My name is #$#%@&^, and I am a mechanical turk. I work in what might best be described as an academic gulag, a place where the academic world sends those it doesn’t really want. The students here are nice kids, and a few are pretty smart,but most have been so poorly served by the educational system that they are beyond repair. Increasingly, our efforts and shrinking resources are spent on the least well-prepared to bring them close to mediocrity, at the expense of those who might actually accomplish something. There are no facilities, no funding, and little chance for escape.I turk in order to avoid thinking about the hopelessness of my situation.

I am a mechanical turk, but I’m really a human. I’ve been doing this for almost a week now, and I’ve earned almost $7.00. I’m trying to help pay my rent because I am very low income and I’m always short at the end of the month. Since I am new at this, I don’t have alot of hits available to me and most of the ones that are don’t pay very much. Right now I am extremely sad. One hit I had to return because I couldn’t get the sound to play. Another one I spent quite some time on but it was rejected, and it wasn’t until I got the explanation of why it was rejected that I understood what they wanted me to do in the first place! If that info had been in the hit, I would have done it correctly or not accepted it. Then there was one I spent 15 minutes on earlier today trying to earn one penny. Something went wrong when I tried to submit it and instead it gave me a new hit, which I didn’t want, so I returned. Meanwhile I ran out of time on the first one while trying to get back to it. I’m afraid I don’t have a very good success rate but it’s not from lack of trying! I’ve been working about two hours today and maybe I’ve earned about seventy cents. My friend found four cents on the ground yesterday and all he had to do was bend over and pick it up and I got jealous. Honestly. Now this one will probably be rejected because it’s too long. Yes, I ran it thru the spell-checker.

I was told about MTurk right after being diagnosed with cancer. I was sitting at home after my first surgery bored as could be and scared as could be. My husband heard about this site and thought that doing the hits would keep my mind off of what was happening and make me feel like I was doing something. He was right. This site helped me keep my sanity during a very hard time and helped me to stay busy. Thanks MTurk

I’ve been unemployed since November 2008. I have sent out hundreds of resumes and it’s not that I’m not qualified for the jobs I’ve been seeking, it’s the job market. I’ve asked some of the companies that I have sent my resume to just how many they are receiving and they are getting 100 resumes (sometimes more) for just one administrative job. The situation is very disheartening. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my day (not that my resume reflects this!) and I have never seen anything like the situation out there now. I did some networking and contacted someone that I hadn’t spoken with in 30 years. He and I have talked and had lunch and caught up. Now I’m up for a great position and will have my second interview next week. I’m very excited about this prospect and never would have heard of this job if not for my new (old) friend! Since then, I have had to take state benefits as I’ve had no income and long ago ran out of savings. To be on unemployment (which is running out), food stamps and state offered health care has been very demoralizing for me. One thing that has kept me going is finding Amazon Mechanical Turk. The amounts of money I make are no where near anything that can support me but it really helps to see any income coming in. I check in all the time! I’m very glad that I was referred to this service!

I am a Mechanical Turk. But that is not all that I am. I am also a homeowner and a dog owner. Last summer my crazy beagle was chasing a rabbit around the back yard. We have a pool with a chain-link fence around it and the rabbit managed to squeeze under that fence and hide under the decking surrounding the pool. My dog (I’ll call her Daisy) quickly dug under the fence also and then proceeded to sqeeze under the deck after the rabbit. Daisy got about 12 feet under the deck and then got stuck! We could hear her, but could not see her. We hoped she would be able to somehow wiggle her way out backwards but she could not. Then it started to pour rain and thunder and lightening. We didn’t want to leave her out there so my son got a crow bar and pulled up several of the boards of the deck (ruining them) so Daisy could get out. She acted as if nothing was wrong and followed us into the house…where she go a bath. I would like to think that Daisy is a smart dog, but the same exact thing happened the next day. This time there was no rain or thunder or lightening so we took our time pulling up the boards so that they could be nailed back into place. We realized this was going to be an on going event if we didn’t do something about it. So my husband and son had to go around the whole fence hammering in stakes so Daisy could no longer dig under it. It worked and now the rabbits are safe as well as our deck.

I am a Mechanical Turk. My name is not really Mark, but for this writing, it is. I found this web site because I was looking to make some extra money. Really, I don’t think that this web site allows people to make enough money (at least for someone in the US). The rates are low, however I am hooked. Maybe it is my insomnia, or my obsession with raising my approval rating. I really don’t know, but whatever the reason, I constantly find myself awake at 2 AM on Mturk doing senseless things. I also always have poker open on another screen, which is probably a much more viable way for me to make money. I love cards. I think the mturk site is a great idea; however it is unfair how much work some hits require in order to make a nickel or less. I really don’t get why there isn’t a minimum wage for mturk. Still, the tasks are often fun and I really enjoy the academic surveys since I work on those sometimes at the University I go to. It is a Midwest college and I really have not enjoyed my experience here. There is something about all the fraternities and sororities, which seems to corrupt people. I think George Carlin once said something like, “I love & treasure individuals as I meet them, but I loathe and despise the groups they belong too”. I feel that way sometimes. I study the media and communication technologies and how they affect people, so maybe that is why I am so enamored with this web site (and reality TV). Whatever the reason, I think I will keep doing these little tasks for a while until I become bored or when I start doing better on the poker tables. For the rest of this memoir, I will give some random facts about myself, since I believe another thing that makes mturk cool is how it is made up of people from a lot of different place who are all unique in different ways. “A community out of nothing” should be the slogan (or maybe the slogan for another online community). I like lasagna a lot. Heidi & Spencer are lame (so was the Hills). Red Monkey hats are way better than Ed Hardy. People should be more open-minded. The radio should have better music on more often. Old Rock stars should retire once they sound bad. Jesus may have been black. Would it matter? Religions are bull shit, spirituality is everything. Love is everything and more. Terminator Salvation was a letdown, but a step up from T3. Six Flags is a lot of fun. Colleges aren’t producing individuals who have integrity. The sublime Doesn’t have to scare us Professor O’Gorman. Mturk needs to pay more for hits. Facebook and twitter have gone overboard. We should all have fun outdoors more. Paris Hilton isn’t too hot.

The Mechanical Turk Diaries gives Amazon’s anonymous workforce a voice.

I believe Mechanical Turkers have a story to share. The stories collected here reveal the personalities and lives of real people completing tasks as Mechanical Turks. They can be brave, creative, and humbling. When I started this project I was immediately surprised by the inspiration I found in the stories Turkers had to tell: a woman surviving cancer, someone saving up, and a sex worker dreaming of starting her own dog breeding business. I encourage you to search the stories, learn about your co-workers (if you’re a Turker), and be inspired.

If you’re interested in becoming a Mechanical Turk, completing some HITs, and submitting your own story go here. I post a request for stories whenever I have extra cash. Search the HITs for “mechanical turk diaries” and submit your story.

Contact me: mturkdiaries@gmail.com

Interviewed July 22nd, 2009 on TurkerTalk episode #6