Re: tricks of the trade from longtime mt

• Re: tricks of the trade from longtime mt - Nymt
  • > 1st of the year I think she said. nm - Becky

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I have seen a LOT of posts on here for people asking how to get their lines.  Some are having trouble even hitting lower numbers like 1000-1400.  I have been working for a long time on a little book of tips, "Maximizing Line Counts:  30 Tips in 30 Days."  I started this at the request of my boss who wanted to give it to all existing employees as well as new hires.  I am interested to know if there are any transcriptionists who would like to have something like this.

Hi,

I want to say a word about the "tricks of the trade lady" (for purpose of ID protection). I have worked with this MT in the acute hospital hospital setting with major ESL.  She does indeed, many times exceed a 2000/day line count.  She had been top producer of over 35 MT's.  This is no joke and a FACT.  If you have further questions regarding the ligitmacy of this MT, please fell free to e-mail me for further clarification.

Thank and have a great MT kinda day!  The chick woman.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane! I once knew a senior MT who originally worked off of WAX CYLINDERS ("by 1902 the brown wax cylinder was eclipsed by the molded black wax cylinder. A typical recording on a black wax cylinder was about 2 minutes.") At the end of her shift, part of her job was to scrape the cylinders clean for the next day's recording! I started out on noncorrecting IBM Selectrics and reel-to-reel tapes...then correcting Selectrics, but we had to make multiple copies with carbon paper and blue, pink, yellow, goldenrod, and white correction fluids...then the 1-line display Olivetti...then the Wang, Raytheon and Xerox behemoths. Also, I still have my original 1973 Sloane's Medical Word Book  Now I use a highspeed internet home-based LAN with VOIP and a KVM switch...guess the only thing that hasn't evolved is the quality of dictation! Kudos to all of you MTs out there from this 30+ year veteran. We've come a long way baby! 

First of all, if you go into advanced search in Google, it gives you tons of "criteria" you can work with.

The asterisk "*" is the wildcard.  If you were looking for a medication that was 20 mg, you could put * 20 mg into Google and it would start listing all meds that were 20 mg.  If you put:  No wheezes, rales, or *, Google would give suggestions on what would fit here. 

If you are looking for an either or, the OR (capitalized) searches for both.  Like "side effects, aspirin OR tylenol"  This entry would bring up both.

If you type in "define:  words" (two spaces after define) it will list all dictionaries the word is in.   Google also has a calculator, does conversions, all kinds of things, just have to look on the Google site.

Hope this helps answer some questions--

Rebekah

I'm not an expert but this has worked for me.

Since I am the primary breadwinner of the household, I made the whole family a part of the budget process.  We have two kids left at home (2 grown and gone) and I still manage to pay them their allowance (10.00 per week each). 

How about we start there.   I have a Chore Chart on a dry erase board on the fridge (so they see it every single time they hit the fridge) with the name of the chore written in permanent marker so they can't erase it, then put the initial of the one responsible for that chore that day.   If, at the end of the day, those chores are NOT done?  They get a black X in the box next to the chore.   Only their initials are written in dry erase so I can change that around from time to time.

If they miss doing their chores 2 days out of the week, they get NO allowance.  If they argue or procrastinate, that gets 1 check. If they get 2 checks by the chore, then that is the same as not doing the chore and they don't get the credit for it. Even if they eventually get it done, they still don't get credit that day because they procrastinated OR argued about it.  Pay day is Friday.  

Time is money people and I don't have the time to clean as I should, they are old enough, and they want money too.   I don't give money for movies, candy, or trips to the dollar store.  They now have their own and are learning to budget.

Sometimes I give them bonuses too for doing an inventory of the freezer, pantry, organizing the cupboards, etc... Helps us keep track of the things we have for the next step.

MENUS ~ If you get Woman's Day Magazine or First, or anything like them that have the monthly menu calendars in them?  PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THEM.   They can save you BIG $$ on your food bills.

My kids are horribly picky eaters and meal planning has saved me a lot of money.  I now have them sit down with me, look over these meal planning calendars and see if it is something they would like.  If they put it on OUR calendar, they initial it, and we make our grocery list.  If the time comes for a particular meal and they turn their nose up at it, I send them to the calendar to see if they initialed that day.  If they did.... Eat it! PERIOD.  (by the way, I never put anything on the calendar that they don't agree with so, after a few months of doing this, there is never any more turning the nose up at dinner time - HA  fixed their wagon!)

We also do a mass cook and freeze fest now and then.  The kids get into it too.  Very easy for them. THey are 12 and 13 so I have the meal calendar taped to the inside door of the pantry.  When I'm working, they can go look and see what's on the calendar for that day, pull it out of the freezer, and put it in the oven.  I have written the temp and time for each one next to the item on the calendar.  Works out fine.

Power bills... Yikes - LIGHTS OUT.  When I go to bed, every light in the house is OFF except the porch light, the little light above the stove, and the nightlight in the hall across from the kids rooms. 

GAS- Holy Smokes.   Up to 2.79/gal here now.   No extra drives to here and there for anything.  If you just want a cold pop to drink cuz it's hot?  Make iced tea instead.  Not worth that kinda money for a wasted trip to the mini mart.  Just plan better the next time.  The kids want to go to the pool or their friend's house... pump up the bike tire kids and grab the walkies.   I make my kids take walkie talkies (Cobra brand 5-mile radius at WalMart for 80.00 and WELL worth it.)

One last little tidbit....  SAVE your receipts for EVERYTHING for at least 2 months then compare them after the end of that 2 months when you have learned to tighten up the wallet a bit and see the difference for yourself.  Makes it really worth your while.

I have cut enough fat out of excess spending in the past year to put away 400.00 or more every month into a savings account that I can use for emergencies, vacations, whatever.

By the way... Would be a good idea to have a forum JUST for Budgeting and Money Saving ideas here wouldn't it.  Administrators????  How about it?

Gladly 

Hey guys:

Does anyone have any ideas or tricks to make work more pleasant??  Been doing this a long (too long) time, and the isolation is getting to me.  Any ideas?

Thanks all.

54 here this morning.  58 inside the house because we forgot to close up the windows last night. Saving the wood and the oil until it really gets cold.

Then it hit 93 by noon, but now it is a comfortable 73 at 7:00 p.m. 

We had a very long hot, humid, sticky summer.  We still, however, are not looking forward to 5 foot snowbanks, temps of at least 20 below zero and heating oil at well over $200 for 100 gallons.  Between end of December and mid-March we use about 700 gallons of heating oil.  OUCH!  We're backing it up with our woodstove this year, but wood is not cheap either.

I recently started working on the Emdate Inscribe platform. It is a little more cumbersome to maneuver than what I am used to, and I was wondering if any of you seasoned Emdat MTs might share any tips or tricks you've found to speed yourself up using this system?  I've had a couple "glitches" with the function to look up/paste doctor names, for example, and not being able to close out the "prior transcriptions" box because there's no X! Not too much help from the MT company so thought I'd try here - any tips will be greatly appreciated, or if you know of any websites or other resources.  You can respond here or to my email and thank you in advance!

My husband is almost to his 11th year in the Navy and I have been with him every step of the way. It is a hard life on every member of our family, but if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely choose this way of life. We have so much more than what we would of had if we would have stayed in our "one-horse town" in Ohio...And, I don't mean that in tangible goods necessarily. We have friends all over the US and they are friendships that will last a lifetime! It is hard to have our friends leave us or us leave them, but we have so many places to visit when we want to travel! One of my husband's co-workers actually followed us out here to WA after shore duty and is on a different ship than my husband! (My husband does four years on a ship then goes to three years on land without deployments.)

Right now my husband is on a ship, but in February we are due to move to PA so that he can go to recruiting duty. It's been hard having him deployed for most of the four years that he has been on this ship. The way I got through it was to surround myself with some of the best ladies I could find and kept busy! I've spent holidays and birthdays with them...I've stood on the pier and watched the ship leave port and watched it come in. They have become my family. I have a daughter who is 9 and a son that is 3. They are well adjusted to the deployments because I constantly keep them on a schedule and their mind occupied. Now, that is not to say that they don't miss their dad, because they do....Things are just somewhat easier because of the way we handle things.

I know a couple of my husband's shipmates that have come into the Navy in their late 20's. They seem to be adjusting well and I believe once their time is up they will see it as a positive experience.

Whatever you decide to do just remember that you just won't be thrown into this life, all of you. There are numerous resources out there for military families, you just have to use them! Feel free to email me if you have any other concerns or questions.

Good Luck!

He charges outlandish amounts to do our taxes. Last year it was over $550. The year before that was a little less 'cause we had a mortgage. We don't have that this year.

'Course he said he tried to squeeze every last penny of deductions he could out of our taxes. He even filed an amended return after talking to DH about taxes at our last reunion. Saved us a few more thousand dollars....but still hurt. I am an employee, gave up IC 4 years ago, but DH is still self-employed.

state attorney general for the state The VLC is located in.  I happened to check it out and they have offices in Niagara Falls, NY and in Ontario.  Be sure to forward copies of every thing your file to them.  You can fill online complaint forms at the FTC website and the NY Attorney General's website.  Print out copies of these forms and mail copies of them after you fill them out to the school with a letter basically stating that you have reported them to these agencies and they will be intervening for you on this matter.

I also like the idea of putting cc's on your correspondence to a local news reporter.  And call them every single day until they are tired of hearing from you!

Good Luck!