Haven't heard in years. Supposedly making it harder to get money

• overseas work (Saudi Arabia, Dubai) - bin_swanson
  • well, they don't offer $80,000 anymore; it's more like..... - David
  • Haven't heard in years. Supposedly making it harder to get money - tax-free. Not worth it, in many respects.
  • 2003 compound bombings - anon
  • What was that recent movie ... - anon
  • King Faisal Hospital - bin_swanson
  • I remember those days - anon
    • My friend went not once, but twice. sm - Anon
      • Clarification - Anon
        • Nell - jayne
    • when was it ever $80,000/year! Every interview I had with them - deb
      • back in the mid 1980s it was 80K a year.(sm) - SP
    • Do you have to wear those ugly black burkas? - EEeewwwww! ;p - nm
      • Think about never shaving your legs ever again. - bin_swanson
        • Gain 100 pounds! That's pretty sad that anyone - t
          • Not ALL MTs - I lost 50 lbs 12 yrs ago and - am at the weight I was at age 18!!...sm
        • Nope, not me. I'd rather shave my legs, stay at a - fit weight, etc. Burkas are HIDEOUS.
          • know what's under them? Western clothing.SM - yep, leather skirts, etc. only for family view..

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Unfortunately, some proprietary platforms seem to run two instances of MSword (as best as I can tell) which prevents you from saving your normal dot.  My post was addressed specifically to those who are encountering that problem.  An Autoclose/AutoExit macro should save the normal dot for you, and may be the ONLY way you can save it, even if you have selected the prompt for normal save on your options toolbar.

In any case, autoclose and/or autoexit macro that saves your normal dot will ensure that most, if not all of your recent autocorrect/autotext/macros present in your normal dot are saved, should you have an unexpected power failure or crash, or if you are using a template that is provided to you by an employer -- a template which may have been programmed in such a way as to prevent your normal dot from being when you exit word.

In any case, whether or not the "prompt to save normal template" is selected really shouldn't affect whether or not the normal is saved, the normal should automatically be saved as you exit MsWord.   The fact that normal.dot doesn't always save is, or worse vanishes entirely, is just one of these weird idiosyncracies which sometimes makes word (which really is a pretty wonderful program) so frustrating to use. (Hint, back up your normal.dot -- frequently!)

In my experience, the only time that a template reliably does not save is if you are writing macros (as opposed to recording macros) and if you fail to manually save your changes inside your Editor before exiting word.  

I have had the experience more than once of opening word to find that my newly programmed template is gone -- sometimes representing many hours of work  -- and that is where "the prompt to save" toolbar option really can be useful.

In short, I am fully aware of the "prompt to save normal" in the options toolbar (and mine is selected to prompt) and if I had thought this was best solution for the professional medical transcriptionist, I would not have bothered posting this information in the first place. 

So to make a long post short:  The best solution to make absolutely sure your normal dot is saved is to use autoclose and/or autoexit macros that instruct word to save your normal template, and don't just depend on the "save normal prompt" on your toolbar.  Regard it as an extra precaution, which is what it really is, don't depend on it, it can get unselected, and poof your normal.dot is gone!

For someone who just writes an occasional letter or term paper on with MSword the occasional loss of the normal.dot, albeit aggravating, probably isn't all that serious, but for the MT who depends on her paycheck to support her family, losing her normal dot and its 37,954 autocorrect entries is a real economic hardship.  She just might appreciate knowing that there is something she can do to prevent this from happening, even though you happen to think it is "complicated."

Isn't this forum here to provide fellow MTs with useful information they can use or not as they please?  Medical transcription after all, isn't a game or a hobby, it is real grown-up work, and it is prudent to take the time do real grown up things to maintain the tools of the trade.

Unlike some posts I have seen, particularly on the word-help forum that just make me want to scream, I will not post useless or wrong information -- even if it is "complicated" -- after all it's just information.  Writing autoclose/autoexit macros to save your normal dot are not pointless or useless exercises; and in any case you can disregard my posts, or not, as you please.  

I know they could care less about us, we're just numbers/slaves to them, but why don't they get a little integrity for the business, make us happy for once, in turn improving quality and giving themselves a good name, and pay by the hour while we learn this technology at least.  How can any company cut pay across the board like that and get away with it?

I do respect those that have serious religious holidays though and only hope that the company that they work for understand.

At first I kicked myself for picking Mondays as one of my scheduled work days, as most of our holidays fall on a Monday. But  the kids sleep in because they have no school, so it always works, as I only have a 3 hour shift and I'm done before they get up.

Ethics are only for the "lower orders" translated - us peons.  a mantra for the rest of us

Bosses are to boss - peons are to peon.

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, in a radio interview with Garland Robinette. 

I can't even begin to describe the love for his city, the desperation, heartbreak, and anger in his voice.  Talk about the captain going down with his ship.  He's not going anywhere.   He is my new hero.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.nagin/index.html

The link to the radio interview can be found at the link above. 

Any of you who do this, how in the heck do you make any money? I accepted a job with a company for 4 cpl for VR, but I nearly have to type the entire reports over.  I was doing it part time and it takes so much time that I figured out I am only making 5.00 per hour.  What's the average rate for this?  I  gave it up, it's not worth it for the line rate, considering I was editing typed transcription as well that came back from India and it was just as bad and took just as much time.

I think the only way we newbie MTs can make any money is to make it ourselves, like counterfeiting. 

I consider myself still a newbie at almost 2 years of nearly full-time working at home with IC status.  Love my company and enjoy my work; it is mainly VR and 3 cents per line.  I am rather slow because I keep double checking everything, but on a good day at 8-10 hours and 800 lines I will make $24.  Isn't that encouraging?  

The extra dollars do come in handy and so appreciated for my farmer husband's income, but this could no way support a single income. 

Working for $3.00 per hour was great sometime in the past, you know?  Like 35 cents per gallon of gasoline in 1969. But it 2009.

I do think if we newbies hang in there long enough and become good at our work then we will move up to better pay.  However, we who work for 3 cents or 6 cents per line and are so thankful to be making even that are probably the ones others may blame for the poor pay since transcription companies can hire us so cheaply.

Don't know what the solution is.   

If you consider an 80-hour pay period (which I don't do), at $27 per hour with the 800-number company, you'd make $2160.

At $33/hour, paying $1.80/hour, you'd make $2640 minus $144 (a deductible expense also), still netting you $2496 -- substantially more than the company giving you the toll free number and less pay.

Makes no difference to me.  I personally wish you all would stay away from MDI-MD so I could have more work ... LOL

As a hard worker in this industry to put my son through school to become a medical professional, I can tell you that after all my hard work and broken back, he is still paying student loans, works like an animal, hardly has time for his family, continues his education and is not "rich." He treats his staff like family (constantly haunted by his mother to do this) and barely has time to take a bathroom break. I know there are those with fast cars (always thought they did it to get to the patient faster, but I'm sure that's not the case with some of them) and those who are rude (perhaps not taught right by their moms) but some are just ordinary guys and gals who put their pants on one leg at at time like the rest of us and worry about the next payment like the rest of us. They're not ALL the same. I read another post about docs yawning while dictating. I think in most cases they're exhausted and the paperwork is just another thing to deal with after they put their kids to bed, if they get the chance to do that even. I didn't understand this until I "lived in it". As the babysitter, I can tell you, "it ain't pretty." They suffer just like the rest of us.

give you extra lines because of the time involved in doing those particular reports.  Not so much you get paid more per line, you just get extra line credit.  For example:

You have a 100 line report, but it is weighted because of a table that you have to input.  Then you would maybe get credit for 130 lines for that report.

Just like tapes get misplaced so does digital dictation.  Also, have you ever timed how long it takes to download and upload files?  I think it runs about the same.  I am assuming this is clinic work.  So, if you don't go the office, then you'll need patient lists faxed or e-mailed, what have you.  It also costs money to have a secure FTP site for transfer.  So, no matter how you look at it, there is that time taken for the administrative end of transcription so to speak. 

To the OP:  I would ask if the problem really is the delivery if you could cut back to two days a week and given them the option of typing STAT reports to be faxed to them OR you could ask if they'd go halfers on a courier service.  But, I think the problem is the cutting of the paper, so you may just want to mention that you'll need to attach a fee. 

I had to attach a FAX fee to an office that was constantly calling and requiring me to search for letters that they apparently hadn't filed yet, so I started charging them for that service.  Guess what?  They don't call as much.  Just a thought.

I'm new to this career. Have only been working for 6 months or so. Does anyone have any advice for a newbie? How do you make a decent living on 6 cpl? Any advice for increasing speed? Thanks.

MB