35 years this year, hmmmmm

• Humdrum - SM
  • "Boredom comes from within", a friend of mine used to say. - FBL
    • Just because she said it doesn't make it true! LOL - bored MT
      • My friend passed away years ago so I can't ask her - FBL
  • It's not just you. The job is especially frustrating - ready 2 quit 2
  • 35 years this year, hmmmmm - Answer
  • My extreme interest in all things medical/surgical keeps me loving it. nm - oldtimer
  • going on 33 years now - sm
  • It's not just you. I thought it was just me! - HolidayMT
    • That's a good idea. I try to do that. - distracted.
  • The only solution I've found is.... - Nowhere lady
  • I work two part-time jobs - boredMT
    • works for me too - SA
  • I'm in the same boat. I have to fight quitting every day. I'll - be interested in any answers you get. nm

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Sounds like it might be easy to stick to.   Did losing that much weight that fast cause loose skin like you see on the plastic surgery show on the Discovery Health channel?

Now it seems, I'm just scraping by, juggling the utility bills and paying whichever one has sent me the 24-hour disconnect notice this month; it's become a grim miserable job compared to what it was.  I'm nearing retirement age, but I doubt retirement is going to be in my future for a very long time.

The single worst thing that ever happened to us was going from the gross line count to the character count, and not adjusting the line rate upward to parity -- not to mention the adjustments that should have been made to accommodate all the extra time spent struggling to make sense of huge increase in ESL dictations that has occurred over the last 15 years, and of course there should have been COLAs as well, which we all know has not happened.

In the 1980s, with the advent of powerful and affordable PCs, free lance transcription became much more common.  So if you were experienced, disciplined and organized, you could be much better off economically by working for yourself -- although there were definitely advantages to working in-hospital.  There were great benefits and the salary was indeed enough to support a small family (albeit very modestly.) 

For a number of years during that time, many of us worked part time in the hospital for benefits, but made our real money at home.

But in my case, the time came when it just made no economic sense to work in-housel, I was better buying off buying private insurance for major medical care, tax-deferred annuities, and self-insuring the little stuff. 

I would just pick up tapes from the hospital every morning, and drop off the work (which I printed out) from the day before.

I usually had 24 hours to transcribe tapes which I did during school hours, when things were peaceful and quiet. 

I transcribed a couple thousand GROSS lines day.  Every single character line counted, so by taking advantage of headers/footers, creative macros, word expansions, etc., I really boosted my productivity far beyond to what I could do in-house on the self-correcting Selectric, Wang or Mag Card, or whatever 10-years behind technology was currently being used, plus all the office distractions and politics, and I definitely did not to have to work 24/7 to earn a good living. (Oh how I loved WP5.1!)

In fact, 2000 gross lines a day, 5 days a week at 10 cents a line (courier 10-pitch font, one-inch margins) was very very do-able for an experienced productive acute-care MT, provided she had good equipment, good reference books, and stayed focused.  It would take about 5-6 hours a day to get that amount of work done.  So figure the math out for yourselves, that's just a tad under $50,000 a year, certainly not a high standard of living in those days but adequate when it meant you could stay home and be actually be a full time parent when your children were home from school, and very comfortable, if you were married with a working spouse, or had rerliable child support, or social security for your children (if you were widowed.)

If you chose to work some weekends and evenings, it was not that all that difficult to hit that $75,000 a year mark, which I did for a couple of years so I was able to pay the tuition at a good boarding school -- and cruelly thwarted my teen-aged son's only ambition in life, which was to become a high school drop-out.

Things have gotten bad, no doubt about that, and the worst part of it is, is that most of the big MTSOs are still charging the hospitals as much as we used to earn, and sometimes even more, but the MT is no longer earning it, and often can't get enough work to meet the line counts required by the MTSOs for benefits (although the cost of those benefits are reflected in the cost charged to the hospital.) 

I don't know what the answer is, as the electronic immigrant is such a huge threat.

It's pretty darn awful, and I feel very very bad for those of you starting out in this field, and I do hope things change for you (and that someday soon I can retire.)

And the point that the person made is that that she was worth $75,000 a year, not necessarily that she was getting it or could get it, and I absolutely agree with her.  This is a hard tough job if it's done right -- it's mentally tiring, it's hard on your back, your hands, your neck (and your behind.)

It requires a lot of time -- it requires focus, you must stay alert, and must give 100% of your attention to what you are doing 100% of the time, it takes education and brains -- and now a word of truth which my 35+ years experience gives me the right to say aloud -- it's not fulfilling, wonderful, lovable and enjoyable, it's often as repetitious and tedious as an assembly line but infinitely more frustrating.

PS: I recall one of my colleagues from those early years of my career, now gone from this earth, telling me that the 1960s were really the "fat" years, that things actually began to decline salary-wise, in real dollars, in the 1970s. 

to pay him a cool 1 million dollars.  You can check this out at the Medquist website.   I think the CFO makes $350,000 a year, and the head of IT makes $250.000 a year.

P.S.  This does not include the perks, like expense account, car allowance, sign-on bonus, etc. 

I don't mind doing legal and will do it now from time to time, but be prepared to be totally bored out of your mind.

At least that's the way I feel.  I love to transcribe, learned legal in college, went on to get my paralegal degree, etc., etc., but I did temp work when the kids were younger, which was about 90% medical and I would never go back to legal except for once in a while.

Booooooring.

It would take me all night and pages and pages to describe what a bad person my ex-husband was.  After six years of putting up with his OCD, verbal abuse and alcohol, I left him the house, took the kids (5 and 1) and didn't look back. That was 20 years ago.

I wasn't looking to get married again, but I did.  After 13 years I only complain when hubby doesn't see things my way. :) 

My older kids, who were 5 and 1 when I left, are married and have kids of their own now.  My husband gets the Father's Day cards.  Their "real" father sits alone in the perfect little house I left behind and let him have and he drinks himself into oblivion every night because nobody is "perfect" enough, including his kids and his grandkids that he never sees. 

Sad, but true.  So glad I smartened up and got  out of there when I did.

What is the big deal.  Look at your clothes, cars, items in your house.

IMHO

however, I am working fewer hours and making more money. I think maybe the answer here is working as an IC for a one-owner company. MTSO was an MT for many years and she knows the secret to making lots of $ is putting your MTs doing what they do best and leaving them alone.

I don't think it is the "national" part of services that hurts. I think the low wages can be gauged by the number of suits in the company. More suits = less $.

And why pay QA? Just hire people experienced/good enough to do the work correctly the first time.

Lots of little "stints" in between, just trying to keep my head above water.