So recently I did quite a bit of work for a requester that not many other people were working on. I did about $250-$300 in work over a few days, and did about 80-90% of what he was putting up. During that time, I was in email contact with him about random things...initially to feel him out to see if I was comfortable doing so much work. Anyway, I would email him with questions, and he would email me asking me questions about the best ways to improve his HIT, etc. After his batches were done, I get an email. His email stated that a lot of the work outside of what I did was not what he was looking for, and asked me if I wanted to do solo work on the rest, and asked me how to set it up for just me. I told him I would (obviously, it was another hundred bucks or so that I could do in 5-6 hours). A little later, he sends me an email and says great, he was looking into how to set up a custom qual. He then sends me an email that says he got the custom qual set up, and he contacted Amazon for info on how to reintroduce the work that he wasn't happy with to give to me. He tells me that Amazon told him to simply reject all work that isn't from my worker ID, and then just put it back up. I think the amount of HITs they told him to "simply reject" was around 1,000-1,500, maybe more. In his email he told me he was in the process of going through to reject the other workers. Before you all think it, no I did not throw a bunch of random people under the bus. Even though I could have made some quick easy money, I preferred to try to inform him of how detrimental that many rejections could be. Granted, he said that most of the work was a few HITs from a lot of people, with the exception of a few who did a hundred. So it wouldn't have been that terrible for ALL of them...but still. Main point of this story...Amazon basically told this guy to just reject it if he wanted to give it to other workers, even if some of the work was good. I explained to him how bad rejections can be and that they shouldn't be given out if there is acceptable work. His response basically said he did not realize that, and thought that it didn't effect the worker at all. We continued to chat about it a little, and he even dealt with some Amazon reps to help him through some issues he was having on multiple occasions. Moral...Amazon truly doesn't care much I guess.
I dont understand this at all. Andy's right, if the work was not correct it SHOULD be rejected. If it was acceptable, he wouldn't need you to do it over again.
Well, that part is understandable, but he said that not everything was bad. He basically told me that some was blatantly wrong, but there was good work in the mix...but he intended on just rejecting everything so as to not have to sort through it all (before he knew that rejections were harmful).
Wow, I can understand rejecting all the work that didn't follow his instructions. But from the tone of your post it seams that some of the work was acceptable. Telling a requester to blanket reject all work whether it is acceptable or not is wrong.
I just don't think Amazon looked into it that closely. They may not have been that fully aware of the situation. It sounds like he just talked to a rep and said he wasn't happy with work and what to do and they told him to reject. Not trying to pick either side, but just my interpretation of events.
It's possible. He didn't convey every single thing that happened in his communications with the rep(s), but from what he was saying I got the feel that he did say that not everything was bad, but he wanted to offer to a singular worker. That is what made me so shocked by it, because I got the feel that he did say it, but I do not know for sure anything that was said in his communications. I am a firm believer that most of the time when a single person comes complaining about rejections, that they are most likely at fault and not the requester. It takes a group of 10 people all getting a bunch of rejections before I think it is the requester in wrong. So I am all for rejections when warranted, and I think there are some requesters who probably don't give them out enough. But I just got the feel from my emails that he did say that not all the work was bad...whether he did or didn't does make a difference in the judgement against Amazon in the situation though, and I didn't fully consider it.
Not to be in a rude or offensive manner whatsoever. But, you've been a member here since 2012. You've been Turking how long overall? And your just now figuring out Amazon doesn't care about none of their workers. Amazon is a business that provides service and generates income. We don't deposit money into their banking accounts, requesters do. One of us messes up, they simply replace us. If Amazon loses a requester, their losing money. It's all about money. But I would have expected you to know that as long as you've been around here. As for Amazon, in this situation. I agree with Andy. It sounds like the rep just heard the key words. The requester wasn't happy with the results. And the rep told him to simply reject it. Which is a logical response, if the only words that stuck to the Rep were "He wasn't satisfied with the results."
Andy, you've been at this long enough to know that amazon does not and never will, care about the workers. They screw us over all the time. It's one thing to stay positive etc. but another to be blind. Amazon is fully aware but since they make their money off requesters and not workers; and because there are hundreds of new workers signing up every week it makes no difference to them what happens to us. Until people wake up and accept that FACT, nothing will ever be changed. Denial is not where it's at when it comes to labor and money
Next time, tell the requester to post hits with your ID number in the title. Problem solved-no qual needed.
Just want to point out that some of you are probably earning more per hour on mturk than the rep is earning per hour from amazon that was dealing with the situation. I guess I just don't expect a lot from hourly Amazon reps which is why it didn't shock me. The rep is probably told by a supervisor that if a requester complains about work to tell the requester to reject that work, which is what seemed to have happened here. I guess what i'm saying is you can't expect an Amazon service rep to really dig into the details and make the right choices 100% of the time. I'm just surprised that everyone is so shocked.
It's exceedingly rare that people can make wages comparable to a normal full-time job by turking, and nevermind benefits like healthcare, 401Ks, social security, etc. I'm not shocked by the response, btw. But minimizing the fundamental suckiness of the situation for the workers isn't cool, I don't think. The rep was way wrong, and in a way that would have potentially devastating consequences for some of the workers who provided good work.