Many people think I am wealthy because I own/run the Downtube. I'm sorry to say that is not the case. As a matter of a fact I have been a full time math professor for most of the past two decades. This past year I had some fundamental health problems. Therefore I decided to work from home ...in order to get healthy.

I have been looking for online math teaching or curiculum development jobs. I found an interesting position at study.com. The application had a three questions one was quick and easy, and the second was a simple Latex formatting question. The third took well over an hour and a half. Overall the application took over two hours.

I knew I would get an offer since none of my academic colleagues would spend so much time on an application. Then I started browsing the site. They are based in Silicon Valley. I assumed they would provide generous compensation.

Today I got an offer of $5 per problem. This is definitely not generous. But maybe it's ok if I could do alot of problems per hour. So I asked for a few sample questions to evaluate the time required. I received this image with problems

These problems are not quick or easy. I would estimate 30 min per problem ( assuming no mistakes ). Plus twenty minutes for Latex formatting. I estimate the real time to be over an hour per problem after including time for mistakes. In other words I was offered about $4/hr.

I found this position advertised on higheredjobs. Most listed jobs are for professors. I believe this company is abusing the site, hence I have contacted higheredjobs to remove their listing. No other applications take more than 15min, and all others offer a living wage.

Be careful job hunting and stand up to these illegitimate companies. Share your experience with others. Together we can push these illegitimate companies out of markets. I hope everyone that reads this will share via social media.