Change Has Paid Well
at Mechanical Turk

by Amanda Armitage
(Silverdale, Washington, U.S.)

Growing up, I worried that I wouldn't be good at anything or at least not great enough to make a career out of any knowledge or skills I have. Taking orders and working from the ground up in a field that I don't even like and having to pretend to be a different person then the person I really am never appealed to me.

I know I was not meant for the cubicle or behind the register 9-5 scenario. This used to be a constant struggle in my life, holding a job that I found suitable for me. Then one day a good friend referred me to a website, www.mturk.com , and he informed me that he had found success with it. They told me that I had the skills to excel and, best of all, I could work on my own time and schedule and never have to answer to anyone but myself. It also did not require me to leave the house or pay for a sitter.

I have found that the website offers a mass quantity of academic surveys, questionnaires, articles in need of key words, article rewrites and several other varieties of tasks or hits as the jobs are known at Mechanical Turk.

I was already great at typing and had some computer skills. Once I visited the site and accepted and completed a few dozen tasks, I had earned $4 in half an hour, and all of the work was very simple. The pay for a hit varies between 0.01- $10.00 each.

As I continued to use the site, I learned more about how to get the hits completed faster, like using the copy and paste tool. I also found the sites filter, which helped.

The sign up is very simple, and most importantly the work is usually simple and almost always fast to complete. Payment for hits completed and approved is very fast, most of the time I'm paid within 1-2 days. Transferring funds into your personal U.S. bank account is also fast and simple. The site says it only takes a 5-7 business days, but in my experience it only takes 1-3 days, regardless of the day of the week it is.