My best friend and fellow editor laid off this close to Christmas! sm

 For everyone complaining about his or her jobs, it could be worse.  My best friend, who has been in this business for years and years and years, has a work ethic like nothing I have seen before, and is a genuinely caring and gentle soul, was laid off today from her job via a conference call!  To add insult to injury, she is scheduled to have two surgeries next month, which she scheduled for after the holidays to accommodate her employer, even though she can barely see, which she will now be unable to have since they are terminating her health insurance today as well.  They were aware of her scheduled surgery and knew she had been waiting for some time to have it.  We will not even talk about what impact this has upon her family, including her young son, particularly here at Christmas time.  How do you explain no Santa to a young child? 

She is always the person helping everyone else, both in her personal life as well as professionally.  I have witnessed her struggles and she always keeps a positive outlook.  I think this will finally "do her in."  Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers, as well as the other THIRTY people who lost their jobs today.

They say that everything we do comes back to you ten-fold.  I hope it happens quickly for this heartless company. 

• My best friend and fellow editor laid off this close to Christmas! sm - NCQA
  • Thread locked; see my post "MONEY". NM - Goldbird (Moderator)
  • Sorry to hear that - xcopper3
  • This happened to a group of us - Winnie
  • Check out the COBRA - jude
    • jude is right. Cobra may not be cheap, but it's cheaper than the surgery. - Cobra should pay if not cosmetic. nm
  • things sometimes work for a reason; maybe surgery would have gone bad - - NM
    • I completely concur. - TIMING is EVERYTHING.
      • yes it is. - no msg
    • Cataract surgery routinely does not "go bad" these days. - In the know
      • I think the difference here is surgeon quality - Me
        • He is a Mayo Clinic doctor - he does a ton... - She is in good hands.
      • I transcribe about 30 of these a week sm - OphthoMT
        • this is interesting and good to know - NM
  • While I am sorry for your friend's situation... - ...
    • Spoken from the true heart of a company owner (inside) - Piedmont
      • so true - jlynn
      • No, you just make YOUR attacks and then say - don't respond. What is that about???? nm
        • Look, I am as tired of everything as everyone. My heart breaks for MTs who cannot buy present for t - Piedmont
          • Enabling so oftened masked as helping. Dont - hurt your elbow patting self on back. nm
            • Enabling post not meant for OP, just Peidmont. - nm
              • You are certainly entitled to your opinion, no one would accuse you of enabling. - Piedmont
          • But just because people are not willing to financially help doesn't make them any less helpful th - MtMom30
            • No, no, I didn't mean that, please, I did not mean that. MTs are the most generous people in the - Piedmont
              • Oh please. - NM
          • "take one line from a post and use it against the person" - read your own quote - you are doing this - no msg
            • off on a tangent huh company owner? - Piedmont
  • Are you talking about MK? If so, - Country MT
    • Never mind, Sorry, just saw - Country MT
      • Yes, MK and I work together. - In the know
        • Really really stinks to fire someone in a conference call for gosh sakes. nm - anon
  • Really a nightmare. How awful. - Could be any of us.
  • What bums!! - wvm
    • What a kind person your are. - Piedmont
    • see inside - the company
    • Yes, it is just awful. Someone did the same to me last year. - NCQA
      • Happened to U but are you now employed, - better company, better situation? nm
      • The one lesson from this is - wvm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

(fired, with no intention of hiring me back) along with a whole bunch of other MTs when our work went to the Philippines. 

This employer really played some games.  First they said work was going to get thin because some accounts were being 'lost' and people might be let go.  A month later accounts were booming, and getting way out of TAT and it was ALL OUR FAULT and why weren't we picking up the slack?  (I later figured this was the transition period as they switched over to offshore, and something got screwed up.)  Then work slacked off again and they said people were definitely going to be let go and we should start looking elsewhere.  A couple weeks later they said that they could probably find places for most of us on other accounts, and we should ask for a transfer, which I did.  Then I got jerked around by the HR person who would not return my calls or respond to my e-mails for a couple of weeks.  Then the account managers she finally referred me to did the same for another couple of weeks.  This all took about three months from first inkling to the axe falling.

Then one glorious morning I got an e-mail notifying me of a MANDATORY conference call, with 2 hours' notice.  And everyone on that call, 30-40 of us, were the lucky winners, and were locked out of the system.    

A couple of weeks later (while I was still in the 30-day waiting period in my state to file for unemployment) I got a phone call from the same HR person who had given me the runaround before.  Did I want to reapply for a job with them?  Well, not really, but I went through that whole process -  as though they did not even know me.  And weirdly enough, with 15 years of experience, I managed to fail an untimed open-book test!  Fascinating.

So here's what I think the game was (and I am telling you so you don't fall for any tricks.)  They tried to scare as many of us into quitting as possible. Then they tried to ignore as many of into quitting as possible.  (If you quit, 99.9% of the time you don't qualify for unemployment.) Then when they were forced to lay us off, they offered the jobs back to see how many would go for it; maybe 10% of us did.  (If they offer you work and you refuse, then you don't qualify for unemployment.)  But since I went through their whole reapplication process, and they did not hire me back  (and never intended to)  I DID qualify for unemployment. 

Hope you are an actual employee and not an IC, and that this info is helpful.  Unemployment is not big buck$ but with summer coming, maybe you can have a nice semi-paid vacation while you look for work.

I wish you luck.  My luck was that about a month after I was let go I broke my arm.  I would not have been able to work for the creeps anyway!  I filed for unemployment online. I was able to do all my job hunting from home, hunt-and- peck, online.  Nobody saw me.  And magically, just when I got the arm back in service again, somebody wanted me to test and I got the first job I tested for.  The whole time I was one-armed and applying for jobs like mad (a requirement for getting unemployment) and wondering what I would do if a company was seriously interested, absolutely no offers.  As soon as I could actually type again, there was a job offer. 

Think bad stuff doesn't sometimes happen for good reasons?  Think again!!

He laid down for awhile, but he just did not seem to be able to navigate or walk because of the dizziness

HELP PLEASE !!!  I can never get this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Or there is a switch to true EMR with drop down screens and virtually no free text.  My cardiologist's office already has this.  No chart notes to type anymore; they only need transcription for letters. 

You may train your system so well that administration will decide they don't need you anymore.  The system doesn't have to be perfect (human transcription certainly isn't!); it only has to be *good enough*.

Stay away from Spheris.  They're a terrible company to work for, and they put out garbage work.  They, too, will end up losing the "big" account (which DRC did lose before the Acusis buyout).  I am one of the stragglers left behind at DRC/Acusis, but not for long.  I'll take the gum chewing, mumbling, flatulent, ESL cardiologist any day of the week over being told someone in India is going to train me on a new account. 

I've been working from home as an IC for my 7 years of MTing.  MUCH has changed in my life and I find that it may be time to leave the home office and get back into the world of the living.  I spoke wiht a hospial in my area and got a bit of info - full time position Monday through Friday, full benefit package, tuition reimbursement, life insurance, healthcare, disabiliy, etc.  The top pay is 6k less than what I'm making now, but that is not that important as there are other factors I have to take into consideration.  My question to those of you who are in-house MTs, would you share your hourly rate - just a ballpark.  This is the first time I've ventured down this path and actually received figures from a potential employer. 

So, what do you all think?

I'm a Mainer.  It's getting chilly tonight.  I'm not happy. $2.499 for heating oil here and old man winter is coming. I'll break out the heating pad. :)

Thank goodness we have a wood backup and some wood.  I've already told the hubby and kids to break out their socks and sweaters because that thermostat will NOT go above 65 this winter.

boycott Iams pet food - they have been charged of horrible animal cruelty in testing their food, see web site below. 

www.peta.org/

last week.  I think she's off today though so haven't heard.  Wouldn't doubt it.