I was a patsy North Korean operative for a quick stint (just maybe) + I am your outsourced remote tech worker.

 After my workplace life fell apart, once more, back in the summer of 2012, I was sent reeling through what’s been over a decade’s worth of flailing attempts at recovering and rebirthing my professional presence, and, alternately, I’d gone through several incarcerations and psychiatric hospitalizations. It sounds pretty bleak, and it has been - I was faced with many an end-of-(work) life scenarios playing out, and I also several genuinely decent job placements that I’d secured through my extensive former work’s contacts list, which numbered in well over 6,000 emails and phone numbers. 

Before, and leading up to 2012, it was a period of ups and downs, likewise, in terms of that I’d started out with my newfound professional position, as a software installation gig worker, essentially, on craigslist's computers and tech section, mixed in with some hardware sales and repair work, here and there. Nowadays, I couldn’t possibly regain a foothold in that sort of workplace scenario and job environment, and I feel that, with the advent of App Stores and fully online software update fulfillment, the black and grey markets for software installation tech workers has all but dried up, not to mention that, collectively, on the community side and or on the backend of craigslist, the nomenclature of alluding to that a person is offering software installation services is practically banned, for all intents and purposes. 

Losing my way in that workplace came with innumerable complications, as I lost my 19th floor loft, where I stayed, in downtown Los Angeles, as well as that my car broke down, in coming years, thus creating an environment of reckoning with unexpected change and challenges. The welcome mat had all but been pulled out from underneath me, and I was no more prepared than I had been, when I started the work, for dealing with the consequences of a life without craigslist software installation gig work. 

During this time of transience and transition, I experienced the graces of kindness and hospitality, on the part of several various individuals and families that had taken me in, as well as some job placements, as I’d mentioned, from my former clientele. That being the case, I can attest to that job offers are truly scarce, in this sort of situation - I’d procured mid to long-term job offers from perhaps 1 in 1,000 people, or businesses, if I averaged out my contacts to the numbers of jobs I’d gotten placed in, within the context of me having lost my work. 

The homes I stayed in all had unique Los Angeles signatures to them, varying from Mid City, to the Silver Triangle, in Venice Beach, to Topanga Canyon, and it was a great experience for me, despite being down on life, in other ways, although they all came to an end, for some reason, or other. I suppose that it’s simply challenging to justify adopting someone in my circumstances, as an adult, that I was (I had functional challenges with doing things such as helping out, around the house, for example). I had been spoiled by a plush and volatile work/life balance that I’d eked out, for myself, doing this craigslist thing, and I was mystified, on a regular basis, by rich auditory hallucinations, and a daily variety of narratives of horror and reprieve. 

From out of that, and, moving forward, I experienced some renewed bouts of homelessness, one failed (short) long-term romance type of situation, and, the incarcerations and hospitalizations I’d previously mentioned. When I did have housing of my own, back in 2018-2020, the situation was likewise, to my earlier attempts in living independently, haphazard and messy, which eventually led to my being evicted from my Section 8 apartment. 

The Covid-19 Pandemic was a period of time that saw, for me, a great bound, in financial terms, as I took advantage of the stimulus and unemployment funds that were given expansive resources and funding during that time. I had, somewhat, of an unprecedented sense, a newfound precedent of having experienced wealth - this time around, I had a rich resource of personal sabbatical freedoms, since I lived in transitional housing placements that were paid for, combined with regular income, provided by the federal and California state government’s stimulus and pandemic unemployment funding - a long lacking financial support mechanism, which allotted me the freedom to deep dive into my research and development modes, with “work,” of other sorts, still seeming to be long and far away fanciful notions of security; things that other people could do, and have, for themselves, whereas I built my works and resolve from out of my skill sets, as a writer, a blogger, an animal lover, a researcher, an artisan, for example, whereas, inside of my mind, I still longed for the excitement of working in tech, and I wondered at the dint of what employed individuals and profitable companies had, that I didn’t have, about me. 

That being said, I was on my own, with the (at least) illusory circumstances of otherwise, in an alternate life, perhaps, that wasn’t really mine, having a relatively large regular expendable income, with unemployment payments coming to me, for about 2 years, or so. This windfall did not come without its own caveats and pitfalls, though, and I continued to struggle with mood disorders and delusions. I’ve also, unwittingly, been the victim of unwitting and accidental overdoses, due to fentanyl ingestion, in instances where I’d come across bags of white powder, whereas I found myself desperate, for something else, and I’d make-believe that the synthetic, pharmaceutical-tasting powder was, instead, somehow, my favorite.

Now, for analysis’ sake, I was still caught in, and subject to, unfavorable circumstances, in my own personal and psychological conditioning, and it would still be some years before the drug marketplace would give-ho to a new economy of profiteering, at the expense of putting quality first, alternately. Nowadays, I can take it or leave it, in most instances, and I’m making progress towards becoming drug-abstinent - fortuitous conditioning, as it were: favorable circumstances to wean myself off of drugs, meanwhile, I have richly embedded experientially rewarding hobbies that don’t pay, or get me high, such as caring for the town’s pigeons, to draw some correlation upon perhaps the wisdom of the younger generation, as I attempt to remake my image and portrayal of myself, professionally, given my former failures.

Nowadays,

there’s a lot of hype and buzz surrounding the place of work, itself, in a much more broad and societally-affective sense, with the storm of Artificial Intelligence upon us. I’ve found myself on the bright side of this situation, though, with two remote work opportunities having presented themselves to me, which I’d been accepted for a position with, for both instances. One of the jobs reeks of a financial fraud scheme, as it amounts to that I initiate, upon receiving instruments and instructions for payment transactions to be processed, by myself, through my own accounts, whereupon I would take a percentage, and deposit the sum in to a Bitcoin wallet - all brimming with mystique, and disappointment, as the “company’s” website claims to feature an extensive catalog of goods that they sell, supposedly, as an e-commerce operation (they only feature 4 items for “sale,” in truth). I went along with this mysterious remote work job, however - suspended disbelief, as it were, just to feel out the reality of what working for a company such as this would portend. I made a $50 USD commission, and I paid for a meal and some bank fees, aside from that, perhaps, but the confidence and hallmarks of legitimacy of a real company’s sureness, in operations, were just lacking. Moreover, a recent article by Wired practically mirrored my exact experience, in part, where the article details a woman now caught in dire criminal legal straits, and I figure that I could just as well end up not pleasing somebody, in a big way, somehow, if I likewise continued to do what I’d initially felt, and, moving forward, despite that, continued to feel, was something simply wrong and improper - fraud is a sort of situation that I’m not well-versed in, so I decided to try them out, so to speak, at their offer. My ChatGPT conversation about the situation pointed out some of these flaws, but reading the outcomes of someone else, who is facing prison time, for essentially equivalent circumstances, was enough to set me straight. I also had some moral support, from out of what was formerly cruel hallucinations - a voice that I could trust, for some various reasons of the characterization and nuance of the voice, calmly advised me against continuing with the scheme. Lucrative, sure, yet fumbling in execution, and lacking in full rationality and logic of as to why I was needed, or valuable. 

My other job, which I’ve just recently started, involves rating music search results, as a contractor signed up with an intermediary outsourcing establishment that specializes in training Artificial Intelligence models for various clients. I don’t directly work for the client, and the I’ve yet to receive my first payment, but it’s something I can feel much more secure and confident about, given that I’m dedicating real and legitimate hours on a big tech client’s web page portal, where work tasks are detailed, and are consistently fed through, to the task doers. The workers and corporate management and oversight commune on Microsoft Teams chat, and there are assessments that need to be done, in order to qualify as a task worker for the job. I was offered a second position with them, which I’ve yet to see through to the onboarding, so far, but I’m optimistic, as everything feels well-to-do and legitimate, in an organized business sort of way. 

So, I’m a remote worker, and my days consist of alternating between working on my iPad Pro and going to the library to work on a computer console - I’ve been feeling out which workstation environment is more productive: the computer has a keyboard and mouse, and a larger screen format, for referencing and researching the reasoning being fed in to the system, for the client’s AI models to be refined, but the iPad Pro is a newer machine, and I have a skilled aptitude in thumb typing, and I can use AZERTY, which I prefer, now, going on several years that I’ve been using AZERTY for my writing, and I find that it lends itself more so to better eloquence in execution, that the letters find themselves in, for productivity’s sake, and I experience fewer errors, and a more familiar and unified format of workstation environment on my iPad Pro.

I’ll write some updates, here, as they come, as to the status of things with my new job, as well as the outcome of the job that I dumped, perhaps.

Update: June and July

Some time had passed, since I first published this article, and I learned the outcomes of these two job-seeking aspirations. The AI search results training job ended up paying too little for the amount of time and for the degree of difficulty of the job. Meanwhile, I suffered an acute bout of a back injury that gave me some pause, and I had to lay in bed for a week or two. It started to feel nice, to “be lazy,” for once (perhaps it was prudence, rather, of not exacerbating my back injury, though). I extended my restfulness a couple of more weeks, it seemed it ended up being. I didn’t go in and donate blood plasma, like I usually would have been doing twice a week, since it ends up being a several or more set of hours invested to head out to the valley, wait in line, until the blood sample and vitals are taken and analyzed, by the phlebotomists or nurses, and then wait some more, for a bed, and there’s more waiting, once donors get in to their beds, typically, and then, the blood plasma donation itself takes around an hour, sometimes up to twice as long, for me. 

That was that one. For the transaction fulfillment job, I got a sobering reckoning dealt to me that started with a phone call from an unfamiliar number. There was an elderly lady, on the other end, and she asked who I was, and she asked about the charges on her card bill. I advised her to report it to the issuing company, and that I was caught in a scam, in this instance. It took her some weeks until she filed the claim, apparently, and, eventually, I got a notice from PayPal that a chargeback had been initiated by the “buyer,” or, in other words, the lady whose card information was stolen for the sake of putting it to use for these nefarious purposes. I was left with the short end of the stick, since it was my “job,” in this fraud scheme, to put the transactions through, with my name on it, and, with me as the PayPal payment processor. 

All in all, it wasn’t all that bad, or as big a hit as it could have otherwise have been, if I was in more dire circumstances, and without support, for example, but I’m not. Anyhow, I have some money coming in, in August, which will cover my financial mishaps and skeletons in the closet, so to speak, this scheme being one of them that I’ll be able to cover, with funds to pay for it, and I’ll chalk it up as a lesson learned. Sure, I should have known better, and part of me did know well enough, at the outset, but I was fraught with an overly optimistic outlook about things, being that I was unsatisfied with my financial situation, and I was searching for jobs, at the time, as well, and these two prospects nudged me along to try to fit in, somewhere, like the proverbial carrot on a string, for a horse. 

That’s all. I tend to not give negative outcomes like this too much thought, just some consideration for how I conduct myself in the future, and where I place my trust, as well as how much I listen to my intuition and common sense, from here on out. Aside from all of this, AI search rating job did end up paying, albeit less than I would have liked, and, less than I expected, as well, but I bought myself some nice things, with the money. 

Local DTLA Pigeon Genetic Milestones - Academic Evidence

 As it's been around 7 years that I'd been visiting the local Downtown Los Angeles pigeon flocks and keeping this blog, several breeding seasons had come to pass, with some distinctions in the subsequent offspring of the pigeons that had been living back then now prominently mixing in to the general showing of the birds (I estimate that the local flocks' birds will see an average lifespan of up to 10-15 years, since they're cared for, on a distributed and daily basis). 

What does this mean? 

It means that the pre-existing birds (adults and wild pigeons) are seen, side-by-side, demonstrating what the University of Utah's Pigeonetics website documents as genetic variations, due to some or other particular conditions; genetic development conditions, as it were.

"Snooker," as I've named him (I've discerned that he's male, over time, due to his behavioral traits and his mating-act positioning of himself as the dominant partner), pictured here (below), earlier on, in 2024, with what could be his offspring (above); a more young and less developed bird, as the birds are capable of improving on their inherited genetics with suitable nutritional and conditioning support, during their lifetime. Snooker is perhaps a year and a half old, or so - I noticed him at the library beginning last year, in 2023. I was surprised to see his genetic likeness in this other, young bird, which left the flock, after some weeks. The genetic variant of this style of pigeon is perhaps known as as "Pakistani High Flyer," with various marks of genetic distinction being apparent, given a common wild pigeon.

The University's website does a fine and entertaining quick read on genetic variants, as well as some of the conditions under which some of these variations occur, in the birds' pedigrees. Some of the conditions require multiple breeding seasons, as well as chance and distributed mating efforts - keep in mind, pigeons are bound to relatively simple behaviors, given that their outdoor wildlife hobbyist environments are coupled with some challenges and strife, from naysayers to their well-being. This being the case, 7 years is plenty of time for these birds to have mixed, and - one can observe, on any given day, the richness in variety that the birds' plumage and other ornamentation, such as their eyelids, leg feathers (my mother would call this feature their "pants"), as well as frills and beak shape and size differentiations. 

I call this one "Redbeard," for his unique decorative facial plumage. Redbeard is a fun and friendly bird; I spot him sometimes breaking the ice, so to speak, on a day-by-day basis, by flying "at" me, excitedly, ostensibly, because I bring them tasty sweets, mostly pastry type items, and cookies. It's a sign of the promise of youth, of the birds, in renewing their numbers, year in and year out, of that perhaps we will see them though as someday hand-tame birds, under some circumstances, at least. It's happened before, at least, quite nearly so, but there's been a lot of other things going on, around their daily habitat environments. This being the case, I do make it out to feed them pretty regularly, nearly every day, given a month, or so, so that's good conditioning towards these local Downtown Los Angeles birds becoming tamer, over time. Redbeard is very sociable-curious, as the flocks of pigeons around him, since his upbringing, have been relatively large; anywhere from 25-100 birds, I'd estimate, show up for the feedings around him. I estimate Redbeard's age to be 1-3 years old; I just started noticing him, in particular, this year.

Given time left to themselves, (in a theoretical setting), pigeons will revert to their wild state, in appearance. These genetic variations are considered domesticated and fancy traits. My take on these flocks is that they can be fancy, moreso than domesticated, for beginners, given that there are still threats abound, for the birds, being likely. Beyond that, civic support for the birds would ostensibly grow, organically, given that they are wildlife, and, as well, being that they're taken care of, as best as they can be (I clean up, after them, on a regular basis, and other people provide them with water dishes regularly, as well). 

A prominent monochrome-colored black-feathered pigeon, which is one of the markers of genetic variance that occurs, under controlled care circumstances, here, amongst many other pigeons, for reference. This flock is situated just outside of downtown LA, but they're more free to perch and peck around, in their daily habitat environment, without being harassed. As a result, their behavioral traits and mannerisms are more gentle, naive, and open to sociability.

Check out the University of Utah's site, as the information there will assist most readers in understanding the sort of information discussed here, in a more pragmatic and straightforward manner of explanation, as it was the source of my realization of the developments discussed here, and there are simple, page-by-page discussions that are navigable, with pictures and or charts included on each page. It's really a well-done explainer site, that serves the purpose of demystifying some of the complexities of pigeon pedigree development and establishment.