Runs and fragments, my pet peeve with testing sm
Posted By: Lyndia on 2007-12-27
In Reply to: Agree! The same thing happened to me. I got everything correct - Whistleblower (SM)
I will be honest, I am not that well versed in which is which, but I know an incomplete sentence when I see one. The thing that tickles me is that the companies who make the most of knowing the difference will hand you a VERBATIM account. If you are an experienced MT, you tell me...verbatim means you type out all the sentences as you hear them...run ons, fragments and complete, regardless.
It is nice to have someone on board who really knows their stuff and I understand this. I think it is appropriate to test for things you know that an MT is going to encounter, rather than whether or not she can identify when her verbatim account is dictating in incomplete sentences. Appropriate use of a commas versus semicolons, knowing when to chain together disparate thoughts into one sentence and when to break it up, and knowing how to spell seem far more important to me.
I am in the middle of taking a test for a national company. They handed me 6 voice files, all over 3 minutes long, to transcribe as a test. Yes, they are going to take me over an hour because I have bronchitis right now (ugh I feel awful), but I consider this about the best way to assess my skills. It will give my perspective supervisor a valid way of seeing how I do things on the job.
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Regarding testing. I have given in-depth testing but I have come to find that sm
no matter what a company wants, be it ESL specialist, etc., the best test to give ANY applicant is one that is not planned, one given right on the spot, verbal, one that has not been scheduled so the person has had no time to get nervous, but throw about 15-20 questions at them, general knowledge for their level of skill, and it can tell you wonders about their knowledge that is retained!! I actually find that the retention rate of folks hired this way is actually higher than intense testing given by some of these larger national companies. We all know that it takes sometimes a couple of weeks for even the best MTs to understand (I am speaking of the ESLs or bad dictators). There are some companies that give these as tests and what does that tell? Tells nothing and means nothing! Some of these that do well on these actually cannot do the work. How do we know that these folks have not actually had someone else do the test for them?
I find the best way is to pull a pop test on the spot in the middle of the interview and it works! Don't ever give the same questions to two separate applicants. Have a database of questions to pull from. Score from the ones you ask and move on from there. If the person cannot do the work, you know it in a day.
I believe it was the old EDiX that used to give over the phone questions, but they still scheduled this and people had time to get nervous. This way there is no time and well, you would be surprised at what folks actually do know...and in some cases...what folks actually do not know when given multiple choice, but to me this is an excellent way of testing, takes very little time, which I personally consider to be too valuable to waste 3-4 hours on a test, which someone who is experienced and has worked for 10 to 15 years in the field should not be required to do anyhow, should not be asked to do. When you have worked 12 hours during that day for a company (and some have), why should they have to take 4 hours to do a test?!
Think about it!!
I have recently spoken to other recruiters from other companies and they have agreed with me on this and I hope it catches on because it certainly is less time consuming and tells you all you need to know without giving them the actual work to do.
before your insurance runs out....nm
Does anyone else freak when work runs low?
We received an email a few days back discussing about a low workload. Also received another email for maybe increased workload on another account. I get nervous and ready to jump when this happens. It's a very bad time of year for this to happen (like any time is a good time). The work is great but the pay is on the low side, especially with my experience (21 years). I took this position some months ago at the referral of another MT I know, hoping this would be it, but I really don't think it is.
I have been browsing the job boards this morning, almost applying with another company, but something made me close the browser, thinking maybe I should hang tight for another week and see what happens.
Does anyone else do this? I'm really thinking I should maybe look elsewhere because I've always thought, work smart, not hard. This pay scale is just a bit too low at 7 cpl.
I notice that my computer runs better when it is
shut down every night. If I leave it up for a couple of days, it starts acting sluggish. I do not think shutting it down wears on it. Plus, like the other poster said, you do leave yourself open for attack when always running if you have cable internet.
I think you either need to get a router that runs Win 98 or upgrade to XP nm
x
I use Avast...it updates almost every day and runs in the background....
all the time. If I get an email attachment within attachment from forwards, it checks all of them before I even open it. It's a free program, too.
I agree with you, but big business runs this country now,
I just took 2 IC jobs, just in case one runs out of work
I have the other. I am starting with one that is great in NC (have friends there), and it does have the contract, but I contracted at the less amount so if I do more that is great and then I can get the bonus. The other one out of ME is also wonderful, and neither have restrictions on schedule just want to know about what you will do every couple of weeks and if you have something come up they are still flexible. After taking a week or so to decide, and seeing as well the notes on here about lay offs elsewhere, I decided to do the 2 IC, and also will probably volunteer at the local library, and sell on e bay last (too much work LOL). Good luck to you, but if you don't need benefits because someone else can provide them for your family, I'd personally go with the more flexible status than promise my whole life away to a large MTSO and then fear the threat of taking benefits away or sudden layoff. That is just me. And after a lot of thinking about what I personally value. My family and my paycheck to support my family. Good luck to you.!
The bottom line is if the work runs dry, then
It's not rocket science.
That's my pet peeve
My doc says "assessment and plan #1" every freaking time whether there's a #2 or not...drives me up the wall. I hate having to go back and change it...but you know I do...that's my job. Sigh.
My pet peeve
I absolutely HATE it when, after having used docfinderplus.com (which is quite handy), I minimize it and then shortly after that I get scared right out of my chair when a "commercial" comes on.
Each have our own pet peeve.
I would not change pee or kid, but I would change tooken.
my pet peeve
is the word "irregardless." And I can't tell you how many doctors I have heard that from!
ATH, my pet peeve sm
I have never come across an At-Home Professions "graduate" who could do the job. I had started my training with ATH because I had a coupon for $25 for the first chapter. I had also looked into the SUM program. I was able to contrast and compare them. SUM was 10x as hard and in depth. It spoke to me as though I had a brain in my head and a LOT of information was covered as well, by body system. I could see right off that ATH was not going to be good enough.
I have managed a team and done QA, and having known what my MTs had used for training, those with ATH behind them had next to nothing behind them.
I can remember reading my SUM stuff about what actual transcription was like...background noise, unclear dictation and they touched on ESLs as well, though honestly these days there are as many ESLs as there are Americans. They were also up front about their completion and success rates. They stated clearly that 60% of those who finished the program would not be able to successfully be MTs and that, in point of fact, only about 10% of graduates would make a handsome income from this. I work technically part time and I have a full time income, so I consider that I am in that 10% even if I don't work full time. I was undaunted by these figures because I knew that I was going to do well as an MT and I have. If I had listened to the hype from ATH I am sure I would be doing something else now because I would not have been successful.
Unless you have tried to do this job, you know it isn't easy in the least. Training is one thing, but it won't give you a sharp ear (you have it or you don't), it won't make up for speaking poor English and thus having poor written English skills, it won't guarantee that you are one of these people who can instantly type what they hear. With the emphasis of so many of these "programs" on being at home with one's children or being available for family activities/problems, they are not giving an honest portrayal of what it is that we do all day. The emphasis should be on what it is we actually DO while we are at the computer, and it isn't. The 15 cents a line is a JOKE too. If you have your own accounts, which you really should not right away because you need mentoring, you can get better than 15 cents, or at least I can. Expenses run me down to about 8.5 to 9 cents a line, however, and I am better off being an IC at 10 cents with no bookkeeping to speak of (I am lousy at it). This is another reality that even SUM in its wisdom didn't mention.
Best of all, you gotta love those who think that a good training program will teach you everything that we "old timers" in this business know. Not many seem to understand (as I did) that most of this takes time and effort with constant learning and researching, memorizing and note taking and most of all, learning from the wonderful gals who have come before us...then paying it forward to others.
I hear your pain and all those interruptions on the phone!
another peeve
How about when their pager goes off and they hold it right up by the mouthpiece of the phone to check their messages with out shutting off the beeper? I just got one of those. Excuse me, I need to go have my eardrums removed from the center of my brain now. Oh, and he kept dictating the whole time, of course!
Pet Peeve
This is one of my pet peeves as well. There's this one female MD on my account that does it all the time. Yesterday, I sped up the dictation and listened quickly to it in its entirety so as to get an advanced peek at what she was going to do. It helped a little. If I were to have direct contact with this MD, I would make sure that she heard about the frustration that she caused. Otherwise, I work for a company and have no hopes that she will ever receive any feedback on this. At one time, there was an ER MD who would keep correcting herself many times throughout a report. The situation was made even more difficult by the fact that she keyed in all of her reports as stats, even those where the patient was discharged. So, being stat, her reports always rose to the top of the work queue. I complained about her to my manager; subsequently, I haven't received any of her reports in quite a long time. Either she doesn't work there any longer, or someone was actually listening to me.
pet peeve
I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise when I get a dicator who goes around the block to make a point and you are left trying to punctuate this monster thought into coherence.
I am not talking about a run-on sentence, which could be broken up into a couple/three sentences. I am talking about someone who just goes on and on and you are left wondering what the heck they started talking about in the first place. Most of the time, the sentence doesn't make any sense anyway.
Just letting off steam. Thanks.
pet peeve
I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise when I get a dicator who goes around the block to make a point and you are left trying to punctuate this monster thought into coherence.
I am not talking about a run-on sentence, which could be broken up into a couple/three sentences. I am talking about someone who just goes on and on and you are left wondering what the heck they started talking about in the first place. Most of the time, the sentence doesn't make any sense anyway.
Just letting off steam. Thanks.
pet peeve
I hate it when they hold conversations. Had one doc complaining that he couldn't go to Wal-Mart without someone stopping him to talk. He said he didn't have any idea who any of these people were and he was tired of it. Said he had to get in his boat (he lived in FL) and go down to Wal-Mart in the next town so he could get his shopping done. Poor guy!
I think you have your results already. Any MQ post runs like wildfire as a rule! You had
55 views on your last poll, and 1 respondent, who felt the opposite! No offense, but isn't that the answer to your poll? The older posted complaints on speed were that it was too fast at the lowest setting! And nobody ever argued with that!
Your vent is my pet peeve with MTs now. sm
You WANT to be paid more but can't do the job. You CAN'T understand the ESLs. Well then learn or get out. This is the REAL world of MT and it is people like you that give the MT profession a bad name. Sorry if you had a bad day or whatever, but if you are going to do a job - do it and not half way. They don't have to dictate properly. If they did, voice recognition would already be in place EVERYWHERE! This is the reason MTs are still needed.
Wash well. Sorry, it's a pet peeve.
.
My pet peeve as of late
MTs and/or QA who write for assistance, help or support and then point out any item in my reply that they feel is an error. Looking at their own e-mail requests, I could point out the flaws and errors in their writing as well; however, I choose not to as that is not the point.
My point: You mistakes and so do the people who work to support you. It is petty of you to point out everyone's mistakes when you make them, too.
Forgot one pet peeve. lol
I do not like the fact that I have to order my payperview movies online as I do not have a landline hooked up to the receiver. I have not had a landline in a few years and do not wish to get one, it just irks me that I have to do it that way. Normally it doesn't take too long, it depends on the mood of my computer. Some days it doesn't want to cooperate. lol
I have seen noone used "a lot" on this board. It is my pet peeve also.
.
pet peeve about posts here
On the grand scale of things, this matters not a bit, but even so, it really bugs me when people don't use regular IDs here but instead finish off their subject line in the name area. To me, posts like that are really hard to read and more often than not, there isn't enough space available to complete the thought so they end mid-word.
I'm tending more and more to just ignore those posts in favor of ones that include a basic identifying name, a brief subject line, and have actual text for their messages.
OK...insignificant vent for the day is over now.
for QA - and this is a pet peeve of mine
 You QA in your post, I quote:
' ..I will see the patient in 2-day's time. NOPE, and this pisses me off! BOTH the hyphen and the apostrophe are wrong. ...'
The apostrophe is in the wrong place, I agree, but why do you want to delete the hypen? It should read:
I will see the patient in 2-days' time.
I am VERY positive that the hyphen has to stay in, as it is a modification to 'time'.
have to vent about a pet peeve... sm
yesterday I spent an hour reading instructions for my new job on how to get into the website to view my pay stub, had to download the human resources manual which took half an hour, then find the instructions. I followed the instructions to the letter several times and just could not get into the website. so I finally broke down and sent an email to HR, and a few hours later got a reply from them... with the very same instructions I had just spent an hour downloading.
I guess it's my fault. from now on when I send them an email I am going to list everything I've tried already so they won't think I just asked because I'm too lazy to try to find the answer on my own. Maybe there are a lot of people who do that, I don't know. It's just frustrating to spend so much time trying to find the answer, then wasting another day or more on emails from them telling me to try everything I've already tried. If I could just TALK to somebody. by the time I get their email I'm long past caring about it, have wasted so much time on it already.
pet peeve, having to justify every second for pay
In other professions like nursing, nurses can just sit around for hours on end and be paid the big bucks while you have to struggle through every line/minute for your pay. We should not tolerate being treated like this. We should be paid by the hour or at least paid a decent wage.
Your taste runs to slender effeminate boys. That's the way it is and how Jude Law
makes a "living" as well as Justin Timberlake. There are those who aren't attracted to manly men and enjoy seeing a pretty boy. BTW, Toby Keith has some excellent tight jeans and long legs and I don't see doughboy but it is relative if you prefer the looks of Jude Law/Justin Timberlake/Leonardo DeCaprio. And he appeared w/o his hat on many times. Not bald by any stretch like Garth Brooks. But having said that, Garth Brooks, dough-boy and balding was hot in his day.
My 11-year-old Boxer gets up and paces all night, runs into walls, SM
I have not slept throughout the night since this started. He is not afraid of the dark, but something is wrong. Guess it is old age.
previous note: "filing job falls through" as in the job runs out of work after
you get it.
Sorry about the expansion question - I forgot your history of 15+ years in the biz and having been a teacher. Sounds like you could be a supervisor in a transcription department or be in sales for an MTSO or a TX equipment company, etc. if you live near a big city???
Dog pet peeve, no leashes on dogs sm
My biggest pet peeve is owners who don't leash their pets. I have 2 dogs, 1 very large and one small. Overall, they are pretty good. They are always on a lease or in the house or behind a fence.I walk them nearly every day on the same route. On this route their are a mulitude of other dogs. I go during the day when most of the dogs are inside or in their pens. Sound safe? NOT. Today, I was 1 block from home when another came came out of nowhere, from behind us mind you, and attacked my dogs. Of course my dogs went nuts and there was a fight. The leashes tangled around my wrists and I couldn't let them go. Needless to say, before the owner got his dog under control and away from mine, I got knocked down and dragged about 50 feet from my own 2 dogs. I managed to get up and get mine under control and managed to get back home. I went to file a complaint with the police and he said it was iffy because the owner was outside with his dog and trying to call him back. So, I'm all banged up and sore and this guy is probably laughing at me. It just burns me up now that I can't even walk my dogs in town because people don't believe in restraining their animals. I told the officer I would think about it filing a formal complaint after I spoke with my husband. He said it would probably get thrown out but we could try. I'll probably get flamed to death on this issue but what would you do? My dogs were properly restrained and the other dog was not. Well, now that I have vented, I think I will be able to work. I'll check back later. Thanks for the ears.
LOL. I told you, it's a pet peeve. It was constructive
Personally, I don't like to have errors in any of my writing, personal MB or not, and I would rather have someone tell me on a MB than make a fool of myself elsewhere. To each his/her own.
FWIW, I was not proofreading, just reading. After seeing it the incorrect way umpteen times, I felt compelled to mention it.
another pet peeve for me is the snot sucker.
Today I got stuck with him again for more than a few reports. Grossed me out.
A newer computer with a dual core processor runs cool. No need for it.
``
LOVE ER!!! I watch the re-runs every day, and watch the new ones on Thursday night!!
/
Lowest runs $900 week, highest $1400 week (sm)
Get paid 12 CPL. Been doing transcription for about 12 years.
Testing for a new job
I am testing on Friday for a new job. I need this job very badly, because of the benefits. If anyone has any suggestions on where I can find some practice tests(written exams), please let me know! Thanks.
testing
x
When testing, is it better to - sm
When testing for a company is it better to type verbatim or can you change things like grammar to make it actually correct?
Testing
I humbly say that I have never tested for a company where I have not been offered a job and I've tested plenty. I always type verbatim with the exception of changing grammar. If in doubt, I put (?), basically for anything I would send to QA if actually working. IMO if you start "correcting" you'll likely flunk the test. I've always tested for acute care so I have no idea what testing would be like for clinic work.
Not testing
Has anyone every been hired without being tested first? I was just asked to sign on with a company and start as soon as possible. I've already got ID# and everything. There was only one other company that did require testing but that fell through, could never get the information straight or help with it. Should I be leary of this one too?
not testing
I also was hired on this past week without testing. Like the other poster said it was a good feeling to have your experience do the talking... Good luck
Testing sm
Anyone know a good testing site from a good company who doesn't require buying expensive equipment just to "test", sick of reading those who say "If you don't have.......don't bother testing." I am probably on the wrong board, but I want to test today, if possible. I only have Execuscribe and earphones, am totally clueless otherwise. Have "Word" but no medical dictionary in there either. "Sad" but true. Thanks for any info. 
Pet testing
We once had an MD call our radiology office to see if we would MRI her beloved duck. Alas, the duck passed away before we could scan. I can only imagine what the report would have consisted of, LOL.
Testing
I tested with many companies without having to get *permission* to do so. The national I landed my job with right out of school said they required 2 years' experience, but I tested and passed, and they hired me. If you get discouraged and give up you will never get in. You have to keep plugging at it. I e-mailed my resume and applied and tested for many, many companies before I got hired. I actually started working for the company I am with now the day after I graduated my MT program. It really can be done. And you're right, it does seem to be a very impersonal business on many levels. Fortunately there are many companies out there that have very nice people that will give you a chance. It's just a matter of finding the one that is right for you.
testing
testing
testing
Hi,
yeah, just got done taking a test and nailed it, I know I did, but got an instant reply of not enough experience. I'm certainly not a quitter and will just keep trying. I am so ready to work!
testing
just testing my validation
testing
 Can anyone out there explain to me why when taking a test for a national company they would tell you, Note: The audio is bad and that is part of the test. Why in the world would a company want to give you a bad audio tape to test on? Is this a Joke? I feel this is very humiliating to a transcriptionist. Just give a decent test. How is anyone supposed to pass it if the audio is bad? I do not care who you are and how many years experience, if the audio is bad, then no one is going to pass. This is totally ridiculous. I am glad I am starting to look into coding for a new profession because these National companies are making a mockery of this field, which was once respected.
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