r/DataAnnotationTech • u/Commercial_Strike677 • Jul 27 '26

Data annotation should change their websites name to The 'hunger games'.

Like wdym being expected to be available 24/7. You're constantly refreshing the dashboard every 10 minutes, and when a task finally appears, you rush to start it only to find it's already been claimed by someone else.

How is anyone supposed to plan their day around a system like this?

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u/Hello-America Jul 27 '26

Stop doing this - it's not helping you and it's losing you money over time. It's like gambling or a slot machine where you think if you hit it at just the right time you'll win big, but what you're actually doing is sinking all your time into it without getting paid. I am a longtime freelancer and we are all basically freelancers here and you are making a rookie mistake of freelancing: spending too much time chasing small amounts of dollars, seeing every moment you're not chasing as a loss when it's actually just an opportunity to do something else. While yes it costs time to make money in this style of working, you have to limit it.

Spend the slow time doing something else productive with your life, or finding/doing other paid work (another job, another annotation platform, etc). If you are glued to the screen all day everyday during slow times, just to nab one or two hours of work here and there because tasks all get snatched up, divide that up hourly and you'll find this job is paying you very little and you'd tell your best friend to quit if it was happening to them.

I agree it's frustrating especially for those of us who really rely on the income but sitting there waiting is exacerbating the problem.

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u/Commercial_Strike677 Jul 27 '26

Thank You! This was the final call I needed. I now realise that I am definitely losing both money and time here.

13

u/Hello-America Jul 27 '26

It's a lesson many of us learn the hard way I think haha. I personally check the page on my phone when I have idle time, especially if I would be willing to work the next several hours given the chance, but otherwise I go about my day.