The Writer’s Coin

It seems like eons ago, but back in the day (when I was in grad school, not working, and had a ton of time on my hands) I thought I wanted to be a teacher. Maybe not to that extent, but I knew I wanted to at least try teaching. OK maybe that’s off the mark too—I wanted to make some money and I figured tutoring would be able to bring in some money for me. Knowing Spanish, I figured being a Spanish tutor would be a sure-fire way of making a little money on the side (even though I had no job, so it wouldn’t really be on the “side” of anything).

The site is still up and running for those interested in making some money by tutoring. I just can’t vouch for the quality of help students are seeking now. For me, the whole idea of the site was to help kids with learning, not doing work for them—that’s why I had to quit it.

Has anyone out there quit a source of income due to moral issues?

But I’m just not the type of person to put up a flier in a public place explaining that I will “Tutor You Good!” It’s just not who I am, so when I found a site called Brainmass I was thrilled. How it works: you sign up and prove that you have some sort of advanced degree or knowledge in any particular area (anything from math to Spanish—I signed up as a Writing and Spanish tutor). Once that’s been proven (I sent a transcript of my grad degree), you are officially accepted as a tutor. Then HS and college kids from all over the country write in with questions or help. It gets posted and registered tutors with expertise in that area get an email. You click on it and whoever gets to the “job” first, keeps it.

It’s a basic tutoring system, but it’s all online. They key back then was to have your computer handy and click in as soon as possible to scoop up the jobs before other tutors got to them. If you did well, your ratings went up. If students weren’t happy with you, it went down. You got paid depending on how big the job was. Since I had no job, I sat at the student center clicking refresh and going through jobs. It was rewarding to help kids and to make some coin while I was at it. And being in the student center all by myself was just icing on the cake.

The pay was in Canadian Dollars, but I didn’t really care because, at that point, getting paid was still getting paid. The 15th of every month I would get a Paypal transfer into my account and that would be that.

“But that’s not passive income”

True, but there’s more. There was also a feature that allowed you to upload certain “solutions” to common problems. These formed a library that students could virtually “check out” whenever they wanted and each time they did, you got paid. This truly was passive income because you could post hundreds of solutions, sit back, and rake in the dough each time kids accessed it (I say “rake in” but I don’t think I ever made more than a few hundred dollars total).

Every time a student needed help with something I would get an email from Brainmass—sometimes I would get 15–20 emails a day. Which is good when you can make money off them, but then things went a little off track. Kids began to simply post the assignments their teachers gave them with “explanations” that basically said “I need this done by tomorrow.” All they wanted was the work to be done for them and they were willing to pay up for it.

I alerted the site and never “worked” on those posts. To me, the whole spirit of the site was to help, not to do the work for them. I hate cheaters so I was very adamant about this, but it became more and more common until it got to the point that every posting was of this nature. So my relationship to Brainmass became one of just deleting emails. That lasted for a couple of years until I finally got around to closing my account.

Well, it turns out I had accumulated CAN$25 of money from solutions students had checked out while I was deleting emails (so I guess technically it wasn’t really passive). That was found money and the best part was that by having it sit there I managed to increase its value because the dollar lost a lot of value over that time.

Brainmass is still up and running, just not without me. For me, the site was all about helping students learn, not doing work for them. Although I liked the basic premise and I still think it’s a great source of passive income—it’s just not for me anymore. I refuse to be a homework machine for these kids.

Has anyone else out there given up some income due to morality issues?

Tags: , alternative income, brainmass, morality, passive income