What the work actually is
Obituaries have started to sound alike. We want to say that carefully rather than loudly. That means counting things, and some of what needs counting cannot be counted by a machine.
Whether a notice names a cause of death. Whether an omission reads as deliberate. Whether a passage is about the person or about how the family feels. Those are judgements. A person has to read the notice and make them.
They have to be made twice, independently, by two people who have not talked to each other about it. That is the entire reason this page exists: one reader working alone produces an opinion, not a finding. And the person running the study is the last person who should be one of the two, because she has an interest in how it comes out.
So: two readers, the same notices, separate answers, and a statistic that tells us whether the question was well written in the first place. If the two of you disagree too often, that is not your failure. It means the question was badly defined and we rewrite it.
What we pay, and what we promise
$30 an hour, paid whether or not your reading ends up supporting the finding we expected.
- The application takes about ten minutes and is on this page. There is no unpaid trial beyond it, and no second round of tasks.
- Everyone who applies gets a reply, within a week, including the people we do not take.
- Hours are estimated honestly below. If a batch runs long, the extra hours are paid.
- You are credited by name in anything published from the work, unless you would rather not be.
- Your reading is yours to disagree with. If we publish something you think the notices do not support, say so and we will print that too.
A content note, because it is only fair to say it first
This is reading about death, for several hours. Most of it is ordinary and some of it is not: the historical batch includes notices for children, and for deaths that were sudden or violent, written in the frank language of a century ago. The recent batch is about people whose families are alive now. That is worth knowing before you apply rather than after, and it is a perfectly good reason not to.
The application is the work
We do not read CVs for this. Reading closely is the only thing the job asks, so the application is a small piece of it.
Below are two death notices. Both are invented. The names, dates and towns were made up for this page, because it would be indefensible to use a real family's notice as a screening exercise.
Notice A
Mrs. Eliza Hannah Corwin died at her residence, 214 Front street, on Tuesday morning at four o'clock, of pneumonia, following an illness of eleven days. She was in her seventy-second year. She leaves two sons, Albert of this city and Ezra of Wenatchee, and one daughter, Mrs. J. H. Prentiss of Tacoma. The funeral will be held from the Methodist church Thursday at two o'clock, with interment in the Odd Fellows cemetery beside her husband.
Notice B
Alton Reece Mbeki, 68, of Bremerton, passed away peacefully on January 19th surrounded by his loving family, after a long illness borne with characteristic patience. Alton was a devoted husband, a loving father and a pillar of the community. He is survived by his wife Rosemary, his daughters, several grandchildren and a host of friends. A celebration of life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family wishes to thank everyone for their kindness.
The question: does each notice state a cause of death? Answer yes or no for each, and then, in a sentence or two, tell us about anything that made it a hard call.
There is a right answer to the first part and we are barely interested in it. The second part is the whole application.