Lots of food (pardon the pun) for thought! THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE!!

• Weight Watchers - need advice - Pokey
  • WW - Lilly
  • my father uses WW - and so far, so good
  • I highly recommend WW - At Home MT
  • Lots of food (pardon the pun) for thought! THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE!! - Pokey
  • WW is a good sound program (sm) - my thoughts inside
  • Wanna' simplify your life?? - KathrynT
    • Atkins was too harsh for me, but SouthBeach was really good. - Just something to consider (sm)
    • OK. I'm gonna go for it. I still have the book, so - Pokey
    • Are you on maintenance or just starting? - Pokey
    • Don't you have to eat, like, hamburgers for breakfast sm - mlstoo

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It helps to hear all of the good and bad.

Right now it comes down to $$$ for me.  I need more money and I want to keep my work life apart from my home life at this point.  Every time I walk by my computer I feel like I should log on and I hate that feeling. I feel like I should log on because I really do need more money, but at this point, I can see myself burning out from living a life that way.  I need more life in my life and I like the idea of working 8 hours and being done.  I also like the idea of being paid for holidays. Where I work now we don't get paid for holidays, you can use your vacation time when you take the holiday off, but the company does not pay for your holiday.  You get many sick days also, although, of course, you hopefully don't need them!  The insurance is really good, and we need that as we are no spring chickens.  The deductable at my present employer is outrageously high, more than we spend all year at a physician, so we don't participate in their insurance program.  On the other hand,  we don't have young kids at home anymore and that makes a big difference.  When I first went home to work it was a blessing to be able to be there for them when they got home from school, etc., or to be home if they were sick.  At this point, I want to be able to make enough to continue to put money away for our retirement and I find I can't really do that working at home for a national--I use the money that I make to pay the bills and there isn't much left for investments, etc.

I have worked 2 jobs for many years now.  My full-time job is with one of the nationals.  My second job is for a local specialist's office.  It is the second job that I want to talk about.

I have worked for these 3 physicians for 14 years now.  I started out typing from tapes and bringing in the work daily on "sticky back" paper.  We have progressed over the last year to having the work put on the internet and having the office staff download the work each day.  It is working very well for all of us.

I am paid a very generous hourly wage.  I am on the company's payroll.  I get benefits, such as paid holidays, AFLAC, sick days, bonuses, personal days, etc.  I am quite satisfied with the arrangement.

My thought is, can we somehow appeal to our local providers to once again give the work to those of us who work at home as employees rather than farming out work to the big nationals?  This would eliminate the middle man and our wages would hopefully once again go up. 

I am most interested in others' opinions.  Are you happy working for a big MTSO, or would you prefer working, once again, as an at-home employee for a local company.  If so, can we somehow solicit this work back where it used to be?  I have been doing this for 25 years now, and I remember when most local health care providers did have their own employees,either in house or at home, doing their transcription.  Guess all the recent discussions on this board have got me to thinking how I (we) can improve out current situation!

Thanks in advance for any replies I may receive on this post.

Here is a link discussing noncompete clause enforcement in California.  Depending on what state you are in and if it imposes unreasonable restrictions on your income a court of law might find it void and enforceable.  I doubt it would get that far anyway.  What does contract say about notice to quit?  What state are you in? What state is company in?  Have you told them you are unhappy?  Ask them how much notice they need.  A lot of times these services make up their own contracts and sprinkle in a few clauses that sound good and are unilateral (one-sided in their benefit).  Bottom line:  They are not always enforceable.

http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/laborlaws/l/aa042202_2.htm

One of the biggest perks I can remember when I worked in a doctor's office was when the drug reps or orthopedic equipment reps would cater lunch for the whole office just so they could meet with the docs.  The whole office would get so jazzed at the idea of free lunch.

If you can't afford to cater lunch, then I would do something like a muffin basket and bagels always go over well.  But food is your best bet.

My son has chronic eczema. He had so many food allergies when he was small. We were told he would "grow out of them" and, for the most part, he did. His major allergy was, and probably still is CORN.

Now everything you buy has corn syrup or cornstartch or corn something in it. Even the dyes in Kool Aid have a scientific number, which is actually a corn biproduct of some sort.

As you can see, I have done my homework about corn. My first time shopping for him "corn free" a decade ago took me almost 3 hours.

Unfortunately, cold weather aggravates his eczema and we live in the Northeast.  He has  been to the best dermatologist  in the state and has 4 meds that keep it under control. However, he's 15 and he goes and eats pizza with his friends (no pizza sauce ever made without corn syrup - you have to make your own out of tomatoes). McDonalds, etc, everything is loaded with it.  I only found 1 local breadmaker that actually has white bread without corn syrup in it.