A kind user from Lemmygrad recommended me DataAnnotation, which I'm sure some of you may have heard of. I got accepted into DataAnnotation, and it's generally been going incredibly well for me. Unfortunately, however, I recently went through a moment in which any access to work or projects I had was completely wiped.
In getting in contact with the aforementioned Lemmygradder, they told me that this is not really too uncommon of an experience and it doesn't necessarily mean that termination is the likely outcome. She thinks that I'll be doing just fine, and seeing as how it's a Sunday, she told me that by some weekday such as Tuesday, things will likely be back to normal as they might just be doing a manual review of my work on the platform.
This has all been a major scare for me because I had a sense of suspicion that the reason why DataAnnotation is reviewing my work is that I've worked a lot of hours as of late. As a matter of fact, the most amount of hours I've worked in a single day within the past 10 days or so was roughly 13 and a half hours. Sounds crazy, right? Well, such a value didn't come about in the way you may think.
I've been having an incredibly inverse sleep schedule that has led me to stay up past midnight somewhat frequently. I adopted a practice in which I have told myself, "If I'm gonna stay up late, I might as well stay up late doing something productive," and this would lead me to work from around midnight to however long. Once I'm unable to keep my eyes open, I go to sleep in some early part of the morning like 6, 7, or 8 AM for instance, and I'd typically wake up in the evening and work even more.
What this means is that, for instance, if I worked 6.75 hours in that first portion where I was working after midnight and 6.75 hours in the evening after I woke up, even though all of this activity, including work, sleep, and work again, would've been spread out through nearly a whole damn 24 hours, this would mean that 13.5 hours would get recorded in a single day according to my time log on the website.
What I find so funny about this is that DataAnnotation themselves advertise "work whenever you want" and "work however much you want" as some of their strongest selling points. It's also extremely ironic that, on top of this, they require you to log your own time, as they do not track it for you. Mind you, there could be concerns for people inflating logged hours, I get it, but that isn't me.
I strived to abide by their demands and ensure that I wasn't in violation of any part of their code of conduct, and you know what? I don't believe that I was. Regardless, it's absurdly disingenuous for a company to advertise "You can work any amount of time you want at whatever time you want! ๐๐" as one of their strong pros and then turn around to get skeptical of people who take advantage of that exact fucking benefit. And no, DataAnnotation isn't transparent about any of this either. They have absolutely no coherent explanation in any form of communication that touches on what something like having an empty dashboard after previously having a dashboard full of work can mean for the worker.
I've been working so much because I have been trying so damn hard to get into this new apartment complex that I found, and that has been incredibly motivating for me to work such lengthy hours. I have been living in this really poor residence where I hardly feel safe anywhere outside of my room, so even if it could be an unlikely outcome, having any bit of fear whatsoever that I may have lost a job that's going incredibly well for me is destructive.
It makes me distraught, extremely mentally unstable, and honestly concerned to a highly intense degree regarding how much I'll be able to keep myself together. Unlike most people, due to me being black and trans, I have absolutely no family and really not too many people IRL in general to turn to in instances where I need any kind of support, be it practical support or emotional support.
I'm so thankful that this Lemmygradder recommended this job for me and that it has been going as well as it's been going, but I'm sure that many of you know, before I started working doing DataAnnotation, that I've been struggling constantly to find a job as a black trans person in Florida. I'd apply for jobs that the general public would condescendingly perceive as "unskilled labor," such as being a barista, a waiter, or a grocery store cashier, and not a single one of these places had any interest in hiring me whatsoever, despite me literally having experience in such jobs!
This horrendous scare of possibly losing my job with DataAnnotation is so damn daunting that it's bringing my mental health down to the lowest it has been in a minute, and the outcome of that will not be fucking good for me as a person who has zero support in my personal life.
All that out, as I asked in the title, because I desire at least some kind of backup plan if the worst has truly occurred, does anyone here know any WFH gigs that I can apply for as an alternative? I honestly would greatly prefer to do WFH jobs, as like I said, I'm a black trans person in Florida who has practically zero hope that I could ever get hired at an in-person job. All support in whichever way possible is greatly appreciated.
