diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 04b5600..08843aa 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,2 +1 @@
 vastai-sdk
-nltk
diff --git a/workers/openai/worker.py b/workers/openai/worker.py
index 241a59a..4254f33 100644
--- a/workers/openai/worker.py
+++ b/workers/openai/worker.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import nltk
 import random
 import os
 
@@ -21,9 +20,6 @@ MODEL_ERROR_LOG_MSGS = [
 MODEL_INFO_LOG_MSGS = [
 ]
 
-nltk.download("words")
-WORD_LIST = nltk.corpus.words.words()
-
 def request_parser(request):
     data = request
     if request.get("input") is not None:
@@ -32,6 +28,14 @@ def request_parser(request):
 
 
 def completions_benchmark_generator() -> dict:
+    # extract words from the python source code of the worker to create a list of words for generating prompts
+
+    WORD_LIST = []
+
+    with open(__file__, 'r') as f:
+        for line in f:
+            WORD_LIST.extend(line.strip().split())
+
     prompt = " ".join(random.choices(WORD_LIST, k=int(250)))
     model = os.environ.get("MODEL_NAME")
     if not model: