IC only, work was feast or famine when I was there.
Posted By: what I know on 2006-04-08
In Reply to: Can anyone tell me if Administrative Assistants is a good company to work for and if they hire IC - MT
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Unorganized, feast or famine work, rude people, AND
Their new accounts are unpleasant to work on to say the least. They are no different than a lot of the other companies now.
Feast or famine. Always a different work load every day, and you often run out if the work gets
s
If you like feast or famine (sm)
work on their demand and off when they command, evening and weekend work, poor management, poor communication, and don't mind companies that offshore, it might be the place for you. I'd give them a hands down.
Feast or famine with VR (sm)
It seems they are constantly calling you off. I hated working that way.You get momentum and then you are told to stop working. Many empty promises with the VR accounts. Too many I know have had high hopes to be shot down. If you don't mind working under those conditions it might work for you. Good luck.
That's how they are...feast or famine!
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feast or famine
The nature of the transcription business, from personal experience, is feast or famine, with usually not much in between.
In other words, learn to get while the getting is good so you're prepared for the leaner days and can carve out a decent average for yourself in accordance with your budget and paycheck you have to make to pay your bills. You DO have a personal budget and know the income you need to pull in on a consistent basis, right?
Having said that, if you're with a company for several weeks, and there is little to no work at all, that's when you begin sending out resumes and executing Plan B (you DO have Plan B, right? And C and D if necessary, right?). Cycles are expected. A consistent bare trickle that never picks up, is not. That means the company has really bad personnel management skills or is losing accounts and unable to pull any new accounts in, and so it's time for you to consider your options because things are not going to change.
If this is really your situation, then you should a) notify your current employer that you're scaling back to part time or per diem (and provide them with the times you will be available) and b) get another job ASAP to make up for it. I know a few MTs that work for more than one company, part time, and between the two pull in a nice paycheck. It's smart, especially if neither of them have guaranteed work for you to fill a full-time schedule and make a full-time paycheck.
Remember, you're working for YOU, not your employer. And you should have high expectations from yourself to meet your own needs instead of relying so heavily on other people, whether they send you a paycheck or not. :)
feast or famine
The nature of the transcription business, from personal experience, is feast or famine, with usually not much in between.
In other words, learn to get while the getting is good so you're prepared for the leaner days and can carve out a decent average for yourself in accordance with your budget and paycheck you have to make to pay your bills. You DO have a personal budget and know the income you need to pull in on a consistent basis, right?
Having said that, if you're with a company for several weeks, and there is little to no work at all, that's when you begin sending out resumes and executing Plan B (you DO have Plan B, right? And C and D if necessary, right?). Cycles are expected. A consistent bare trickle that never picks up, is not. That means the company has really bad personnel management skills or is losing accounts and unable to pull any new accounts in, and so it's time for you to consider your options because things are not going to change.
If this is really your situation, then you should a) notify your current employer that you're scaling back to part time or per diem (and provide them with the times you will be available) and b) get another job ASAP to make up for it. I know a few MTs that work for more than one company, part time, and between the two pull in a nice paycheck. It's smart, especially if neither of them have guaranteed work for you to fill a full-time schedule and make a full-time paycheck.
Remember, you're working for YOU, not your employer. And you should have high expectations from yourself to meet your own needs instead of relying so heavily on other people, whether they send you a paycheck or not. :)
Feast or famine is pretty much a given with
Sometimes you need to take the good with the bad. No employer is perfect, I guess.
Three words.. FEAST OR FAMINE..
That's all I have. Some good productive days, other times Mojave Desert and asked not to log on for a while to let the work built up. Wish I could be more help. 
MTSO feast and famine
After working for a hospital medical records department for over 15 years, which I know realize was a cushy job and not the norm, and now working for 2 services and still not making enough money, I'm curious to know if anyone else is struggling financially because of the constant feast or famine syndrome. I realize that on my FT job, they basically want transcriptionists available 24/7 even though you clearly have set schedule, and being available 24/7 is probably the only way to make your quota with the ups and downs in the work. Unfortunately, I have 2 jobs, 2 children, a dog and a significant other and really can't be strapped to this computer day and night...not to mention I need to eat, shower and sleep....
How is one to survive? Should I be working 3 jobs? I need help.
Feast or famine is all part of this field.
I know that is tough to get used to, but even when you have your own accounts, the workload can wax and wane. It can also change overnight. I have my own accounts that wax and wane. You can never really count on anything being absolute in this field. These companies can only offer you what they have because it depends on the dictator and how much work there is at any given time. Almost any company will tell you this if you haven't already experienced the same. It is unfortunate, however, this field does require some flexibility. I guess that may come with more years of experience and being in the know upfront that nothing is forever. A lot of time these larger companies only can sign 3-5 year contracts. I am an IC (not for Transcend), and when there is a need, boy the e-mails come sailing through asking can I help, but when the work is low, my e-mail is dry. Adapting and adjusting is all part of this field for sure.
P/S: I was a employee at one time for Transcend, but I do believe they are offering contracts at this point to IC as I did see a recent post.
My solution to the feast or famine syndrome
I work part-time with a daily number of lines to complete, no set schedule. My work is usually pretty steady, but over the holiadys when things slowed down, I decided to get another part-time job. I ended up in direct home sales. I make more money at it than I do MTing and I get to set my own schedule. I usually do 2 shows a week, averaging about $150 to $200 per show. The shows take about 3 hours in total and the computer work is about an hour or less.
It also gets me out of the house and gives me a break from my kids. I will say that I'm pretty fortunate that my husband has a M-F 8-4 job, so he's able to be home with the kids on the evenings I do these.
I keep a separate checking account for my business and it's really neat to watch it grow. I'm saving the money for a rainy day (or famine) and when I get to a certain amount, we're putting in a pool. I'm halfway there already.
No way would I stay attached to my computer. If things are slow, I put that time into my new business and work on getting new shows booked or party games or invitations. There's always something productive to do.
Three words..Feast or Famine.., disorganized, and bad communication, anything else??
I wish I had more positives other than pay is on time. That is about the only positive at all. 
3rd shift radiology can be like that. Feast or famine. Same with 3rd shift sm
ER work. Sometimes the doctors are too busy to dictate, so they do it at the end. Why don't you talk to them and ask about a different shift?
Famine indeed
I would rather have bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid that were a sure thing every day than to have a big steak once every couple of months. My tummy would rumble a lot less.
As a whole.. nice people to work for, decent benefits but the get off/on the system, work/no work,
is maddening. I couldnt pay my bills or even work the schedule I was assigned. They would ask us not to work until work built up in the evenings and I specifically wanted to work days as I have kids etc. It just didnt work out for me but to each his own. It just seems there has to be a better balance in this business that what is happening.
I did speak with my manager. Work was promised. No work there when I needed to work.
I see the reports everyday too, but when I get work it is of bad quality, then there is no work unless I work diffrent shifts. Thank you.
My liaison always says to work on secondary when primary is low on work/no work. n/m
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That's going to be nuts...I do ASR work too, plus work split shifts. We'll NEED a spread shee
NT
Work is easy, very nice owner, pays weekly, work in Word.
A majority of at-home MT is overflow work with in-house getting the bulk of the work. If they clean
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Pay is always on time, direct deposit, very nice management to work with, and DQS platform, work
load normally busy, but low now because of the summer slow down on my accounts. Sound an issue on some accounts, but not others. Overall, wonderful company.
That is a BIG problem at TransTech is leads assigning work, rather than letting the work flow
This TT MT just admitted to that fact. It has been very obvious, as so easy to tell how work comes into our que and then gets pulled out as fast as it came in and replaced with YUKKY dictators. VERY frustrating to us other TT MT's who take the JUNK that is NOT assigned to other MT's, such as this poster.
Ever thought of a home health care aide? Usually paid training and start work right away. Can work
m
Absolutely not! I work for the best MTSO. I am have been so blessed to work for the small company I
I will share this about the MTSO I work for. I called her late last Wednesday night after Church and told her I was compelled to help out with Hurricaine Katrina in some way and an opportunity arose for a small group from my Church to go to Louisianna this coming week. Would she be able to cover my work. She told me no problem without any hesitation and even donated money for the trip.
And I am sure there are plenty of good companies out there to work for. To compare us to migrant workers is just not right.
It does work, you do not need to "make" it work.. it works in all word based programs.
x
I did some overflow work for Landmark.. they are wonderful to work for.. very nice people.. pay was
.
They have to be flexibility because of the erratic work flow. No sense in a schedule if no work..
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I was told Escription would not work with Vista. Turned out it wouldn't work with my sm
Office Basic Edition 2003 either, but no one could figure out why, it was supposed to.
There is actually a section on the Dell website that offers Windows XP. I haven't checked it out as I'm not in the market, so I don't know if it costs extra. I have a Dell and it's been fine for me. I hate the ESL tech department, but it seems like most of them have that now.
Yes they do send work overseas and do not hide this fact. There is plenty of work and they do pay
well. Overall, I like having work as I have been at places where you had to fight to keep busy so this works for me.
There is NO work at Transtech. Maybe they just choose special people to send work to
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Are you required to work major holdays at KS. I know nature of biz to work them. Thanks for info. nm
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Great people to work for, but I had to leave due to lack of work. Hopefully that has changed. SM
Most of us who do not live in California had to go IC. When I was there, they did not have statutory status, although they told me they did when they hired me. Their pay for VR is VERY low, not a living wage. Many of the folks in the office are ex-YOG and great to work for/with. Good luck.
1200 lines daily is great if you have the work, personally, I never had enough work so
I left and have NEVER been sorry!
Don't know about radiology work load, but we have been scratching in the dirt for work for a numb
of months now. They hire, lose account, hire again before new accounts comes onboard, then have overhired, having to put new MT's on the current low workload.
Medical field is 24/7 work unless you work for a clinic or stand alone operation.
I just look at the other cool people working holidays and weekends in the ICU, ER, paramedics,and am glad to be there. When you work in a hospital for a length of time, it becomes a necessary evil to show up at the worst possible times.
Having a family or a life you'd miss from Friday at 5 PM to Monday at 8 PM must be hard and
I think that there is a place for you where they can meet your requirements (M-F). There are plenty of those jobs.
They require that you work in house until your have clean QA for 3 paydays then you can work
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All nationals I work for you only work 40 hours unless they approve overtime.
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I'm part-time and don't have to work all weekend. I work Tues-Sat.
I've never heard that from Chronicle, of course I didn't see the ad.
The bid has nothing to do with consistancy of work. MTSO cannot control how cosistant work is.
:+
I'll love to know who you work for. I also work every weekend with no extra pay.
It'd be nice to get paid for all the nights and weekends I work.
Like I said - it depends who you work for. I work for a hospital at home - not a company. nm
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I know two people who work 3rd shift for Keystrokes on radiology and have a lot of work. Maybe you
on an account that has enough work. I hate to hear that someone doesn't have enough work or that they have a problem because I know that Keystrokes works to find the right account for every person. They do a lot for us but you have to talk to them until you find the right account or volume or hours for you.
I think that a lot of companies are that way but there is a lot of job-hopping in transcription. Everyone is looking for the perfect job but the grass is not always greener on the other side. There are a few MTSO's really are not good but for the most part, the others don't intentionally drive people away. That would not make sense. They need us to work as much as we need them to have the work there for us.
I work on it. Usual amount of work. Not running out but not backlogged either. They seem to have
about the right staffing on it. Hope that helps.
Maybe is it for a particular account. I work M-F. You are required to work one weekend an month.
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I used to work for a company who separated the MTs by work type daily. sm
regret ever leaving that company. we had a max of 4 MTs typing a large training hospital with clinics. i was assigned consults and discharges with consults being my priority. another MT had ops and admits, etc. it worked so much better. we were RARELY out of TAT and each of us were trained on other report types for backup in case someone need to take off. not to mention that we were easily able to learn the ESLs because we got them repeatively enough to learn them, set up templates, etc. much, much more productive for us as MTs, for the company as work flow, and i am sure for the dictator because they got someone who knew them and their dictations well enough to be accurate. i don't understand why large MTSOs cannot comprehend how much more beneficial that would be.
I actually left about a year ago and work for another company that's running out of work. Have to
x
I so wholeheartedly agree with you. Don't work for KS but work for SS - another company bashed
Works GREAT for me and I love SS. I never really care what the negatives are as I have found they are usually people that can't make their lines, don't work the hours they commit to or just overall do not care!
don't like ASR/VSR -- all work going that direction -- causing very low work situation for awhile
Just a little message since you asked. Hardly any regular paid transcription work left for TT MT's (transcribing as in the old days, I am speaking of).
I have 4 accounts, doing all work types, and I usually have enough work but this is the slow time of
year so we are scrambling a little for lines. Easy platform, paychecks DD, always on time.
I work for an all-US company and refuse to work for one that offshores. Best of luck to you. nm
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