The Truth is Out There

Tweet

The Truth About ChaCha By A Fellow Guide In September of 2006 I came across a Craig's List posting talking about a new job offer. A job where you could search for people and get paid for it. I thought to myself "cool" where can I sign up. After signing up I had to do 30 searches at an apprentice level before I even reached pro. This was because the system at the time was ALWAYS crashing during searches. So all data would become lost. It took me 3 weeks to reach Master, a level now that can be reached in 30 minutes. We were told the only way you could become a ChaCha guide was to be invited by another Master guide, hence helping us build our network. This was a HUGE incentive in itself. I was excited about this new search engine. I was excited to be apart of something so new. Being on the ground floor is an awesome experience, in the beginning (I'll come back to this later). In October of 2006 they announced that ChaCha would be on TV and to be prepared for the wave of people wanting information. I was excited about this too! Because now I was finally getting paid I could start seeing the money coming in. But ChaCha wasn't prepared for the wave of people. The system/database crashed and guides as well as infoseeker weren't able to get on. A few hours later they opened up a new page for guide signups! Our guide invites were turned off. I sat back and watched 10,000 new guides be brought in. None of which were on anyone's network except the ChaCha employee. This was I think the first major slap in the face by ChaCha. But I stuck with it. I watched it grow, I trained new guides to the best of my ability. All the while bitting my tongue whenever an error message would appear. I watched new guides become masters in three searches. I watched as new guides received more searches. My application was always crashing. No amount of e-mail to ChaCha headquarters could fix this problem. Eventually I think they stopped reading my e-mails, because they always pretty much said the same thing. This was the second slap in the face. Everytime I got down on ChaCha they would come out with a whole new surprise. To pick me back up. It's like dangling a piece of Chocolate Cake in front of a woman on her period. ChaCha kept dangling that money and I kept reaching out for it. Still after many months of loyality I watch ChaCha grow, and I'm still on the ground floor. I'm stuck here with a thousand other guides looking up watching the ChaCha sign get further and further away. Now don't get me totally wrong! It hasn't been all bad. The pay isn't great, but it is a pay. I do enjoy that. But nobody really cares about this new search engine except for the pranksters. I will not "Spam" my friends in family to "promote" ChaCha, for an extra buck a month! Before any problems were resolved ChaCha let 20,000 new guides into its system! Now they're faced with those problems x 20,000 + "weeding" out the prank guides. What I don't get is this: If we weren't allowed to advertice our guide invites, why did chaCha. It just set up new problems. I mean with the master guides doing the invites at least we have more of a screening process going on. Now Chacha has to screen 20,000 new guides to do its weeding. They created this mess they're going to have to fix it. How long will I stay working from home with ChaCha? Until I get a full-time job. I'm only 23, ChaCha is not the world, nor will the world end if ChaCha disappears. I do not use ChaCha as one of my main forms of income (That's what husbands are for). Why don't I leave? Remember the chocolate cake analogy. I'll probably stay on until my one year aniversary with them. If things don't improve I'm gone.