Navigating the World of E-Work (not to be confused with Ewok)

After a few months of scampering about to temp agencies here in Central Florida only to be told that I'm not in consideration for a position filing papers because I don't have my PhD in Secretarial Arts, I don't speak fluent Chinese, and because I'm not able to dead lift 125 lbs.; I decided to take a look at freelance work sites such as elance, freelance, odesk, freelancer, and Amazon Turk as a writer.

Costs and Benefits
 All of these sites are free for basic membership but limit the number of jobs you can apply to each month.  Elance only permits 15 applications within a month. The next tier costs $10 a month and comes with 30 connects or chances per month. $20 gets you 40 connects and $40 allows you 60 chances to find a job. Freelance is a dual French/English site which doesn't appear to have a paid tier structure.  I haven't had the opportunity to explore it much but the French translations of some English job titles provides me with amusement. Odesk is another favorite site of mine. It allows up to 20 job applications within a 7 day period which is more reasonable for people on a limited budget. Freelancer also has a tier system and charges $24.95/month for reduced commission fees. The last site I've been exploring is Amazon Turk.  They provide a number of small jobs usually 50 cents for performing a variety of simple tasks.  The highest paying job I've seen on Amazon Turk is around $25 for using a combination of voice and text to respond to a web site to give the developers feedback.  Nevertheless, there are some opportunities for writing 300 to 500 word articles for around $3.00 each.  I'm finding that Amazon Turk has been valuable for getting me to write more or less on spec by allowing me to build up a useable portfolio that I can use to market myself as a writer.

Skills Testing
The majority of these sites have a series of tests you can take to evaluate your skills in a variety of categories. The good news is that if you fail abysmally, you can retake them at a future date. Also, you don't have to post your scores which I appreciate since I took a vocabulary test while suffering from major brain-fartage and decided to select the synonyms for words rather than the requested antonym. I'm primarily a writer so I've been taking the writing and editing tests but for the more technology-gifted folks out there, you can take tests evaluating your skills in programming, accounting,  business operations, and a host of other categories.  So far, these tests are free of charge on all the sites.

All in all, the sites look promising,  I've not landed a gig yet but I'm looking forward to starting a new and reasonably profitable career as a web content writer.

The Primal Scream: Dealing with Frustration While Unemployed

One of the things that I find very peculiar as I scramble about trying to navigate unemployment, joblessness, and impending homelessness is the amount of road blocks deliberately put into place by Republican politicians in Florida for receiving public assistance, food stamps, and Medicaid.

I'm a reasonably intelligent person with a college degree who's suddenly found herself about three weeks off from being evicted with few resources and I'm constantly perplexed at the seemingly random rules that the State of Florida has established.

Bizarre Rule #1: To receive cash assistance, you must pay for a $30 drug test yourself.
A few months ago, I might have been able to do this but I have less than $1 dollar in my bank account. But honestly,  demanding a drug test to make sure I don't go on a spending spree when I get my $161, is this really a wise use of resources?

Bizarre Rule #2: The State of Florida can and will make mistakes on your records and deny you benefits. 
Two months ago, I applied for temporary cash assistance.  Some random clerk at the Department of Children and Families made an error on my file denying me the extra $161 a month that I need to pay water and electric.  I've spent easily 40 hours attempting to get this straightened out.  I've tried calling and asking for supervisors.  My case worker at Zucan has called and nothing happens.  I've decided that Governor Rick Scott decided that a certain percentage of people will have their accounts deliberately screwed up in the hopes that we will all just move to Georgia.

Bizarre Rule #3: You will spend more time on dealing with the State than actually searching for a job.
I spend approximately 25 hours a week on filling out paperwork, printing out forms, filling out forms and spending hours on hold with the Department of Children and Families trying to get help.  To me, this seems like a colossal waste of time and resources.  I estimate that for every hour I spend doing required homework, the state must pay one of their employees another hour or two to review, file, or scan my work.

At the moment, I fully anticipate being homeless and unemployed.  When this happens, I plan on setting up a cardboard box outside the governor's mansion.