The first time I saw oDesk I was pretty excited. I liked their system pretty much at first glance. I thought, "ah ! now here's something that can serve us better !" ... you put in work hours and you'd get paid for it for sure, no chance of being stiffed. However, surprisingly, my experience was quite different. I wouldn't put the blame on oDesk entirely, but about 90% would be justified. Its Just that their system is not friendly for the more creative. Don't get me wrong here, but let me layout my specific experience briefly in points:

1. I didn't have much difficulty in landing a client

2. I wouldn't be that judgemental about the guy, but he did one thing that I still don't understand why. He tried to tell me that $2000 a month is a good salary in the U.S. of A. Naturally, I wasn't that dumb to take his word for it. Coz, most of us live in the U.S. virtually. But I chose not to challenge his false claim.

3. So he did succeed in bringing down my rate, which frankly I did just for the heck of it to try the system out. And of course, I told him that once "we are good" with each other, it was going to go up to my desired mark. I sort of wanted to prove my worth to him.

4. When I started working is when I noticed that I worked about 9 hours and the system logged about 6 or 7. It was eating 2 hours straight ! - so I investigated.

5. Viola ! ... turns out, the oDesk's system calculates your performance based on your "keystrokes" ! ... HOW SMART IS THAT ?

6. Anyhow, I tried to talk to my client, who by the way claimed to be a programmer himself. The guy said, "if the system says you worked 6 hours, you worked 6 hours". I don't know, why he was trying to be an a`hole but at that point I lost all interest. I mean, I am in this line of work because I love doing it, not entirely because of money. So naturally, I asked him to spare me the pain.

So in essence, oDesk's system of performance recording is good, BUT only for jobs like data entry etc. Would you imagine that this guy had me "write" down my brainstorming sessions !! ??? .... how the F*** can you write and brainstorm at the same time ? - if you can, then you have a gift ... really ... you do ! In entirety the experience was really annoying for me. After that, since I had a bad experience associated with oDesk, I didn't bother to look back. And thank God I didn't have to either.

Here is what I ask: ** How can you indulge in CREATIVE THINKING / PROCESS when you know that this time won't be accounted for ? ** so in these regards, oDesk is pathetic ! Heck, check the comments of this post and you'll know how oDesk is **bad** for many buyers too. And futhermore, you can go knock yourself out with this google search.

I won't get myself in the "oDesk haters" category ... BUT ... I would consider my self in "prefer to boycott oDesk" kind. Because if I ever pick up a client on oDesk, I would seriously either BILL him based on different milestones OR make sure that we both trust each other so that I can put in offline time and he would authorize it and won't stiff me. Still, day by day I hear about new improvements on how to *track* the employee. And these guys are really pushing it so much that it really sounds more like slavery, or "eslavery" to be exact. (well said by "O Rover" there)

Common sense demands you don't get lost in all the **goodies** marketed by such companies. These guys promise definite pay to the employees and the supposed "power" to the very insecure employers out there so that they could check their eSlave from as many angles as possible. In the end this creates an environment of distrust if you plan to work with more creative individuals. Because the more creative ones WILL take their time to THINK before acting and more importantly they need their space!

It would be highly unlikely to get an intuitive, extendable app unless there is sufficient trust between the employee and the employer. On the other hand, if the programmer drops out in the middle of the project, the employer still has to pay him / her WITHOUT having their work done. And based on these facts I can never agree that oDesk has brought any innovation and / or revolutionized the way of working. They are just using your insecurities to the best of their own interests.

To balance the sarcasm above, I can only do but one thing, and that is to advise anyone planning out on doing business on oDesk to beware, don't get traped in their warp zone of false promises, but lay out your concerns on the table with the client and try to educate him / her that you both are better off trusting each other more rather than the system. Because seriously, the system will make both of you feel like smart asses and un-decievable. Not true in the real world.