Keyword is "could". Almost everyone wants to get rich, or, at least work an honest job for honest pay. (Money does, indeed, go with everything we have.) I signed up yesterday (1/11/09), and, so far (1/12/09), no bites. (One would think I am impatient, eh?)

The place is oDesk. Oh my, the possibilities at oDesk are endless, probably. It is free to sign up and be available for that steady, online job that's going to support you or make you rich.

You must pass a test before you can fill in all the blanks in your profile and set your rate of pay. I passed the first test once, was not satisfied with my score, so, I took it again and flunked. I took it a third time, still not 100%, and let it stand. Then I proceeded to fill in my profile: Education, Work History, Skills, etc. The Education and Work History were easy, even though I haven't been officially employed since 1989 -- I cared for my unwell mother who passed away in 2000, in her own home and in her own bed, which was her request.

The Skills department was the biggest challenge for me. Personally (and arrogantly), I think I have a lot of skills. I can clean house like a bat outta hell! I mean so clean you could eat off the kitchen floor or the top of the water heater twenty-four hours a day -- your choice which one. I am not a great cook, but, there is always something hot ready to serve at 5:00 P.M. every day of the week. I can get stains out of laundry items that have been there for years. And, you will never find any dirty laundry in my house, because, I keep it up daily. I have coded web pages and websites in pure, old-fashioned HTML by hand since 1997. (I'm a small part of a big dying breed.) Same with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), installing CGI in Perl, JavaScript, graphic images, etc. These are things which are very important for developing and designing websites ... have been there, done that, people are too picky, they can refuse to pay, and I no longer have any interest in that, except for my own three or five websites. I ended up settling for a few of the skills I CAN do in my sleep, without future conflicts or disputes.

I allowed the Skills to become a conundrum for me. Which ones could I sell to others? Well, you get the idea. The Skills is the most important category. As far as I am concerned, the other categories are almost totally adscititious.

The item up next is your rate of pay and it is up to you. Please, keep in mind, oDesk gets 10% of everything: jobs and bonuses online and offline (offline needs permission from buyer). Take a spin on the other profiles and see how many hours/jobs, feedback they have had and what hourly rate they have set.

And, then, there are 167 tests you can take to increase your chances of landing a job amid all the competition. Most of these tests have a retake offer 30 days after you flunk or do not achieve as good a score as you would like. These tests also give you the option of making them public, or keeping them private until you have taken the test enough times that you have a perfect score.

For those of you reading this article and you have not yet found oDesk, please keep in mind oDesk is a big website with an extensive HELP file. Please, be certain to read and understand EVERYTHING in the HELP file, because this is upon which your first test will be based. If you do not pass this first and most important test, you cannot apply for jobs from "buyers" and no "buyers" will even know you are out there looking for a job.

One misconception (mine) is "online work" is not work. This is not true, you work just as hard as if you were in a brick and mortar building, you just get to do it in your jammies with 6 pots of coffee YOU make and do not have to share with anyone else.

Here is the URL for oDesk: http://www.odesk.com

Good luck!