cherry

A cherry picker is someone who manipulates the dictation system to give her or himself the better, longer reports or the known good dictators. I am not sure how people do this with at-home and internet based transcription, but when I worked at a hospital people used to check what was coming up on the big Lanier machines and take a break if they saw something bad on the horizon. If you are in a position to assign yourself work, such as a system administrator, you could take the best dictators for yourself, but it is likely if you are new you are not in this position yet.

My advice:  Stay on the good side of your coworkers and do the work that is lined up for you.  

not all the managers of the closed MQ offices are working from home, my office manager lost her job and so did everyone else that worked in that office, (when you think about it how many managers do you really need it everything is done via email) we were told by our office that the hospital could track who was skipping reports but nothing was ever done about it, everyone was told not to do it which stopped it for awhile but then it would start up again, we also had managers that would assign certain work types to certain transcriptionists or certain drs to certain transcriptionists, that's how it was in my old office

I don't like cherry pickers for whatever reason, but I do know this.  If you hang in with the worst dictators on your account, transcribe them each time they come up, guess what - you get the hang of them and learn them, no matter how difficult they are.  That is what is ignorant about cherry picking to me, taking on the most difficult dictators just gives you an opportunity to learn and conquer no matter how slow going it is at the beginning.  I think if die-hard cherry pickers looked at it as an opportunity to learn, it would stop - I don't like anything or anybody to "whip me", so I do jobs at my company that have been kicked around all over the US for two or three hours, but the cherry picking stops here.

Well you see, you stated right in your post that you can't possibly cherry pick...so what do you know about what is going on with the rest of us out here who DO have to deal with cherry pickers. 

Don't know what you make per line but getting about 666 lines per hour is quite astounding.  I'm sure you must be quite happy where you are and with no cherry pickers!  Good for you.  I've been an acute care MT for over 30 years and am rated as one of the best as far as QA and quantity and have NEVER, EVER in my life been able to come close to your line count.  Maybe you are from another planet and have powers beyond us or maybe you have some special secret you could share.  Or maybe, we should just ignore your statement of getting that kind of line count, especially when you are not dealing with cherry pickers.  

I do know exactly what you are talking about.  And to you other posters who ask, "how do you know"....believe me with some accounts it is very, very obvious unless you live in lallah land!!  I've been going through this cherry picking routine now for about 5 months.  Company hired one new girl who tried for several months but couldn't do the "bad" guys so she was terminated.  Now we have a new "seasoned" MT who is skipping over the same dictators.  The really SAD news is that QA doesn't want her to even try to do those docs because they can't understand them either.  So they are left for me and one other person as we seem to be the only two who can do their work!! 

I've let the "powers that be" know that this really should not be tolerated; they agree but will give her a little more time to "adjust".  Wish I could "adjust" my bills!!!!!  Anyway, smile....things will get better.     

I work with a program that will not allow you to cherry pick. If you try to dump the job, it comes right back to you.

It's a good thing though. I have learned a lot of foreign accents and have put up with mumblers, pausers, stutterers and horrid background noises, but I can do it all.

When the companies the cherry pickers work for downsize or go to VR (voice recognition) the good MTs will be working and the cherry pickers will be saying, "Do you want fries with that?

I have been struggling all morning transcribing STAT reports that are OUT of turn-around.  Not to mention that these STAT reports are dictated by the worst ESL I've ever done.  Meanwhile, everytime I go in to grab a new dictation, I can't help but notice a certain CHERRY PICKER grabbing up every current report dictated by the best.

So if there are any cherry pickers out there bold enough to answer my question, could you please just tell me why???  What gives you the right?  Do you not even realize what you are doing to the rest of us?  Why not just join in and divide the misery for a while so we can all have a decent line count at the end of the day?  GRRR.

Thanks for letting me vent...

I really think you should spell out what is happening to your supervisor.  It's really easy to offer up the advice to let Karma take care of things and what goes around comes around and so forth and to keep your mouth shut, but the truth of the matter is, unless you speak up, it will continue.  It may continue even if you do speak up, but at least there is a chance that it will be stopped. You are being cheated out of a lot of money!

Last year I discovered that a teammate of mine had been assigning herself docs.  I was new on the account and just trusted that everyone was being honorable and taking first in/first out.  When I discovered the extent of her cheating and I did the math (multiple 5-page reports each and every week), I saw that in the less than 6 months since I had been on the account, she had cost me literally thousands of dollars, not to mention fatigue and burnout.  (That was assuming, of course, that if we were both working first in/first out we would naturally be splitting the standards and easier work.)  The only reason I discovered it was that when she went on vacation, I got these awesome reports that nearly typed themselves.  I hadn't had them before because she assigned them by author before anybody else could get them - sometimes over 24 hours ahead of what we were working on.  She has since quit, and I believe the reason is probably that she could no longer work on whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, making hundreds of dollars each week in only a couple of hours.  

Our supervisor was just simply a trusting person and never thought to check out the reason for her sky-high line counts.  It was NOT okay to do the work out of order, and she instantly made her stop.  I would guess that the same is true on your account, and, indeed, on most accounts, that the oldest work is to be done first.  I would encourage you to ask that you all be held to the same standard so that you can work as a true team. 

How do you all deal with cherry pickers on pool accounts where there are several MTs working on the same account?  What I mean is, some MTs take the best work, even when it's not the next work to be taken, leaving the worst dictators for the ethical MTs.  Any suggestions?  (Talking to the MTSO doesn't seem to help, even though they have rules against this.) 

Could someone actually tell me how an at-home worker gets information regarding cherry picking trainees from India and managers getting complaints from hospitals.  I just transcribe for MQ and don't know how one would cherry pick on this platform DQS.  No manager has ever called me to tell me the hospital is complaining about cherry pickers.  No manager has ever sent a memo telling me that the office was being closed because of cherry pickers.  I just transcribe what comes across my screen with no correspondence from managers other than account updates either slow work or bonus times.  I have no idea who else is working on the account, Indian or otherwise. 

How would one go about obtaining all of the information to establish cherry picking or not cherry picking and the nationality of the cherry picker?

Thanks in advance for any answers you can give.  Perhaps I am living in an isolated world and maybe my account is cherry picked and don't know to complain.

Cherry picking sure hurts the hospitals because they are waiting on these reports and if the cherry picker skips over, then if no one else is on-line, its gonna take a while to do those reports..so it hurts the hospital and the trans service..and the patient, which is supposedly what we are all about..LEGAL ACCURATE MEDICAL RECORDS..I cant believe that a cherry picker would even post here..I would be too ashamed to admit that I shaft my coworkers, the hospital and trans service I work for..

Sometimes it's like the game of Monopoly - I'll trade you St Charles Place for Marvin Gardens. You take a couple of choice dictatators in exchange for doing a couple that other people have trouble doing.

Another example is giving a "good show." By that I mean ... there are 20 reports on the system - Two of them are 10 minutes each and the rest are 2 minutes each. You've got two hours to get the work done, so, you do all the small reports. Changes are it'll be the same amount of lines either way, but it's psychological for the client. They think they're getting more work back.

I remember years ago when I worked in a hospital. There was one doctor who sent me screaming from the room (he sounded like a deranged chipmunk). They hired a new gal who had no trouble doing him (she also had a lot more experience than me). She knew I hated him and said, "I'll go him if you let me down so-and-so." You betcha!! We were happy as clams. I got rid of the worst one, and she got to do her favorite one.

The truth of the matter is, I would speak with those in charge and explain the situation. Tell them how you feel (very frustrated). See what they can do/say. If they won't ... personally ... I update my resume and look elsewhere.

Then again, maybe I just have a lower tolerance level than others. 

Is black cherry juice good for arthritis?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

on one of your accounts, but that was to make up for the lines I lost doing a doctor on another one of your accounts that you didn't want to do because you said you couldn't understand a word he was saying. Well, duh, neither could I the first time I did him. Took me three hours to make 300 lines, thanks to you. Now we're even.

if you get an ESL that you cannot understand, type them anyway the best you can.  If you have to leave blanks, then leave them.  You will get used to the doctor eventually.  (Sometimes I think it will never happen with some!)  Also, if you send the same doctor in enough with blanks, they will usually send you samples or maybe the doctor might start actually speaking BETTER if enough MTs are having issues and send him in to QA often enough.  The cherry pickers are hurting themselves in the long run.  If the same MTs keep getting them and doing well because they are used to them, then they will not get sent to QA. 

Take as many different worktypes as  you can and as many different doctors as you can, it will benefit you in the long run, make  you more flexible.