Thursday, August 29, 2013

What is Jon Brelig and Oscar Smith?



Experienced Mechanical Turk workers know who these unknown entities are and avoid them like the plague.   The copy business cards under the guise of Oscar Smith is for an app called CardMunch which is owned by LinkedIn.  Yes, a multi-million dollar corporation is the one behind paying workers less than $1 per hour.
The other one, copy receipts is Jon Brelig. This is a startup who chooses to use the CEO’s name as their requester name for the company InfoScout. They operate two apps Receipt Hog and Shoparoo.
These two companies undermine and devalue the entire workplace and are highly visible because of the apps they use.  When a customer inputs a new receipt or business card, their hits refresh and show up on the top of the newest hit list. So they are always visible like a herpes sore. I have personally spoken with representatives from both companies in the past and would gladly punch them in the face if I met them in person. The standard response when questioned about these payment practices is “You do not have to work on them, it is your choice”.

There is a huge learning curve on Mturk and it can take upwards of 6 mo to a year before you can earn a reasonable wage. For someone just looking in from the outside, it can seem like it is not worth the time, but with experience you build up a list of the right people to work for and you can make it work. I average $320 a week on mturk working maybe 4 hours per day. It is not a huge amount of money, but it really helps out and I do not work for shitheads like Oscar Smith and Jon Brelig.   
New non-usa accounts have not been accepted on Mturk for close to a year. They are gradually eliminating these foreign accounts because of low quality work.
And yes, Indians and new turkers are primarily the ones working for LinkedIn aka Oscar Smith and Jon Brelig because not a single American with even a shred of self esteem or self worth would work for these scumbags. .