when the publication dates for my two books got significantly pushed back. While I am grateful to at least have emerged from this carnage with my book contracts intact, I soon realized that money that I had expected to have in hand was going to be delayed by close to a year. Thanks to the current crisis coupled with travel requirements dictated by these two books, finding a day job was out of the question. So, I hunkered down and tried to learn how to work this system. I joined Turk Nation where I picked up pointers and learned which requesters I should pursue and the ones I should avoid like crazy. I still don’t understand those who claim they earn 300+ a week as the few days I said I’m going to spend the entire day turking, I’d be lucky to make 20 dollars. Eventually, I found a rhythm where I would juggle doing these hits on top of trying to edit my book, secure additional writing gigs, look for other sources of emergency money and the like. Since landing a number of writing gigs, it’s been a challenge as these gigs tend to pay on publication. So, sometimes I have to increase my use of MTurk because some anticipated checks have not arrive in time for me to pay the rent and other necessities. Because I expend mental energies on my writing jobs, I look for assignments that are brainless – tag and moderate images, participate in an online classroom, watch a video, and so forth. However, I have taken on the odd research or writing assignment if the price is right or if I had a day that didn’t involve too much writing.

I have been working from home for about six years now for different companies doing a variety of different things. I got my start taking inbound calls for West Telemarketing, then moved to doing document coding for Onsite E-Discovery (which has now merged with another company and elimiated their remote coding department). Then I worked for Sterling Testing Systems for 3 years doing background checks for various companies’ job applicants. After that, work became considerably harder to find. Since then, I have worked for Westat as a data collector and as a team leader - that’s the position I got laid off from most recently. So right now I am just “biding my time” - have a job interview with a company tomorrow with an outbound and inbound calling company. In between all these jobs, I have done work in Mechanical Turk to make extra money for the things I mostly consider “non-essential”. My MTurk have been spent on Amazon.com on things like books, a few headsets (I bought the type of headset I’m going to need for the job I’m interviewing for tomorrow with MTurk earnings!) - I’ve even bought MP3 downloads with my MTurk earnings. I have also been doing transcription HITS that are posted on MTurk by companies such as CastingWords have to get some general transcription experience, so that I can get some exposure to different types of voices and accents that will be valuable once I finish my medical transcription program. I love MTurk!

So, I was sitting at work one day and thought “I really need to figure someway to make some more money”. I actually Googled “easy ways to make money” in a desparate attempt to find the get rich quick scheme. A bunch of the same old stuff came up. Sell your stuff on eBay, part time jobs, search for loose change, etc. Then I found this one that said, “become a mechanical turker”. I had no idea what this was. I was curious. I checked it out and here I am. I have been doing this for a couple of months now on and off both while at work(as I am right now) or at home. I do this quite casually and have been able to stack up a few extra bucks. I don’t think that I will ever earn a living with this but I have been able to save some money on Amazon.com. Most recently I purchased a new camera and saved around fifty dollars by using money I accumulated turking. All in all its not a bad way to fill some time and make a couple of bucks. I have been work at getting some higher qualifications so i can work on the big money HITS. I never would have guessed that I would be doing anything like this. I am still searching for that get rich quick scheme so if you got any ideas send them my way. Thanks for reading and keep on turking baby!

A few years ago me and my buddy were at a park around where i live and it was dark, when we were talking and a saw what i thought was a star but it looked like it was moving so we watched it for bout 15 minutes when all a sudden it came right over top us, and kept going just this huge bright light,no sound either, to this day we have no clue what it was though i suspect it was military or just a hot air balloon i have no idea but i was scared out of my mind at first and never saw it again and as far as i know nobody else saw anything that night so maybe we were just seeing things.however a few people i told said it was a ufo but i highly doubt that,i sure dont think it was but you never do know, anything is possible, but i would love to see it again and at least get a picture of it this time so people dont think i am crazy or making it up just to get attention.

I am almost fifty-two now, I have lived my family life, been married a long time and raised my kids and have grandkids. Worked in all types of jobs, and have owned two businesses of my own. But all I have ever wanted to be is a writer. I have been writing since I was a young teen - around 13. I became interested in reading books a few years before that, and figured I should try my hand at it. I loved romance and westerns the most, so of course the book I started writing had to be a romantic western. But I ended up scraping that book. Then I got into science fiction and started another story, have you ever heard of a romantic sci-fi? But it was so hard trying to figure out the logistics of the story, so I gave that one up too. I did have a little success, I “sold” (was paid no money) a short story to a journal that took two years to finally publish the story and I got one stinking copy of the magazine for all my hard work. But hey at least I could say I had been published. So now, over 20 years later, I find myself writing articles on-line for a few cents here and there. It’s not too bad; because I let the few cents build up and use the money to feed my reading habits. I am still working on that long lost romance novel. I doubt it will ever get finished, let alone published. But you never know, one day I might be the world’s next Nora Roberts.

When I was eight years old there was a party for my cousin at Willamlane Park in Springfield Oregon. The park has a large grassy ravine, with soft green grass, and all the kids decided we would all roll down the hill, as entertainment and fun while we waited for cake and ice cream. We all had a great time, then my Aunt called all the children up to the picnic table to sing Happy Birthday. All of a suddenly my dad goes, “Eww, what is that smell? Who stepped in dog crap?” we all looked around, lifting our feet and noone could find any sign of poop on their shoes. My Aunt exclaimed.“ Oh Mary look at your shirt, you must’ve rolled into a pile of it on the hill.” My face turned pale, and I shrieked,“No, I didn’t I dont have poop on me.” She walked over to me, and pulled my shirt back showing me where I had rolled into a pile of nice and fresh dog doo. I was so upset I started crying. I didn’t want to eat cake while sitting in a crappy shirt, literally speaking. This was definitely a “crappy” day. All the kids and even my dad started laughing. My aunt pulled the shirt off and grabbed a brown paper Albertsons bag, and made two holes in it for me to wear. I sniffled and sadly put my arms up wearing the bag of a shirt. I remember my dad specifically stifling his chuckles. “One day Mary, you’ll look back on this and you’ll laugh to. It may not seem like it now, but I promise you will.” About fifteen years later, I hadn’t thought of this memory in forever, and I was talking to my dad on the phone while he was in another state, and he mentioned what a crappy day he had. I bursted into laughter instantly, and he said,“What’s so funny?” I said,“Well dad, you said one day a crappy day would make me laugh. Remember when I rolled into a pile of crap?” He chuckled right along with me. Sometimes what may seem to be a horrible day, can turn into quite a hysterical memory.

That is the new philosophy of our household. We came up with it when we realized that we were not just living from paycheck to paycheck, but losing ground each month. The only way to get ahead was to beat back at our debt with a constant stream of cash. I once heard someone who grew up in New York in the 1970’s talking about the birth of hip-hop culture and life in his neighborhood. The people he knew were in a constant struggle to get ahead or to get away. They called themselves hustlers and devoted themselves entirely to making money however they could. The things they did for money involved drugs and extortion which I have no interest in, but the idea they had of relentlessly working to get ahead stuck with me. Which brings me here, to Mechanical Turk. I have a job during the day which pays well all things considered, but not quite well enough for us to keep our heads above water. Any other money we can bring into the house helps, even if it is only 25 cents or a dollar at a time. Whenever I get the feeling that I need to do something to help myself, to get to a better place, I come here. I have never been more proud of money that I have earned than the money I have made here. It is money that we have because we refuse to give up and sink below the waterline. We will keep at it until we are ahead, because we are digital hustlers.