One of my first part time jobs was as a "pornzapper" for Tripod, one of Geocities' competitors.
We had a tool called the "fleshfinder" that looked for accounts with lots of images and then lots of those images had lots of flesh tones, and would dump them into a moderation queue where we human pornzappers would glance over the images and then press a button to terminate their account or mark it as within terms of service.
This sounds like "first internet job" kind of experience. Would love to hear how you got the job and any other stories you have to share.
My first was 1999 in Florida. Dude had a shop selling jewelry on eBay. His autistic brother (not kidding, dude's brother LOVED computers and our first conversation was him telling me how to deal with himself). Very introspective but really cool guy to get to know.
The owner had a small team of Vietnamese jewelers working in the shop to make and customize jewelry. There was no scamming going on. I had to work on photography of new items and to update the eBay listings. If a customer had a problem with the jewelry they received, we would correct it for free and send it back.
The downside is that despite running a legit business, the owner was an asshole and just kept kicking out one employee after another. Including half the jewelry team.
After a few months I even quit because he just started randomly bitching and physically threatening me because the focus on a couple pieces of jewelry was slightly off. Easily a 10 minute fix.
My last day when he did this again I told him to fuck off and I was out. I still vividly remember him physically spitting from his mouth on my driver side window as I rolled it up as a pulled away.
Now that I think about it, fuck you Jeremiah. Like, 9 fucks to wherever and back. You had somehow built a really good business early on and completely fucked it up just by being yourself. It's been 26 years, but seriously fuck you. I hope your brother finally got the help he needed and you clearly were not providing.
aetherson|1 year ago
We had a tool called the "fleshfinder" that looked for accounts with lots of images and then lots of those images had lots of flesh tones, and would dump them into a moderation queue where we human pornzappers would glance over the images and then press a button to terminate their account or mark it as within terms of service.
geuis|1 year ago
My first was 1999 in Florida. Dude had a shop selling jewelry on eBay. His autistic brother (not kidding, dude's brother LOVED computers and our first conversation was him telling me how to deal with himself). Very introspective but really cool guy to get to know.
The owner had a small team of Vietnamese jewelers working in the shop to make and customize jewelry. There was no scamming going on. I had to work on photography of new items and to update the eBay listings. If a customer had a problem with the jewelry they received, we would correct it for free and send it back.
The downside is that despite running a legit business, the owner was an asshole and just kept kicking out one employee after another. Including half the jewelry team.
After a few months I even quit because he just started randomly bitching and physically threatening me because the focus on a couple pieces of jewelry was slightly off. Easily a 10 minute fix.
My last day when he did this again I told him to fuck off and I was out. I still vividly remember him physically spitting from his mouth on my driver side window as I rolled it up as a pulled away.
Now that I think about it, fuck you Jeremiah. Like, 9 fucks to wherever and back. You had somehow built a really good business early on and completely fucked it up just by being yourself. It's been 26 years, but seriously fuck you. I hope your brother finally got the help he needed and you clearly were not providing.