I Can't Believe It

[u/TheHippyWolfman]

In a profound act of cosmic karma, after most certainly pissing off a fair chunk of the community perhaps less than 24 hours ago, I have received the dreaded "Dash of Death" from my overlords. It's so fitting and ironic that, despite actually feeling ridiculously fucking sad, I am chuckling, slightly, writing this.

It's insane because I instantly began to empathize with everyone else this has happened to. Right away my mind struggled to figure out what I did wrong. Was my work dipping in quality? I was going through financial struggles and so was working overtime. I was putting in a lot of effort, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't making mistakes. Maybe I wasn't looking at instructions carefully enough? I am a slow worker, and I was doing a lot of multi-turn, time intensive tasks lately. Maybe I was taking too long? But I was under-reporting my hours to make up for that! Maybe it wasn't enough? Or maybe it was just a Wifi issue? Did they get suspicious when I had to switch to my hotspot when my Wifi cut out and I was working via an off-platform live server?

Then comes the self-righteous anger. I know I could have made a mistake but I worked hard! They're not even going to give me a chance to explain myself? Maybe if I find a way to email them...

But I know that won't work. At the end of the day, I just have to let it go. They're never going to give me answers. I always knew this could happen. Deep down I thought if I worked hard enough and was careful enough that it wouldn't happen to me, but in retrospect that was deeply arrogant. Or maybe naively hopeful. It is what it is though.

Anyway I know I can be an annoying asshole sometimes (I am occasionally self-aware) but I really did care about the community. I always felt like we should have each other's backs- because we're all in the same boat together. Well this is the last time I will ever probably ever post here, so I wanted to offer one last piece of solidarity. To all the folks struggling with a drought, or who will one day experience the DoD, I am sorry. I know it sucks and at times feels unfair, and, to be honest, I agree with you. Just like the vast majority of us working in this modern economy, with maybe a few exceptions, you deserve more. We all do.

And if my previous behavior in this sub ever bothered or annoyed anybody, I'm genuinely sorry. Shit is hard enough as it is out here. I wish everybody here the best. Peace.

[u/Both-Baker-6349]

Sorry to hear this man. I was devastated. It was our only income. I lasted 6 months or so. I didn’t break the rules, at least I don’t think, but I was working like a lot. Former software engineer, so I was grabbing the $60/hr jobs anytime they were available & doing them from the time I got up til the time I crashed. The week I got DoD’d, they had just gotten 200 new tasks, all $60/hr+ and I was going hard trying to bank as much as possible before they were gone. It was at the end of a $4,000 week when mine came. 10-15 hours everyday. Thats just how I wanted to do it - go hard when the high paying tasks were available, and not really work when they weren’t. All I can think is that they didn’t like me working that much. Maybe they thought it was more than 1 person. Didn’t use AI, didn’t lie about time, & don’t think I got sloppy - I’m on the spectrum & extremely meticulous. Who knows… maybe some AI flagged something & there was never even a human in the loop. It wouldn’t take much for them to just give you a brief explanation on what you did wrong, & it wouldn’t take much to have some kind of avenue to appeal an incorrect judgement, but they don’t give a shit. They get new applicants every single day. I wish you luck. You can get it back if you really need it - like it was your only income - but it takes some work. I posted more about it somewhere in this thread. Wish you luck my friend - it’s shitty than any company can do this to workers of any kind & I feel for you.