BooksBarbecue
Back Nothing to See
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Dedication
  4. Dedication2
  5. 1994
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 2006
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. 28
  35. 29
  36. 30
  37. 31
  38. 32
  39. 33
  40. 34
  41. 35
  42. 36
  43. 37
  44. 2018
  45. 38
  46. 39
  47. 40
  48. 41
  49. 42
  50. 43
  51. 44
  52. 45
  53. 46
  54. 47
  55. 48
  56. 49
  57. Acknowledgements

At first, Peggy and Greta were a little unsure what the one of them who wasn’t working at the call centre would do all day. But there was cleaning and cooking and the life admin things that made it possible for the other one to go to work. If one of them did this, it would save them some money – they wouldn’t eat out so much, and because their things were looked after they didn’t need new things as often. They still had the computer work, but it was thinning out a bit and if they wanted to make a proper go of it they’d have to advertise wider than their group of friends, and then they couldn’t pretend it was favours and god only knew the clusterfuck that it would cause at the tax department.

A couple of weeks into the call centre job, someone posted on one of the message boards that someone was looking for comment moderators for a sports website. The website was in America, but the moderator could be anywhere. They didn’t want to advertise or use agencies because they were disrupting the space and also, they wanted to pay everyone under the table. Moderation wasn’t completely in Peggy and Greta’s wheelhouse, but the website was going to pay on a per-comment basis and Peggy and Greta thought they might be able to build a script that parsed the comments for certain words and released them automatically. If they didn’t need to read every comment, they could get through hundreds, maybe thousands a day. Peggy and Greta knew nothing about American sport, but they looked up some of the sports on Wikipedia and then at some of the comments that were already on the sports website and agreed they could handle it. They emailed the website and were sent an online exercise which was really just reading some rules for the comments and then flagging the comments that didn’t meet the rules. The rules for the comments meant the script would be even easier to write. They didn’t talk to anyone from the website directly, just sent their bank account number to another email address. Then they were sent a URL to download a small piece of software which alerted them each time a new comment was assigned to them. So, the one of them who wasn’t going to the call centre sat at home and watched the software, moderated the comments and worked on the script that would free them up to fix computers, write cracks and play games.