Pinoy oDesk Newbie's 1st buck!

Home Office Pics

This Pinoy Odesk neophyte recently participated in Facebook's home office wall on facebook. I thought I might share with you guys  what you were missing. These are just my favorites.

Again, this is the Pinoy Odesk Newbie thanking you for visitng my blog.

Success in Bitter-sweet Baby Steps

I got a job, several jobs actually with help from fellow Odesk people I met on the Boards. Thank you to all of you. More details  later. I got a project to finish..

Tokwa't Baboy: The Pinoy Odesk Blogger's Meal

This Pinoy Odesk Newbie got out of bed around 8 pm manila time, around 7 am CST. I just had a really weird dream. In that dream I got to visit my brother and see his project in Chicago. I was looking at a holding pen with a weird piglet wading in a dark thick liquid suspension akin to maple syrup. The piglet was probably two weeks old. What struck me  most was that it's body was like sponge bob square pants. Boxy, spongy body with legs and a pig's head. Kinda reminded me of a large fried block of uncut tofu (tokwa) with  legs. It was just outright weird. 

If dreams, the ones you get when you’re in REM sleep, is the brains way of internalizing what we experience during our waking hours my dream could be explained by my last meal and the discover magazine I read before I dozed off. I had "tokwa't baboy" about six hours before I fell asleep. "Tokwa't Baboy", is a Filipino contraction of Tokwa at Baboy", translated pork and tofu. It's basically bits of pork, preferably the ears, and fried diced fried tofu in soy sauce, vinegar, sliced onions with a touch of salt, pepper and sometimes "labuyo", the local chili. The discover article I read right before going to sleep could have lead to that dream. Geneticists were able to grow a human ear from a lab rat. Xeno implantation was a fascinating subject when I was still studying.

It's another Friday night in Manila.  The previous Friday was when I thought I'd quit from Odesk, it was Monday when I changed my mind. To date this pinoy odesk newbie has around hmmm let me check out my candidacies... 25 active candidacies, 22 inactive candidacies, 4 interviews and not a single employer. Oh my god, this is turning out to be an embarrassing feat. IF Odesk had been my agent which it is) I would fire him.

Of the four interviews, one was a god damn salesman, one was an Indian conglomerate who though I was running a sweat shop, one was my own buying company (yeah I know, more of it later), and the one was a blogger from Spain who also runs a blog.

I got to bid early for the voice over job that specifically stated $1.50 an hour to read articles for his up and coming podcast about dogs. Sigh, Odesk is going to the dogs I tell you. I managed to run audacity, created a clip and sent it via email then ftp. It has been four days since that interview and I have yet to hear from him.

I'm writing not to dissuade anyone from joining the Odesk workforce which is now 300,000 strong. I am writing to vent out my frustration and to prove to buyers out there (helllooooo, I'm for hire), that I am serious, determined, skilled, creative, tenacious and HUNGRY to get started.

At the same time, I hope that this blog, serves as a warning to my fellow Pinoy Newbie’s to set their expectations straight. I am told, and I'm finding this out, you got to be determined to make it here. Is Odesk a waste of MY time? Only time can tell. However looking as I stepped back, I see a man who is ill.

The DSM IV-tr, or whatever the current version, would describe this Pinoy Odesk Newbie as suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder with flights of fantasies and delusions of grandeur. Oh did I mention before that I have two college degrees?

In plain English: I am stubborn dreamer who believes in my self-worth and refuses to give up.

Once more this is has been the Pinoy Odesk Newbie thanking you for reading my blog wherever you may be.

Pinoy Odesk Newbie's Failure Analysis:part 2

This is the Pinoy Odesk Newbie's continuing his last post...

So what was this Pinoy Odesk newbie doing wrong and what was he doing write err I meant right (sigh still can’t afford a proof reader, and MS word sucks at it). My mistake was not filtering out the non-serious buyers. Who can blame me, I'm a newbie besides at this point it really didn’t matter if I get paid or not as long as I get the odesk hours so I can qualify for the phone/tech/customer support niche which is my primary target. Another possibility was that I was cancelling bids for unresponsive buyers. I would contend however that if the buyer posts that he needs the job done on Friday but failed to respond by Friday it was a proper course of action. (don’t you just hate it when that happens.) BTW eLance has an awesome comic segment which I would recommend to any freelancer.

What was this Pinoy Odesk Newbie doing right? Well, 15% of the buyers just chose someone else. Which means that for them, I was qualified for the job, my price and my price was reasonable. Most likely they just preferred a sexy blonde teenager to get things done. Oooops sorry, I am a guy, that was meant as a joke. What I meant was buyers most likely had a favored provider with whom they had worked with.

The first call center I worked for in 2006, Convergys - America's largest outsourcing firm shouts out that in order to succeed one needs not only to learn from failures, but to out think and out do your competitors. ( yes once I was chained to my Avaya phone too and I will again if I don’t get  a buyer soon). 

Odesk  is a harsh global marketplace, so much so for neophytes who have yet to earn a reputation. If there is something I have to look forward to is the fact that on my candidacies 3 buyers marked me as a favorite.

     This isn’t a thesis or an article for a buyer this just me the Odesk Pinoy Newbie trying to learn from my mistakes. Admittedly the sample size (n) is small. The table above represents all the data I currently have. So please don’t demand a certain a margin of error. Odesk management would definitely have all the figures in their mainframes but I doubt Gary Swart would gladly reveal the real numbers.

These are all firsthand experiences. All were painful opportunities for the writer to learn from. There is supposedly a guy who posted a youtube video from Timbuktu who’s working on an MBA with oDesk as his subject. I wonder if got a job on odesk.

This Pinoy Odesk newbie has earned the bragging rights to have worked as one of the best paid call center reps in his country, rejection like this was a humbling experience.

In times like these I have find consolation in odesk community members like you, whomever and wherever you maybe. Pulling my hair and silently screaming then fixing myself a nice tall glass of sweet tea or milkshake helps a lot too. Above all I find wisdom and comfort in the words of great men and authors.

I’d like to share some to fellow Odesk newbies and veterans:

BARACK OBAMA:

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY:

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

MICHAEL JORDAN:

I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

MOHANDAS K. GANDHI:

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

ELBERT HUBBARD:

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

ELIZABETH DREW:

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and "mangled mind" leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.

These quotes were taken from:   http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_failure.html (no back link seo/sem and link builders, I just wanted to credit the site somehow)


Again this was the Pinoy Odesk Newbie thanking you for visiting my blog and hoping that you visit soon, or better yet..... HIRE ME on Odesk.


P.S. here's something for all you conspiracy addicts.

Pinoy Odesk Newbie's Failure Analysis:

Failure Analysis:

This Pinoy Odesk Newbie has been actively searching for a job on Odesk for the past two weeks and two days without success. My morale was obliterated and my self confidence shattered. Had it not been for fellow newbies like myself I would have lost my self-respect.

Butch, a.k.a., vjustce commented that we need to keep a positive outlook at all times and learn from out mistakes. Well that’s what I’m trying to do right now. I’m taking a step back and trying to determine what went wrong and hopefully correct my mistakes. I do not intend to whine or point my finger and pass judgment Mr. Vitale. I am merely trying to sort out the facts. Numbers have their failings. Statistics, Caluculus, Quantum Mechanics are all based on approximations. Statistics relies on "N" or the number or samples, Calculus  merely describes a curve and Quantum mechanics states of an uncertainty principle. I hate numbers. Because despite popular opinion these number systems are not absolute. In a third world country this Pinoy was taught by his elders that such systems were absolutes rather than approximations.

None the less let’s look at the numbers. To date  (10/21/2009, 5:00 am Manila) I have 36 candidacies of which 20 are inactive candidacies and 16 remain active.

to be continued.....

Odesk Community Forum 15 hours to post?

Odesk Forum 11:08 pm Manila time

As a Pinoy Odesk Newbie I wonder what’s up with the Odesk community forum. It looks as if all the recent posts were 15 hours ago. I’m not a part of the Odesk staff; I haven’t even gotten a job. However Pinoys are by nature very inquisitive and Odesk's universe is a rich environment.

I love conspiracies. In the a third world country Pinoys  are famous for uzis. Not the Israeli submachine guns. The Pinoy Uzi's I'm talkinga about are "tismosos" or rumor mongers.  I think that’s the reason why Dan Brown’s made so much money from his amazing novels like Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons among others. Come to think if it next to basketball Pinoys would probably consider chit chatting with nosy neigbhors as the national past time. It’s fun to speculate some times. Right now I’m guessing at least two scenarios are going on.

First scenario is that they are implementing a new ID system on the forum. This would be great news for everyone. It would mean Odesk management is actually trying to weed out those pesky pinoy scammers like that guy recuiting for a pinoy call center agents on odesk.

On the other hand, Odesk staff moderators could be screening individual posts. While it is true that newbies, pinoy newbies in particular  like me are finding it impossible to find a job and are hurting because of it; the Odesk community  forum would be violating fifth amendment rights if they to censor valid grievances by newbies. Regardless of our natinalities, pinoys, chinese, americans or indians we all have rights too.  Would oDesk management deem it necessary to screen out or censor provider posts to maintain it’s interest. This Pinoy Odesk newbie really wouldn’t know. I’m just a newbie who happens to be a Pinoy trying to get a job, Praying that a lucky  buyer would find me and  value what I have to offer. 

(This article has been modified an enriched for SEO purposes)