Thoughts Subsequent to My Online Proofreader Job Search (Or Hoax)

In the midst of recuperating from a serious illness, I've decided to get a job. A real job.

It's bad enough to be in poor health, but worse if you are a pauper. Thinking money is grim but necessary, and doing something keeps your mind off debilities And I needed the money (and still do).

A nine-to-five job is out of the question. A work-from-home job seems more likely to fit a convalescent's profile. The only means is to go freelance - online.

I weighed my options: I've been working freelance part-time for more than a couple of years now. I was never a computer nerd, but I proofread more than adequately, and write painlessly and decently. So apparently, that remains the one option I have. Can't gripe: why not - a copy-editor's job?

The Internet is a groovy place. So, in the still of the night one April, I logged in and started googling - nibbling snacks, skeptical, but hopeful I may, at least, land a paying job.

The following is my thoughts following a rather arduous job attainment quest.

After so much searching and resume-writing, I chanced on one Canadian-based proofreaders' company, which bills itself as a leading international editorial corporation. Quietly, I marked the homepage under my browser's Favorites section. They hire over 1,300 freelancers worldwide to help spell-check and grammar-proof clients' documents. Seems like the perfect job for me.

To find an editorial assignment, the website requires you to register and write a profile, 100% error-free (as I found out later), before the Executive Director of the company, a Mr R. K-- , decides if you can qualify as part of their elite team.

They hold a series of tests gauging capabilities of potential proofreaders. I've taken lots of proofreaders' tests, and I ain't gonna to let that scare me off.

Like an obedient schoolboy, I registered, received a password, and was promptly sent to exam hall by Java script. It'd been five years since I sat for my last papers, though this didn't unnerve me the least.

I did the multiple-choiced tests in double-quick time and with some relish (twice as fast as the time permitted), noticing a few glitches along the way. At least to me, some questions were not well phrased, or had simply two possible answers. Whatever.

At the end of Paper One, I checked for scores and the correct answers. Apparently, I made four errors out of 45 questions. Actually, I was really convinced I made one. The questions, not my answers, were problematic in three other cases. After Paper Three, I rechecked Overall, I had an error-rate of 10%. Was 90% good enough? I don't know, but by now was more bothered by the test accuracies than by scores or potential employment.

The tests were good but flawed. So I wrote a short, tongue-in-cheek email to Mr R. K--, suggesting him to check the veracity of some testing questions.

Hours later I received a reply, and a pretty nasty one. In short, from his italics I can see Mr R. K-- a little incensed. He not only refused to admit there were mistakes in the qualifying tests, but suggested (in a second email) my profile text was error-filled.

It wasn't gracious, but I checked. After running my profile down the MS Word spell-checker, there was but one spelling mistake (a typo), though I did change the grammar for the better. I quizzically asked him (via email) to point out my spelling "mistakes". One does not qualify for the plural tense.

After a night's sleep, I returned to find a pompous reply.

"Generally speaking, I only correct people's spelling errors if they pay me," went the rather mercenary-sounding mail, and added, as a coup de grâce, "I found three in the text of your Web page." He then went on, "If you cannot find them then I will have to assume you are not a very good proofreader."

Three? Was he sure? But the slug was uncalled for. I went back, re-searched my text via another spellchecker, with the same result. The one change did not register: I redid the typo I changed the night before. Two words lacked a space character between them (a common problem), but was no "spelling mistake".

It was then I finally did have cause to do what I ought to in the first place: check out the company.

A Google search brought me to a forum, where my worst grievances were confirmed, by strangers I've never met. Mr K's rudeness wasn't a one-off. I had soul-mates for his nastiness, and in the apparent flaws in his tests. But by now I read with more dread.

The suspicions go deeper. Was the company legitimately doing what it claims to be doing? Proofreaders with near-perfect scores were booted off, while others, on a less-than-stellar score, had job assignments. One editor went so far as to call the enterprise "fishy"; another, bluntly, "scam". It has been years, and this systematic "fishiness" hasn't been rectified.

"As we all know," to quote a forum writer. "at some point when we meet someone like R., we are unsure whether we are being paranoid or too critical of the idiosyncrasies of others that really don't amount to much, or whether we are really in the presence of someone who has got some kind of warped "control" agenda. As I say, I was relieved to read that others had problems with him, although it saddens me to hear that he is still ensnaring innocent people."

Mr K-- himself appeared on the forum and made vociferous arguments justifying his running, but was shunted down by angry voices. "The flood of witnesses on this thread are evidence to any careful reader that the problem is R. K--".

The incident led to a chain of thoughts. No one,honestly, could know if Mr K-- is as bad - or surreptitious - as detractors like myself think him to be. The anger may be an overreaction. Eagerly wanting to make money from cashing on the virtual web, he may, like a thousand others, be a genuine (if bad) employer. (without any welfare employee concerns,).

He did his companies no favors. Directors are responsible for their firms' image; as well as being an awful PR, he stepped into a fatal trap, unable to explain his company's running model, subsequently breeding more ill will silencing challenges. The truth is he can't blame anyone. The model he based his virtual company on is an extremely murky one.

It's difficult once someone had pinned the tag of a cheat on you to clear defamation.

This experience just underlines how tough it is for freelancers and clients to know the true intentions of any virtual company. There are just too many scam companies and scam employments around the web. Criminals are always sneaky - like those promise-to-pay home-based jobs and vaporous High-Interest Investment Schemes.

We can't wait for governments to efface all criminal commerce off the world wide web. It's not going to happen. If you do decide to go online, it's your job to make your company as transparent to netizens as possible. It's not an advice, it's an imperative. Otherwise, you can't blame someone else for smelling the (non-existent) rats in your sewerage and operations.

Mr R. K-- doesn't seem to learn the lesson.

And if you are a customer or jobseeker like me, be cautious: check, double-check every company's background, especially if money is involved. (In short, never give money away unless you know the company well enough.)

In this time of near-perfect information transfer, what we cannot guarantee is Adam-Smithian perfect information - the good and bad of the Internet.

As for my job, time to move on, I guess.