not everyone thinks nationals are awful.

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If you think about how much money they spend on computers and equipment, shipment, they need to make sure they are not just hiring any joe who does not know what they are doing and can walk away with a free computer. That explains the testing that goes on to get hired on with these companies.

Not only that, being so remote, having so many MTs, they have no time to check references, or to know whether or not you are seasoned or how much experience you might have. You could lie your way all the way into becoming an MT, they lose clients because of the lousy work from inexperienced MTs, lose money because of the thieves who just want a free pc.

We seasoned MTs get lost in the blizzard of this. They are just looking out for themselves, for good reason if you look at it from their perspective.

tragedy. I read on a website 2 seperate stories of how the Amish are dealing with this. Yes, they are sad, but they believe that they will (and I do too) see their children again and that they are in a much better place. They have reached out to the gunman's family, visiting the killer's wife and children and offering them forgiveness. I also read that they want to "help" the gunman's family monetarily through a Mennonite fund if they need help! The article contrasted the Amish to other school tragedies where lawsuits were filed and death threats were made against the family members of the ones who committed the murders!

They are such graceful, loving people. Different, yet. Weird? In a way. But you have to admit that without electricity or vehicles to get them around, they obviously live a faith that most of us could only wish we had inside of us. I am a Christian. If a madman entered my children's school and killed them, could I offer forgiveness to their family? I doubt it. Could I weep in peace and silence knowing that I would someday see my children again? Maybe. But I would be a wretched mess and everyone around me would KNOW my suffering.

I am learning a great deal about the Amish through this. I used to live near PA where seeing the Amish was a regular occurrence. I thought they were so crazy and weird.....But, it was my own ignorance that made those judgments. They are wonderful, Godly people. I admire them more and more as I continue to read how they are dealing with this awful event!

Job post stating they are looking for really good QAs and would be willing to hire newbies for this position............

Frankly, I don't think I would care for a newbie, who basically is still learning themselves, to be put in charge of QA of my work, especially if THEY have it all wrong, due to lack of experience, and that counts against me!

I work in the office. We are being taken over by a larger hospital. The larger facility is putting their people in the management positions, which is fine. At our smaller hospital, we have not had the opportunity to work from home, but with the merger, the plan is to send us all home to work by the end of the year and I think that is fabulous! What concerns me is this, they watch their at-home people like hawks. They actually print out a daily report on each Transcriptionist (40+) that lists every single job they did that day and how long they spent in each report typing. So, say you have a 5 minute H&P and you took 30 minutes to type it, they basically call you up and want to know why it took you so long to type this report. Their reasoning is they pay us hourly and they don't want to pay us for sitting at home watching television. I completely understand that, but I am a very productive MT and really don't like the idea of having to account for every minute of my day if I am producing at least the minimum. Having said that, they also offer a very nice incentive plan where we get a per line rate for anything above the minimum. So why the need to micromanage like they do?

In my opinion, if your people are producing at least the minimum and if you have a very competitive incentive plan in place, then why not just check productivity on everyone at the end of each pay period and counsel anyone not producing at least the minimum and if necessary, take disciplinary action and just leave it at that? Why check every single report to make sure we aren't taking too long on one report and risk upsetting your productive MTs who maybe got distracted by a phone call or something on that one report, but still produced what they were supposed to produce when the day was done?

I've been looking around at other jobs just to see what is out there and have lined up some very promising prosects, but none that offer an incentive plan comparable to the one at my current job. I just wonder is the incentive money worth the added stress of having someone virtually looking over my shoulder all day long? They are definitely sending the message that we are going to be asked to justify every bathroom break, every sinle distraction throughout our day, no matter if we get the job done or we don't.

it would help clear up DS's skin if he sat in the sun some every day, or even used a tanning bed as someone below said, although I'd be worried for him to do that because he has light skin, light blue eyes and blond hair - it was so light it was that white-blond when he was a baby/toddler. So obviously he has very fair skin and features so I worry about the risk of skin cancer.

But your link sounds like something different and I will check that out. Thanks for taking the time to research for me!

I never understood how Bucky even got in the top 12! What drove me nuts the most was was his inability to speak clearly! I really laughed when Ryan said "I have no idea what you just said" and when Kenny Rogers said he needed to enunciate or the song wasn't going to make any sense.

Bucky just really had a skeevy look to me...like I wouldn't leave a child alone with him.

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
BEFORE THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 11, 2005

Henry Lamb- A Great Freedom Fighter Documents how your Dietary Supplements are Under Attack

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to read "Your dietary supplements: Under attack again" by Henry Lamb, which I am inserting into the record. Mr. Lamb explains the threat to American consumers of dietary supplements and American sovereignty by the Codex Alimentarius commission, commonly referred to simply as Codex. The United Nations created Codex to establish international standards for foods and medicines. Just last week, representatives of the United States government agreed to a final version of Codex's standards on dietary supplements which, if implemented in the United States, could drastically reduce Americans' ability to obtain the supplements of their choice. Members of the American bureaucracy may be hoping to achieve via international fiat what they cannot achieve through the domestic law-making process--the power to restrict consumers' access to dietary supplements. American bureaucrats may gain this power if the World Trade Organization, which considers Codex "guidelines" the standard by which all other regulations are judged, decides that our failure to "harmonize" our regulations of dietary supplements to meet Codex's recommendations violates international trading standards! This could occur despite the fact that American consumers do not want to be subjected to the restrictive regulations common in other parts of the world, such as the European Union.

This article is typical of Henry Lamb's work. For almost twenty years, beginning at an age when most Americans are contemplating retirement, Mr. Lamb has worked to expose and stop threats to American liberty, sovereignty, and prosperity. Mr. Lamb became involved in the battle for liberty when, as the CEO of a Tennessee construction company, he founded a state association of contractors to work against excessive regulations. In 1988, Henry Lamb founded the Environmental Conservation Organization to defend true environmentalism, which is rooted in the truth that there is no better steward of the environment than a private property owner, from those who used the environment as a cover for their radical statist agendas. Since 1992, Mr. Lamb and ECO have focused on the threat to economic liberty and self-government posed by the radical global environmental agenda.

Henry Lamb works to further the cause of liberty by giving speeches around the country, editing an on-line magazine, making numerous television and radio appearances, and writing a weekly column to inform his fellow Americans of the latest scheme to undermine their freedoms. Mr. Lamb is the model of a citizen-activist, and all who wish to become involved in the battle for freedom can learn from his example. In conclusion, I once again urge my colleagues to read Mr. Lamb's article to learn about the need to protect American consumers from Codex, and I thank Mr. Lamb for his tireless devotion to the cause of freedom.

YOUR DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS: UNDER ATTACK AGAIN (from WorldNetDaily, June 11, 2005)

(By Henry Lamb)

The Codex Alimentarius Commission sounds like one of those shadowy, sinister organizations conjured up by one-world-government nuts to scare people.

Truth: It is!

The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization created this commission in the early 1960s to set standards for food safety and to ``harmonize'' the laws of member nations. The commission was endorsed by U.N. Resolution 39/248, which says:

``When formulating national policies and plans with regard to food, governments should take into account the need of all consumers for food security and should support and, as far as possible, adopt standards from the ..... Codex Alimentarius. .....''

The Codex Alimentarius Commission consists of delegates from 163 member nations representing 97 percent of the world's population. It meets every two years, either in Rome or Geneva. Between meetings, the commission is governed by an executive committee that directs the activities of its many committees.

Of immediate concern is the ongoing effort to bring dietary supplements in America under the control of standards set by this commission. Dietary supplements generate a $17 billion industry in the United States, which affects more than 150 million consumers, according to Congressional findings (H.R. 2485). Proposed procedures and standards could virtually destroy this market and deprive millions of Americans of the supplements they want to use.

The European Union Directive on Dietary Supplements, which becomes law in August, severely restricts the types and quantities of supplements that may be legally sold. Most forms of vitamins C and E, for example, are not available, or are available only in extremely small doses. If current plans proceed on course, American consumers are in for a shock.

How can this little-known international commission control what consumers buy in the United States?

An even less-known agency, deep within the bowels of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for U.S. participation in the Codex Commission and designates delegates to each of the commission's committees. Barbara O. Schneeman is the delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses.

The effort to regulate dietary supplements has been under way for more than a decade. In 1994, Congress adopted the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which kept supplements beyond the reach of the drug police. In the past, Codex recommendations have been non-binding. Now, however, the Codex Alimentarius Commission is teaming up with the World Trade Organization to bring international enforcement to the dietary-supplement battle.

Ironically, it was primarily the U.S. that brought the WTO into existence in 1994, as the successor to GATT, the General Agreement on Tarriffs and Trade. The WTO agreement specifically requires that the member nations--including the U.S.--conform its laws to meet the requirements of WTO decisions. Failure to conform results in stiff financial penalties. The Codex Commission and the European Union want the WTO to enforce Codex standards, which fly directly in the face of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act.

Pascal Lamy of France was just selected as director general of the WTO. Lamy served as a member of the French Socialist Party's steering committee and was chief of staff and representative of the European Commission for President Jacques Delors. Since 1995, he has served as a member of the Central Office of the Mouvement Europ�en (France) and as a member of the European Commission, responsible for trade.

The Codex Commission will be meeting in Rome July 4-9 to adopt the final rules on dietary supplement use. Dr. Carolyn Dean, president of Friends of Freedom International, will attend this meeting and return to the U.S. just in time to present her report to the Sixth Annual Freedom 21 Conference in Reno, July 14-16.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission's reach is much broader than dietary supplements. Its committees are also working on standards for pesticide residue, labeling of all kinds of foods, food additives and nutrients, veterinary medicine and drugs, as well as standards and methods for analysis. The function of this organization is to establish standards for all food worldwide and to enforce those standards through the power of the World Trade Organization.

Few people know that there is such a thing as the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It was created to promote food safety in international trade. It is on the brink of becoming an Orwellian bureaucracy--far worse than the worst fantasies of the one-world conspiracy theories.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission is neither fantasy nor theory; it is real.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/c...05/cr071105.htm

Disagree, no matter whether you are an I/C with own accounts or with a national or even small MTSO, we are all at the beck of the doctors. If they are off or do not dictate, there is no work. I do not think that the majority of you realize how hard is to balance out having enough staff to do the work to keep the accounts and also keep them busy when the work does not come in, especially when the help does not think twice about someone in the family being acutely ill when they are not, taking off for children field trips on a whim, children being sick or whatever the excuse is not to work. It takes quite a juggline act to accommodate both employees and acounts themselves. That said -- flame me as I have already been burnt many times by people who do not have a work ethic or want to work when they want to and not when the work is available.

I have been in this business over 20 years. I started when we used IBM Selectrics and tapes. I have seen this business changing over the years, some good, some bad. One thing in particular is the very large national companies getting more and more of a monopoly in the transcription business. This has had an impact on the MT. I am making less per line than 15 to 20 years ago, and I seen that is widespread in this industry. I see it is getting more and more impersonal.

20 years ago many MTs were getting 7 to 7.5 CPL. I see that still happening. Adjust that for cost of living increases and inflation, and I feel wages have gone down.

Now we must compete with overseas work and if an MT wants to do VR, they must take a pay cut, at some companies of up to 50% of your line rate. I remember many years ago when they were talking about implementing VR, we were told we would not have pay cuts, just be able to type more. I knew then that they were lying, of course they would cut our wages. They will squeeze and squeeze to get the most money for themselves. Many of these CEOs make millions, but what about all the unethical business practices. Remember Enron.

I feel most of these changes are because of the a few very large nationals changing the nature of the business. Of course, they want to make as much money as possible. Everybody does, I cetainly do. But it seems to me they are doing it at the expense of the individual MT.

Did you know many transcription companies actually train the MTs in India and then give them a job. If you are in the good old USA, you pay for your own schooling and are lucky to get your foot in the door because of no experiernce.

I think if there were fewer nationals and more smaller companies, maybe the MT would benefit.

I think it is awful that you were treated this way. I know how it feels to be treated as if I am no more important than the next best piece of equipment. The thing is, they did it because they could. This is a learning experience for all of us; whenever we make any agreements for extra help, then we must have solid written contracts to indicate the limitations. I wonder if it would also be a good idea to insert a clause into an original contract with the client (or for the next client) that indicates that you require a minimum of work before they go and hire additional help on the accoun?. Give them the out of "negotiable", but they will have to discuss any changes with you before adding more MTs to the account for which you have a binding contract.