Truth always hurts...

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8 cpl is about the top out in the US MT industry. If you're making more consider yourself lucky because it just might be snatched away from you at any moment. For the 14 cent per liner, good for you! You went out and got your own accounts. Others should follow your example. As far as the "stupid" MT comment, keep in mind that she was not consistent and **often** had one excuse after another not to work, yet I could see her online and when I would ask her why she was online she would give VERY lame excuses.  Also, keep in mind that I also was the one who helped this gal out monetarily to begin with and she took advantage of my generosity.  Don't make me out to be the bad gal here just because I own a service.  The shoe could easily be on your foot.

So, NEWS FLASH, if you have an MT position that is paying more than 8 cpl, consider it a real blessing and pray that your job isn't outsourced offshore. 

don't have a million(s) dollar salary and you have children involved that will be emotionally damaged for life regardless.

I'm not bitter, he was abusive and I didn't like him anyway after a while. It was over 20 years ago, but my 2 kids (notice I said "my" and not "our") still have emotional issues after years of counseling.

Hey,  I learned how to make a can of "Spaghetti-O's" feed 3. And when the "father" had to start actually paying court ordered child support, he cut off ties with my kids.

Been with my second hubby for 13 years and he's a great guy. He gets the Father's Day cards.  If he cheats and I find out, he won't have a leg to stand on. Not because I'll take the chainsaw to him, but because I got wise years ago and everything is in MY NAME.

"As God is my witness, I will NEVER go hungry again!"

years experience as an MT.  I say misfortune because MTs with this much experience usually have gigantic egos and feel like they've "seen it all and done it all."  They simply don't make mistakes.  Not possible, no way.  This particular MT became irate with me.  She actually threw her 20+ years experience in my face and said "I've been doing this for over 20 years, I think I know what I'm doing!"  It was painfully obvious, she did not have a clue.  She'd been doing it wrong for 20 years and no one ever told her, so she thought she was right.

I had another MT with 10 years experience call me to scream at me and hung up on me when I tried to explain her errors to her.

The plain truth is, some people can't take criticism whether it be constructive or destructive.  They don't like to be wrong or be told their wrong.  Egos get in the way.  We are all guilty of letting our egos get in the way from time to time, but in this field, you need to be willing to admit you're wrong and you need to be able to accept criticism gracefully and give criticism diplomatically.

As an editor, I encourage MTs to let me know if they disagree with any corrections I've made.  I am happy to provide MTs with my reference materials and resources.  I am happy to admit when I am wrong and I am happy to say that I make mistakes too.  Just don't try to tell me that an MT with 16 years experience can't possibly be making terminology mistakes - she can and probably has in the past and will again in the future.

Interesting article!

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050822_hegemony.htm
America's Lost Hegemony
      By Paul Craig Roberts

      The historian who chronicles America's decline will lay the blame on free market ideology.

      I say this as a believer in the market. My books and scholarly articles demonstrate the superiority of market systems over government allocative schemes. The problem arises when market economics ceases to be thoughtful and becomes ideological or a dogma.

      A good example of the latter is a recent Heritage Foundation study that argues that global outsourcing is the best way to equip the US military with the best technology at least expense. The study brushes away concerns with the erosion of the American manufacturing, science, and engineering knowledge base by asserting that such concerns imply protectionism and that protectionism means the death of innovation. ['Buy America' Provisions Don't Help Homeland Security or National Defense by Alane Kochems, June 21, 2005]

      Protectionism can be problematical for innovation, and the study is correct to point this out. Where the study fails is in ignoring that innovation does not take place in a vacuum. Innovation requires a material base and depends on a strong manufacturing, science and engineering foundation backed by R&D programs.

      In an interview with Manufacturing & Technology News (August 8), the study's project leader, Jack Spencer, sees protectionism as the only threat to American innovation, which he otherwise takes for granted:

      "Our belief is that subjected to the free market, the United States is still going to produce most things because our comparative advantages are innovation and new technology. If liberated from protectionism, we can compete and that is where we will always emerge as winners." [Heritage Foundation Says Congress, DOD Should Learn To Live With Globalization; Providing Troops With Best Equipment Usurps Making It In America by Richard McCormack]

      This belief is simply untrue. As this belief is the basis for the study, the study has done nothing but confirm a preordained belief.

      The US has no God-given comparative advantage in innovation and new technology. We were leaders in these fields, because we were leaders in manufacturing.

      We were leaders in manufacturing, because Europe and Japan destroyed themselves in wars, and the rest of the world destroyed themselves in various forms of socialism and cronyism.

      America's hegemony in manufacturing, science and engineering was the product of historical circumstances. Moreover, it occurred despite American protectionism.

      The historical circumstances have changed. The US gave away its scientific and engineering education and its agriculture. It did this partly for idealistic reasons and partly as cold war strategy.

      Once socialism collapsed in Asia, US corporations began outsourcing abroad the manufacture of products for US markets. Success with offshore manufacturing has led to offshore outsourcing of research and development and now innovation itself.

      As a recent report from the National Research Council recognizes, "product development and technical support follow manufacturing." One consequence for America is the loss of many manufacturing capabilities and "the increasing availability abroad of unique technologies not found in the United States."

      This development is taking a huge toll on America's human resources in manufacturing skills, engineering and science. The first American victims were blue collar workers. Millions of them lost their jobs and experienced sharp declines in the quality of their lives. But as research, engineering, design, and innovation followed manufacturing abroad, now it is white collar workers in information technology and university graduates in engineering and physics who are being displaced.

      American university enrollments in science and engineering are declining because there are no jobs for graduates. It is pointless to invest money, sweat and toil in an education that has no payoff. Markets do work. Markets are working to shrink the demand for, and supply of, American engineers and scientists.

      The next impact is going to be on project manager jobs, practically the sole remaining source of career related employment for many engineers and technical people. Project management jobs require people experienced with the technology of the job. The loss of technical and engineering jobs empties the pipeline of people who have the experience to assume management positions. Far from being able to innovate, the US will even lack the human resources to manage technical and scientific projects.

      Many uninformed people believe the problem is that America doesn't produce enough scientists and engineers. Manufacturing & Technology News reports that "a group of 15 US business organizations has launched a national campaign aimed at doubling within 10 years the number of bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

      What is the point of this when there is a huge supply of unemployed engineers and technical people who have been displaced by offshore outsourcing and by H-1b and L-1 work visas for foreigners? I know an American software engineer in his thirties whose job was outsourced. After searching fruitlessly for a job for four years, he took a job in Thailand writing software programs for $850 per month.

      The anecdotal stories are legion. Yesterday, a friend reported to me that the service technician who repaired his garage door opener said his company was flooded with resumes from college graduates and engineers who cannot find work and are willing to take jobs installing garage doors.

      US executives, with an eye to quarterly earnings and their bonuses, continue to spend considerable resources lobbying for increases in work visas that enable them to replace their American engineers, scientists, and technical people with lower cost foreigners. These executives lie through their teeth when they assert the lack of qualified Americans for the jobs. The fact of the matter is, the executives force their American employees to train their foreign replacements and then fire their American workers.

      In a word, American capitalism is destroying itself by dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that have made large income inequalities acceptable. By rewarding themselves for destroying American jobs and manufacturing, engineering and scientific capabilities, US executives are sowing a whirlwind. American political stability will not survive the turning of an American university degree into a worthless sheet of paper. Libertarians and free market ideologues who rejoice in freedom should open their eyes to freedom's destruction.

      Dr. Roberts, [email him] a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former Contributing Editor of National Review, was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration. He  is the author of The Supply-Side Revolution and, with Lawrence M. Stratton, of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

      COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
    

too much glare.  It blocks my rays! 

but according to my symptoms, tennis elbow is the diagnosis.  Am using a heating pad which gives me relief while it is in place.  Am wondering if using the mouse caused this.  Made it to 47 without CTS after typing MT since age 19 and have tennis elbow! 

I am wondering if this is prominent in those who have been MTs.

This is just too much fun!

Having been a court reporting student, I can tell you any online course would be a complete waste of your time. You definitely need a class to go to each and every day. 

Court reporting is exceedingly hard to learn and takes a lot of time.  It takes great discipline to learn it and to build up your speed.  If you think you can take an online course to become a court reporter, you're only fooling yourself and throwing away good money.

And yes, job prospects are great for court reporters, and the pay is excellent, but  you have to be GOOD! 

I am not here to train anyone.  I expect that since my company has a strict requirement on how much and what type experience an MT has, gives a comprehensive test and talks to the MT that they have certain basic skills.

If you got someone to take your test for you, lied on your resume and bluffed your way through the phone call, that's not my problem.  Here is the work--you can do it or you can try to bluff your way through it too.

You said all the same things below in response to my other post.  What I've found is that people who have attitudes like yours are usually the people who are guilty of not researching and leaving tons of blanks.  When confronted, they bluster and blow smoke about how I get paid to fill in all their hard work, they are just EXCELLENT TRANSCRIPTIONISTS--it's a joke.  You know it and I know it.