Once I’ve had the luck to get my hands on a HIT where someone paid 20 dollars to convert a PDF document to a Microsoft Office spreadsheet. The document consisted on a long list of US army bases around the world that also contained the base’s address, phone and fax number along with the name and rank of some officer that was supposed to be in charge of the base. It was a whole lot of work for 20 dollars but… There was a way to just do the same thing in less time. So, I just converted the whole PDF to a UTF-8 text file, that ended up producing a long list of somewhat mangled text. Yet, the text structure was more or less preserved (each address in a line, separated by tabs). So to convert that to a meaningful format I just wrote a small parser in Perl that converted the entire text to CSV format, which worked like a charm. From that I fed it into OpenOffice and tweaked according to the Requester’s wishes. So to put it shortly, I ended up earning a 20 dollar HIT in 15 minutes. Sweet!

I am a 68 year old female who was born in the state of Georgia in the United States of America. I remember some things about World War II, such as going to the rationing board with my mother to get rationing stamps, the fact that chocolate was hard to get and that everyone seemed to work together for the war effort. Since my parents were children of the depression era, I learned from them that value of saving everything you had that you might need again. In today’s society, this can lead one to be a packrat (which my husband and I both are!) I grew up with one younger brother. We both attended good elementary and high schools and got very good educations from the public schools in our county and then both went to school at state institutions. I have been happily married to the same man for 47 years. We are fortunate to have two adult children who are married and doing fine on their own. They have given us six grandchildren that we are proud of and them we love very much and enjoy spending time with them. After living and working in a large metropolitan area for most of my adult life, I now live with my husband in a small town on the Atlantic coast and enjoy every minute of it! The warm climate and the natural beauty make it a delightful place to live. I came to Mechanical Turk as a way to make some extra money during my retirement years and I am enjoying what it has to offer very much. The experience I had on computers during my working years is an asset to being able to take advantage of Mechanical Turk.

I am more than an online worker. I am a woman who loves to write. I paint pictures with words. Sometimes they are beautiful like a painting by Monet. Other times, my words slide off the page in a poor imitation of Salvador Dali. Before I turn 45, I will go to a bookstore, find my novel, and lovingly run my fingers along its spine. I know I will. I am more than a faceless worker. I am a mother raising her brood in a shiny, neon city. A city that wants to eat them alive, chew them up, and spit them out. My son’s friends have discovered the nightmare that is black tar heroine. I pray they never draw him into their twisted world. Hawkers stand on the street corners, passing out calling cards for women who have sex for money. Red, blue, green, purple lights but twenty-four hours a day on the street where tourists come to play. They do things here they would never do at home and expect that the natives will never tell. But we do tell, some even take pictures and sell them to the highest bidder. How sad for all of us but this is the case. I am more than a mechanical turk. I am a person of integrity who winces at the lies and twisted schemes of this world and those who prepetuate them. I look after people who have less than me. I smile before I am smiled at. It’s my way. I want more from my world, more love, more compassion, more honesty, more fun. I want less from my world, less poverty, less hunger, less greed, less pain. I don’t know if I will these things come to pass. It what I pray for behind closed doors. I ask God for more and for less. I’ll always pray.

Once a successful Manager at a Fortune 500 Company, my position was eliminated, along with hundreds of others as part of a part of a corporate restructure. Oddly enough, the bulk of those who were affected were over forty five. Yet age discrimination is illegal in the United States. So know I have spent the last sixteen months pursuing another position. When not scouring the job boards, I pass the time doing assignments such as this,reworking sentences or answering surveys for pennies a day. My weekly salary does not match what I earned in an hour in the corporate world. The problem is many companies have outsourced American jobs to other countries. They earned a huge tax credit and did not have to deal with the expense of providing health insurance. They do not seem to be concerned that the quality of the service business is now lacking which ultimately effects the ability of these companies to sustain business. Having managed a group of service providers i am appalled when I am reduced to communicating with a representative thousands of miles away who does not even have a command of the language. Worst yet are the cases where there is no 800 number to call but only the option to relay a question or problem via email which continues in circles only to end in a canned response. I believe these jobs need to be brought home. National health care will enable U.S. companies to be able to do this by making it more affordable.

Now hear this! I don’t think I can overstate the positive influence that watching old TV shows on DVD’s has had – on me, my kids, my wife. Get Smart, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith, Superman. These stories were invented and written by a group of writers and directors that no longer exists - but they were great. You can get a DVD and watch them uninterupted. Mission Impossible episodes captivate the young ones. If we want to watch something together, it’s a whole lot easier to fit in one or two of the old shows than a movie. Somehow I just don’t run into a lot of stories that I remember, so the plots are fresh, suspensful, surprising and funny. It’s also fun to see my kids watch shows that I watched as a kid when I was as old as they are now. When I first started watching TV this way, I thought I would end up with a favorite series. But the collection of the classic shows from the 60’s to the 90’s is the real treasure. It’s the totality of the collection that I’m happy to have as a resource.

I have been MTurking for quite a while now. I started because it sounded interesting to see what others were studying, wanting to know or wanting help with, and it quickly became addicting. I am using the money I earn completing MTurk projects to buy Christmas presents for the family (through Amazon.com of course). It is sometimes difficult to make time to do MTurk work, but I do not let a week go by without completing at least one project. MTurk projects have been fun, occasionally challenging, and sometimes downright intimidating. I have had great joy in stretching to complete some of the tasks I have accepted. It is great to get that weekly email telling me how many hits and how much money I have made in the prior week. I get to see how much closer I am getting to my $ goal by December 1st. As I am getting closer to retirement and full time boat living, it is a great time for me to also explore what I can be doing to earn a little extra spending money without being tied to land. In addition, as a nurse working in health care, MTurk gives me other arenas to participate in. I have time on my hands, between work and volunteering, I might as well make a few dollars when I have time to get online. I have told all of the kids about MTurk and they too are enjoying the projects and the money they make.

I love how global life has become: I am currently living in a rather obscure part of America but will be attending a large university soon. I am deeply interested in Japanese and obtaining a job which involves the use of Japanese and technology. However, where I am living, there are hardly any minorities to begin with, let alone Japanese people, so the Internet is significant in my life. Similarly, the Internet, and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program has allowed me to find a way to hopefully earn some money to survive and save money on purchases since I am a “starving student” wanting to go global.

My husband is on a bowling league and is a “way too serious bowler”. If I stay out of the gutters and score at least 100, I’ve already won. We used to be on the same league and team, but now I won’t even play with him for fun and here’s why. One particular league night I couldn’t throw a bad ball. I was picking up spares, splits and throwing stricks like crazy, he on the other hand should’ve stayed at home. He couldn’t even be happy for me and at one time actually kicked the ball return in anger after throwing a bad ball. I ended up with a 254 and he had a 179. I even beat him total pins. I could tell it was going to be an awkard ride home and after about 10 minutes I broke the silence by asking if he was mad because I beat him bowling. Without pausing to breath this was his exact words, “No I’m not mad, but your legs are fat and you need to do something about it”. I had to laugh because it was so 4th grade jealously. My reply was, “well they may be fat, but they still beat you bowling”! We celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary, December 2008, in Mexico. I’ve lost 105 lbs since November 2006 with Lap-Band Surgery. Not because of his chosen words, but because I chose to do it for myself!

Life at mturk. I recently joined mturk so that I can make a few extra bucks. I’m not aiming for much. I just want to make enough to be able to buy a GPS system. I graduated from University two years ago and I have a well-paid job at an international company. However, my parents are nearing retirement. I am going to get married soon and I just bought a new house in preparation for my wedding. I feel that even with my above average salary, I am not making enough money to feel secure. In case the economy gets worst and I lose my job, I would be really worried about losing everything I have. The first thing is I would lose my house. The second thing is my parents would be worried. Finally, what will my fiancé think if I lost my job? Although many are losing their jobs, I feel that it would be a shame if my fiancé had to work to be able to support me. Maybe I have that male ego thing, but I just feel that I should be able to support my family. It should be time for my parents to settle into retirement and not have to worry about finances. When I look at the future, I feel that I will be working for many years to support my family. This is a lot of pressure in my mind. Maybe everybody have this kind of pressure, but I just feel like life is passing by too quickly and I’m missing out on different things. There are many things I want to do, but I can’t. I have a duty to support the family. Is that a selfish thought?

So, I’ve been doing Amazon Mechanical Turk for about 2 weeks. I’ve earned $31.22 in 2 weeks. I’m not sure that’s a great amount. However, it is $31.22 more than I typically would make sitting around watching TV or twiddling my thumbs. Why am I doing Amazon Mechanical Turk? I’m not exactly sure. I work full time, I’m married, I go to school full time, and I have 2 kids. We’re comfortably financially but I like that I’m making more money but not taking time away from the family. I think it makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile and earning money while I’m doing. It also kind of justifies the time spent mindlessly watching TV. So, if I’ve made this money what can I do with it? I can use it on Amazon! Yoohoo! I spend tons of money on Amazon. So with $31.22 I can place an order and get free super saver shipping! Double cool! I have also earned enough to pay 3 weeks of allowance in my house. Now that’s nice. Paying for allowance for 3 weeks and its not cutting into my paycheck. So what does Amazon Mechanical Turk do for me? I enjoy taking the surveys. Its fun. It reminds me of college when I was in Psyc 101 needing credit from experiments. I enjoy learning about new products and new websites. In general it’s a good experience. My spam might have increased…yuck…but yahoo is pretty good at filtering it. Have I learned anything? I’m not sure. I should have learned that my cell phone is dirtier than my toilet bowl. If I did learn that (which apparently I did), I didn’t make behavior changes. I’ve also learned I’m good at writing 250 words and not as good at writing 400 words.