Writing Articles - Making Money

Just a quick update to the ChaCha expeditor training evaluation post a few days ago.  After I received the email from ChaCha that I did not pass the expeditor readiness test, I was a little frustrated about the whole process.  What frustrated me most is twofold.  First, I felt a little misled because I didn't read anywhere ahead of time that I would have to pass a test after watching all of the videos, at least not until the last video.  In all fairness to ChaCha, if this information was available and I missed it then, of course, that's on me.  Secondly, I was more frustrated because I had filled out a bunch of personal information for them, including an IRS tax form.  I found this to be too much information for an unsure deal.

Ok, now to the ChaCha update.  I emailed them and asked what they are doing with my personal information and let them now that if they weren't going to offer or give me the opportunity to apply for a ChaCha guide position then I wanted them to destroy my information.  After reading the privacy policy it was not clear what they used the information for, so asking them to destroy it seemed like a fair request.  Today, I received a very short answer.  They have opened up the ChaCha Guide Generalist/Specialist positions.  I know that I was given an email or reference number to give out to people, but I tell ya I cannot find it.  Their website is so full of information that it is going to take some time to get used to it all.  Anyhow, I made a request to take the Guide test.  I have not heard back from them yet, but I am curious to see how this process goes.  It certainly is a more drawn out process than I anticipated when I signed up last weekend.

On a side note, I found out today that one of my eHow articles was used by ChaCha as a reference for a question.  I noticed today that I had increased earnings on a particular article so I looked it up in Google and found that they used it as a source.  This was great news.  It's nice to have my writing recognized in any way that is positive.  I'm always up for feedback, but who doesn't like good news.  The article they cited was about the number of times a person passes gas during a day.  What an article to choose!

I'll be looking forward to hearing from ChaCha regarding the Guide position and testing.  I can only assume I will have to take a test for that as well.  Just a clarification:  I think it's great that they use testing as a quality control measure.  In case anyone doubted that I thought this was not a good thing.