Good for you. Did it make you feel better?

• no hope - pam
  • Where'd you get that certificate? Just curious. NM - Deb
  • Good for you. Did it make you feel better? - ditto

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I have been feeling bad the past couple days about making my sister upset. They think I am too down on their son, which is WAY off mark.   I am down with the way they have given him this gift (car), and how he takes it for granted, and how THEY cannot see that.   They bought it brand spanking new, and he had it trashed the first few weeks with cigarette stink, never cleaning it, etc.  They would drop little hints about how he should maintain it....  but they hate conflict so there you go.  By calling this a gift and allowing him to do whatever he choses with it is merely them taking the easy way out.  My sister has not  had to earn a dime in the past 25 years.  Perhaps she does not realize how things like a new car should be EARNED not given... she does not know the value of a dollar.  Okay, I better stop.

purpose for your post other than to make the original poster feel stupid.

I don't think it's necessary to treat people this way.  So why don't you take your keyboard and stick it somewhere for safekeeping until you feel a little nicer. 

"Uh, I dunno.. I'l sling the freezer open at 6 oclock and toss some fish sticks and french fries on a cookie sheet and slice up some fruit."

Seems like everybody is so gourmet....

"What do you all do when you have to type an expletive?  I am working on an account where this comes up often.  I refuse to type the actual expletive so I usually just put (expletive) and go on.  No one has ever said anything, but I was curious as to what everyone else does."

That was my ORIGINAL POST.  I wanted to know what any other MT in the field did regarding expletives.  I didn't ask you to judge my character.  I didn't need anyone telling me to "put my big girl panties on."  All I was looking for was for you all to tell me what you did in that situation.  I guess it makes you feel good to pound on a person rather than address the inital question - if that's what you need to do, then so be it.  I am not new to the field.  Been an MT for over 10 years and have never typed an expletive, though it hasn't come up often.  Found this board and am mostly a lurker and thought I would finally run it by some others.  Should have just kept it to myself.  No wonder I like being an MT - you don't have to deal with other people very often.

Go ahead and feed the piranhas if that's what gets you through your day.

I have been doing MT now for almost 3 years.  Previously to being hired, I had never done MT before, but I had worked in a hospital system and public health for a total of about 19 years and I had a Bachelors Degree to boot, so I was hired.  I worked for a medical clinic that housed about 100 doctors of varying specialties. 

The QA person never helped me, nor did I get training--I was pretty much on my own. 

Reports were pretty simple, so I was able to get by without anyone helping me.  However, the boss was a horrible woman, a supervisor of medical records who was ALWAYS firing people for any little infraction.  If she didn't like you, you had even more problems. 

She didn't like me, so she made my life hard.  I was short 100 measly lines of a goal she set and she made my life h-e-l-l.  She constantly wrote me up about it, even those I was sooo close, but other people that she liked, didn't have to have to meet goals. 

Anyhow, I got fed up and quit.  I got hired at a hospital in acute care--a friend who worked there got me in.  This time, I had feedback.  Unfortunately, acute care is something I had no experience with and now my issues are QA. 

You get "dinged" for any mistake and I can't pass QA!  I've been there for 5 months, but I'm scared I am going to get fired.  NEVER have I ever had to worry so much about my performance or getting written up and/or fired. 

I've been having nightmares I am going to get fired.  I dread opening up any emails I get from QA--a fellow employee checks mine and she is VERY anal and dings me for everything.  I feel like they think I'm not "getting it" and I believe they are circling the wagons to get me fired. 

I feel so dumb when I get my QA feedback.  How could this be? I know I'm NOT dumb and can do this job.  Certainly someone who made the Dean's List at an acredited school, has enough intelligence to excel at this, right?

I'm just ready to give up.  I'm scared to quit, as the job market and economy is pretty poor, but with my work experience and education, I've never had a problem getting hired.  MT has been the WORST choice ever for me.  I have a small child, so I thought this would be a good fit for me, but it's been a disaster.  Is this the way it's going to be?  Am I expecting too much of myself too soon? 

I just feel like there isn't any learning curve anymore.  I feel so all alone, I can't talk to my co-workers about it, because they never share their QA scores or line counts.  I'm so freaking frustrated and stressed about this.  Any advice on my situation? Is this the way of life for an MT? Thanks

a list of your clients to your subcontractors, you could only hold them liable if they try to contract work with the clients they know about, i.e. whichever accounts they work on.  If you have accounts with Hospitals A, B, C, and D, but the MT only works for and knows about Hospital A, then seems like she would be within her rights to solicit work from the others since she does not know they are your clients.  I am curious, though, if you have them sign a noncompete clause already and they are working for you, why would you be reluctant to share that information with them?  They would be bound by the contract.  Maybe I am missing something .. I usually do (ha).

Hope you figure out a solution to your dilemma.  :-)

Been at it for almost 20 years too.  Lots of templates, shortcuts, etc.  Depends on who I'm transcribing.  With some ESLs I would only make about $7 an hour if I had to do them all day.  My average is right around $17.  With some of my local work (on tapes) my templates are so huge, and I'm so used to what they are going to say, I've made $23.  But that's onlywith certain dictators.  It all varies and some dictators are sooooooo bad, you just lose money.

For example, if I had the $23 dollar an hour guy from my local and then did the $7 ESL from my national and combined 8 hours of work for both, I'm down to $15 an hour.  If I get stupid dicators all day from both sides, sometimes I can only average $12.  I guess it's the luck of the draw, if you know what I mean.

Your post is encouraging.  Maybe we need to study these people you mention and learn the ropes from them. 

Yes, I've seen the pictures of the MTs in India.  Reminds me of typing class in high school.  And that's what I'm saying, just like you -- how long can this last?  You question how long before they get carpal tunnel.  Great point!  How long before they get burned out?  You can't work people like that, not at this job where you have to listen so intently and be so absolutely correct.  Transcribing a difficult dictation is akin to doing a hard math problem.  The brain can only take so much at a time.  Couple that with trying to understand a dictator whose language is not your primary one and speaks in slang or idioms you never heard.  If they work the overseas MTs like that, there's going to come a point where something has to give.  The quality of their work might suffer, even the good ones, due to burnout.  Will the American companies still want them?  How desperate are they for our work?  Desperate enough to endure those conditions?  Do they have other choices?  We see them as the foe, and yet as you say, we are turning into that kind of situation with many of our companies but we do have other options, fortunately for those who want to pursue another career. 

The medical record must endure.  There must be good MTs.  You can't work people to burnout either here or overseas.  In this country, you need to make the job inviting in order to keep the workforce up.  Lowering salaries here is not how to do that.  Running sweatshops there is not how to do it either.  Something has to give at some point.  Then maybe people will take us seriously again and this job will be what so many of us want and need it to be. 

You're right about the middle class.  Something has to happen -- this is affecting too many jobs, too many sectors of society.   

Would you care to share your cents-per-line and lines-per-hour with us?  Roughly?

It would help alleviate the anxiety about it for some of us if we can hear from the horse's mouth (no insult intended) how this can be a good living for us.  Especially when there are so many things to slow us down like ESLs and poor dictators and bad sound. 

Thank you.