Follow up article inside on how the new law is going.

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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.

When she came home from school , bussing it I would not allow her to go to her room and nap. She was exhausted from the night before. I told her you are not going to stay on the phone until 1:30 and then sleep and then do the same thing over again. I took the cell phone away for a while and told her she can use the house phone and the phone better not ring after 9 p.m and she is off at 10 p.m. Kids are tricky though. I am going to take the portable phone to my bed room at night. In the middle of the night my other daughter use to take the phone in her room. Her boyfriend has no rules or curfews and this is part of the problem. He told her that his mom feels bad that they are divorced so she gives into him. Until now she respected our wishes. She is a great , smart and talented kid. This is the first time I really has disrespect from her.

My QA is just great thank you - have never had a problem with it. I just have a gift with typing, my sister is a Transcriptionist and she types just as much as I do in a day, my daughter won every keyboarding award her school ever gave for 6 years straight, my son won it for 2 of his 4 years at that same school. My mother was an exceptionally fast typist back when there were only typewriters. It is just a gift that we have...

However, I did not say that every hour would be 410 LPH. I did not say that everyone could achieve it. My point was that my production had slipped really low and that obviously a lot of it was my "extracurricular things" that did not involve transcription.

I am just like everyone else - I have to stop and look up words, I have hard dictators, I have gibberish to decipher... I am not backing myself into a corner expecting 400 lines an hour every hour. That is not reasonable - some hours I may have harder times than others. I may have to look up more, I may have a slow time on the computer, I may have horrible dictators... that is the nature of the job. People want to be a transcriptionist and then when they have to actually do it they complain about what is involved in it.

My post was only to encourage people to work to their potential - not just complain that they cannot do it and name 100s of reasons why it can't be done. I am sorry if I stepped on a nerve... Some people obviously just cannot be happy no matter what...

One huge worry for me is VR totally taking over my job. In what I know and what I've read here, it seems the more you 'correct' any VR system, the more it seems to work against you (less editing). I would look for a second job but I'm afraid of biting off more than I can chew. Again, I don't know if getting paid per report is the norm. It is the way it is, I suppose. There is no per line pay option here, which is why I'm not sure if I'm making substantially less. Obviously, before our official pay cut, I was making twice what I'm making now per page and I was doing just fine financially. At that time, I had no complaints. Also, there has been a drop in the workload because the residents are editing their own work, so we have lost them. That hurt. It has also been slower than usual and we have our friendly neighborhood 'cherry picker' on top of it all. We also use Lanier intermittently, which is paid per line, so there are still times that I can make extra money doing ST. Oh the dilemma. Do I ride the wave again? I've been here before and the only difference was is that my old account didn't feel the need for keeping us on for editing. The docs edited the reports themselves. Again, if anyone has insight or their experiences, I'd love to hear them and thanks to those who already posted.

I actually have three stage progressive lenses due to 80% blindness in one eye and peripheral problems in the good one.

Main part for distance, middle part on one eye for computer work, then bifocal at bottom for reading books, etc. Dang expensive but much easier than the 3 different pair I was using.

Took me three tries sending e-mails with my resume (waiting about a week before trying again, so as not too seem to pushy or desperate) to finally land my most recent new job, with the company that I was really hoping for out of all of my choices! (fingers crossed that it really IS the right choice, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done better right now)

Anyway, I wouldn't ever give up without receiving some kind of response, just so you know that your reply had even been received in the first place. Just politely state that you're following up again and are still interested in pursuing an opportunity with the company, LA la la, that kind of thing. :)

http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/overview/index__cat_id--493,prod_id--5185790.html