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Why you should never use Upwork

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Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#81

Post by davemel37 »

forgetsusername wrote: post #67
traviswingo wrote: post #50

I think the worst part about this is that I wasn't even surprised throughout the entire story. Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's the reason I gave up on working on platforms like Upwork and Freelancer almost immediately. Building a personal network is way easier to find contract work and you'll ma…

> Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's amazing, isn't it? These are people who require outside expertise (they're hiring you after all) and yet do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards. I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys? Regardless, u…

>do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards.

Backwards? That's a bizarre word to use to describe behavior that is NEVER appropriate. Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless?

> I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?

Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "idea guys" and the implied correlation to "abusive people"?

From reading your comment, it sounds like you missed the point completely. This is not a freelancer vs. employer or developer vs. idea guy situation, this is a simple case of narcissist vs. victim.

The situation can be reversed and be just as abusive and horrible.

An outside expert doing everything they can to make an "idea guy" feel small and worthless!

The point is not whether the employer has the right to push around the freelancer, or the respect you think an employer should have when needing outside expertise.

The point is everyone is a human being that deserves to be treated with respect. It is too easy to not consider the other person when working through a platform like Upwork or on the internet at large...This is a cautionary tale about the importance of remembering that there is a human being on the other side of the screen!

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#82

Post by anovikov »

polotics wrote: post #48
anovikov wrote: post #25

Sounds terrible. Absolutely disgusting. Still, Upwork is an excellent mechanism for building professional network with both customers and freelancers and should just be used wisely.

I disagree. My conclusion is that Upwork must be avoided at all costs. Anyway discoverability is reached on Github and by blogging in this day and age, Upwork is the remnant of a bygone era IMHO.

Such a massive opinion against Upwork makes me also worry. It almost sounds like i have to build other ways of reaching my customers as if too many people feel like this, Upwork may go under.

Sorry you feel so bad guys. I made over a million bucks on Upwork and my customers are happy, many work with me over years, and the only time i got in serious trouble was actually the only time when i tried to trick my customer myself, so i was entirely at fault.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#83

Post by Mithaldu »

davemel37 wrote: post #81
forgetsusername wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's amazing, isn't it? These are people who require outside expertise (they're hiring you after all) and yet do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards. I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys? Regardless, u…

>do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards. Backwards? That's a bizarre word to use to describe behavior that is NEVER appropriate. Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless? > I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys? Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "idea guys" and the implied correlation to "abus…

> Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless?

He's saying employers should show freelancers respect.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#84

Post by scottmmjackson »

traviswingo wrote: post #50

I think the worst part about this is that I wasn't even surprised throughout the entire story. Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's the reason I gave up on working on platforms like Upwork and Freelancer almost immediately. Building a personal network is way easier to find contract work and you'll ma…

I wasn't surprised when I found out it was a law firm either. I've had the good fortune to work with some of the good ones, but legal marketing in general requires a very sensitive a-hole detector.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#85

Post by cygned »

almata wrote: post #69

From the Upwork FAQ: "You'll need to download and use the Upwork Team App—this tool includes the Work Diary, which ensures you are guaranteed payment. By taking work-in-progress screenshots every 10 minutes, it provides proof to your clients that you are hard at work." Screenshots every 10 minutes? You mean... screenshots of MY SCREEN every 10 minutes? That was what made me close their website and totally forget it u…

This. Not only that this approach does not really fit remote development work, you are basically forced to install spyware on your machine.

What a crazy idea.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#86

Post by davemel37 »

Mithaldu wrote: post #83
davemel37 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards. Backwards? That's a bizarre word to use to describe behavior that is NEVER appropriate. Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless? > I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys? Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "idea guys" and the implied correlation to "abus…

> Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless? He's saying employers should show freelancers respect.

Shouldn't respect be a two way street? His comment implies it should be a one way, just the opposite way of this evil Kevin guy.

Edit: Just to be clear, I am drawing my assumption from the second part of his post that tries to correlate "idea guys" to "abusive people", almost as if he equates idea guys that try to hire developers as somehow "less than" him.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#87

Post by delegate »

I once interviewed for Upwork pro. They sent me an Xcode project and I had to make some changes to it.

However, the required changes referenced features and files which weren't in the project and made absolutely no sense.

Even worse, the project they sent me was the "Photomania" project from Stanford's CS193p class: http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/node/289

But the copyright information (Copyright by Stanford University) has been ripped off from all the files and replaced with "Copyright (c) 2015 Upwork". No reference to stanford CS or anything like that, just copy and paste.

Which is very wrong in my book.

I wrote them a message and after some fruitless exchanges with 4 or 5 different support people, I've decided to just let it go.

The incompetence of the interview assignment, coupled with robotic support answers quickly convinced me not to waste any more time with this bunch.

Re: Why you should never use Upwork

#88

Post by noonespecial »

Another fine example of when you should ask yourself, "Am I the customer in this deal or am I the raw material that gets rendered into the 'product'?"

With upwork, not only are freelancers raw material, they are so plentiful that waste is free for upwork.

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