EXCELLENT post. Thank you for a balanced point of view. nm

• MT'S are not gonna like this post - me
  • This is the reality unfortunately. - Out here in lowered wages land
  • This is a really good post. sm - jimo
    • LOL - me
  • curious, you mean diversify within or outside: - of industry. (nm)
    • Well probably both - me
  • EXCELLENT post. Thank you for a balanced point of view. nm - FellowMT
    • Thank you for that! nm - me

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about not updating to internet connection instead of using C-phones.  I guess they do it because they find people who will accept it.   It also seems odd to me that they are willing to risk the reputation of an at least decent company to keep one account that is ruining their image.

I have been thinking about this very same thing.  Some companies want the experienced MTs with decades of experience so they do not have to offshore or pay QA to re-do reports.  There are only so many of those jobs out there.  Other companies want to get rid of us because we may too much money.  They can offshore or have QA clean up the mess a newbie makes. 

Then you can go middle-of-the-road, if you will.  SOOOOO very many MTs are out there willing to take what we refuse.  Where does that leave us?

So much of what you said is true - you commented briefly about how much the leads do for the MTs and so much of what they is not paid for.   Medware keeps track of their employees time by Merit Minutes.  Merit Minutes constitutes the time spent TYPING in a chart.  If you need to research a drug name and spend more than 5 minutes looking for it, Merit automatically shuts off the clock.  So you have spend your time researching an item but you do not get paid for your time after 5 minutes.  Lately, it also seems harder and harder to achieve the minutes needed to equal 8 hours.  I know several people, myself included, who have made comments that it seems like 10 hours are needed before the 8 hours mark is reached.  Additionally, if you have phone your supervisor for something, if you run out of jobs and have to email the lead MT (who no longer exists) for more work, that is time spent which you don't get paid for.  If Medware's computer goes down or they experience a power outage, you have to make up the time for it later.  If Medware performs a maintenance check on Merit, you have to wait and make up the time later.  In a real world office, you would be paid for that time, but not at Medware.  And taking time off for yourself?  That is definitely frowned upon by certain team leaders.  Taking sick time?  They will actually ask you to make up that time later even if you have accured the sick time benefits! 

Even though Medware will tout itself as the AAMT employer of the year, not once or twice, they certainly do not treat their employees well.  For MT week the lead MTs positions were eliminated.  About 6 months ago the MTs who review the offshore work, listening to the reports word for word, fixing dosage errors, incorrect words, grammar, punctuation, and often fixing complete sentences which were creatively transcribed, found out that their hourly salary was about to be cut in half.  They would now make $8.00 an hour plus an incentive bonus for editing over 2000 lines a day.  Nothing  changed for them, the same quality demands were still in place, the offshore work remained the same, not better, but suddenly they had to produce twice as much as work in the same amount of time in order to keep their salary at or close to the level it had been.  Additionally, their vacation pay, which they had earned during the time when they made $14.00 or $15.00 an hour, was suddenly decreased to $12.00 an hour. And this is the company who wins the coveted employee of the year award?

This company looks out for number 1, themselves, and no one else.  They deserve to lose their lead MTs and anyone else who is disgusted with the self-serving practices.  Maybe if enough people leave, Medware will wake up and smell the coffee and remember that it takes management and employees working together to make a company productive. 

I'm tempted to print it out and hand it to anybody professing interest in this field, LOL!

I agree that some people have it, and some don't.  Also, this is not a profession where you can just graduate, get a job and coast through your day, its always a challenge, always learning, and often a struggle, but some of us enjoy that.  Its about challenging yourself and beating your personal best, and of course you have to have a professional work ethic.

Many people have a lousy work ethic, and it reflects on their paycheck.  My boss actually told me that she has to call and nag/beg my teammates to work their scheduled shifts!  Their loss is my gain, there's always work for me.

Personally, I never want to work a job that doesn't pay production again - because finally I now I get paid what I'm worth, I work hard and I have the paycheck to prove it.  If I get lazy, down goes my paycheck.  I've met many folks like you described, there's always envy, excuses, and a thousand reasons why they can't do what I do.  Maybe they can't, but they have equal opportunity to do it.  Its up to each of us to maximize those opportunities instead of wishing we could be better.

I also appreciate the info on the offshoring, I had no reason to go to the website, so I wasn't aware they were doing it.  I guess if they are going to offshore, having the client direct whether it happens or not is the most up-front way to do it.

lot of drastic changes in the workplace in general, not just MT.  Those changes have been a long time in the making.  The agenda in the US has been top dollar for corporations with very little respect for workers, and this has happened right under our noses to a certain extent.  Inch by inch the rug has been pulled out from under the majority of Americans, but we are a strong, resilient lot and we will recover and hopefully be smarter.  I have great faith now that we have new leadership.  I honestly didn't think we could make it happen, but the people stepped up and woohoo! 

We have no information.  We've only been given a few quick answers in a phone call.  

The pay cuts everyone is referring to are to the existing Transcend employees, not the MTs from the MDI merger.  Nothing will change with us until January 1st.  The answers you received in that phone call only apply until January 1st.  After that, we're fair game for pay cuts. 

I'm looking today, too!  I've had enough of sitting around hoping and praying for something good to come out of this.  If I jump the gun and lose 1 or 2 cents per line, at least I'll still have my sanity.  I have a feeling though, if I stay, I'll lose much more than 1 or 2 cents a line with Transcend. 

This was a very stupid move on Transcend's part.  If they were going to do pay cuts, it would have been smarter for them to wait until after January 1st.  They've just given us a sneak preview of how they treat their employees.