A good article to read...

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says it is being tested later this year, will affect new customers only, and the test area is extremely limited. I saw the same thing today about Comcast.

If they do go this route it will be months to years before it affects most people.

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I've read quite a few things in the last few issues of Advance that have given me dyspepsia and even some reflux from time to time complete with a bad taste in my mouth beginning with their article on "globalization of the medical transcription team" which is just a PC way of saying offshoring of American MT jobs.

Listen, I'm all for a system of checks and balances in medical transcription and I am all for credentialling as a way of maintaining quality control in our industry. Herein lies the rub, if we mandate credentialling, then the MTSOs have to pony up the dough! Credentials will need to be recognized with more than just a cent more per line. We need to be on the same playing field as the HIM employee with their RHIT or the CCS credentials.

But will the MTSOs be willing to do that? Not when they can pay an Indian MT a fraction of what they pay an American MT. So if they start mandating credentials, then there should be a mandate on the MTSOs not allowing offshoring. When everyone is prepared to do that, then they can force me to get my CMT. Until then, I'm happy being alphabet free!

John Faherty
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 2, 2006 12:00 AM

The rest of the country wakes up this morning asking one simple question: What time is it?

But not here. In Arizona we know exactly time it is. It's standard time, and it never changes.

The fact that we sit in blissful time innocence while the rest of the country tries to figure out how to adjust the clock on their car radio and wonders if TiVo will make the necessary adjustments is not an important thing, but it does say a lot about who we are.

We are independent. We have a contrarian's streak, and if something doesn't make sense, we don't want to do it.

And now we are alone in the continental U.S. This morning some counties in Indiana switched to daylight-saving time, leaving just Arizona and Hawaii.

Of course, people who have been here long enough know Arizona has been on daylight-saving time before.

The whole country went on DST during both World Wars to save energy.

After 1945 however, states and communities across the country were allowed to stay on DST or opt out. Arizona went off right away.

The nation became a time puzzle as states and communities were able to pick if, and even when, they would switch their clocks.

It was a mess best illustrated by the fact that the Twin Cities - Minneapolis and St. Paul - sometimes were an hour apart.

Finally, in 1967 the Uniform Time Act was instituted, putting the entire country on daylight-saving time.

Everybody had to do it for one year, and then states could opt out if they wanted to.

Farmers nationwide complained vehemently but nearly every state just stayed with the status quo.

But not Arizona.

It didn't make sense to people here. We had enough sunshine and didn't need to "save" any.

Besides, the sun stayed out so late here during the summer that if we set our clocks ahead by an hour it would be almost 10 p.m. by the time the sun set in June and July.

The owners of drive-in theaters complained vehemently. This was nearly 40 years ago and drive-ins actually had some juice.

So in March 1968, the state went standard and stayed there.

Which means people here will be getting phone calls for the next couple of weeks asking, "What time is it there?"

But we don't care.

We never saw a need to change our clocks and switch our watches, so we won't do it.

Before we get too smug though, we need to remember there was a time when our independence put us in an awkward time frame.

For a while people living in the Territory of Arizona actually switched to something called "Phoenix Time."

There was a long-running debate about whether Arizona was more closely affiliated with California and the West, or Colorado and the Santa Fe Railroad in New Mexico.

A now-laughable compromise was reached. "Phoenix Time" split the difference, putting us half an hour after Pacific Time and half an hour before Mountain Time.

It was dropped in 1910, and now we just set our clocks and let the world move around us.

I did look up an association of science writers and they have lots of info, and this page seems to have a link to the discussion of whether science writers need a Master's degree. It's too early in the a.m. for me to have read it, though!

I am in a similar situation. I have no idea what to do either but don't want to turn either one away. One I have had for 3 months but get paid equivalent to once a month which sent me on my job search in the first place. Two of the jobs called me back and they both want FT. One is more flexible and the work is easier but the other seems more reliable and answers e-mails right away. They both have direct deposit which is huge for me. The one I have now doesn't. I am so confused. Need to make a decision today. Maybe we should team up?

Let us know how what you decide. I will be checking back to see how things went. Good luck.:)

you've forgotten your own words! Your post above is 100% different "flavor" to it, now all positive and cheery! Your first post was 100% doom and gloom every which way, including "raining on your parade", and "if you want to go forward"...God, sounds like she's talking about jumping into oncoming traffic! Here is your quote:

My first boss (the one who hired me as a new grad) gave me some words of wisdom that I haven't forgotten. She said that transcribing at home with small children NEVER works under any circumstance. Either the work will suffer or the parenting will suffer.

How can the word "NEVER" in caps be interpreted in any positive way? You took about 8 paragraphs to cover every aspect and completely dash this poor woman's dream. I'm not blind, I'm not talking about day care at all, I'm talking about the total negativity of your original post! You know exactly what I'm talking about, cause you added some sugar to your second version! And that's much nicer than the first!

I'm 57, learned on the job 28 years ago. I can out transcribe people half my age. I have no arthritis, no carpal tunnel syndrome, no fibromyalgia and only occasionally get a crick in my neck from my job. My QA score is 100%, has been for years, and I type 90 wpm, transcribe 200 lph at least and that's on an account that is almost all ESL. I could do this job another 20 or 30 years if I wanted to (barring sickness or accident that could happen at any age).

As far as the AAMT rep saying younger people are not lining up for this job - have they done anything to market MT to younger people? I'm sure a lot of high school kids or even community college people would be interested in this work if they were educated about it.

One last thought - the people they are offshoring this work to in India, Pakistan, Trinidad, the Philippines, are not spring chickens!!!

I for one am sick of AAMT trying to justify their greediness by blaming their victims, the US MTs.

My first thoughts were like you, just another way to cheat us. But then when I considered the possibility (trying to be kind here) that some companies are not giving us full credit for every character typed (as in perhaps counting 3 Keystrokes as 1 as has been mentioned here before), then even if they didn't pay us for spaces, we might make more in such a situation if they had to pay us for every single black character. They can't hide that from us! In other words, they would not be able to manipulate the line counting as much as I think they are doing now. Now how much they would pay us for every black character might differ from company to company, but I think this might work in our favor overall. If pay based on production is better for us than an hourly wage, we need to find what works most to our advantage. And with the difference there is out there now in line counts from one company to another, pay by character might help us.

And yes, even if it is a template, every character should still count as well as spaces, returns, tabs, demographic insertion, and also for our knowledge which comes into play every single time we keep the dictators from sounding like idiots and/or catching their mistakes. Let's face it -- we do at least basic editing too, folks. We are NOT just typists! We should be reimbursed for our knowledge as well as production. We're not donating our time to a charity here. This is a way of making a living. We should be paid for whatever we do for the company we work for, just like in any other job. This might be a step in the right direction.