Actually, more like a couple of bad days. Yesterday, I decided to empty my paper shredder which I hate doing because no matter how careful you are, you end up with shredded paper on the floor. Sure, it would be easy if you could put the shreds into a plastic garbage bag or something LARGE enough to fit the container into while you're dumping.
But no, you can't do that. The refuse company that handles your recycling says you must put the shreds into a PAPER grocery sack. Hmm. I don't know about you, but I'm finding it harder and harder to find stores that actually offer the paper bags. Most have plastic and if you're like me, you prefer bringing the reusable totes to the store. I have about eight of these which is usually enough when I do the grocery shopping, but every now and then I need another bag, so I snag one at the only store I know that still has them available.
Anyway, I'm digressing here. My point is that I got shreds on the carpet in my office. This necessitated hauling out the vacuum and cleaning up the mess. In the process of that, I thought I had moved all dangling cords to various electronics out of the way. Alas, this was not so. The cord to my transcriptionist headset was hanging down and to make a long story short, it got caught by the rotating brushes on the bottom of the vac. SNAP! Oh, crap. That was my only good headset. My backup ones got damaged a month or so ago and so only one side of them works.
So I had to order a new set, well, actually two so I can have a backup. In the meantime, I had to borrow some ear buds from my husband. I hate them because they're like wearing ear plugs, but I had no choice. It was either that or wear the big noise-canceling headphones and those give me a headache to wear for extended periods of time.
Now today, I finished my morning workload and checked to see what I'd be working on in the afternoon. Nothing to download as all my jobs were server jobs, meaning I would need to log in and work on them. I logged in and checked the total minute count, filled out the captions in the files and decided to work later after lunch.
Wasn't to be as today was the day the ftp server and the remote desktop server decided to both freak out. They were down all afternoon and the only status report we got was that the vendor was working on it. It's now after 7:30 at night and the servers are finally working. Oh, joy. Because I am now tired and don't want to work any more. To top it off, my "blazing-fast internet" is not blazing. It's barely flickering. I am getting less than half the speed I was getting in the morning. Blame it on all the evening traffic. I suppose. Fine if you want to web surf, but not okay for transcribing.
I'm done.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Looks like it's deja vu all over again
My last entry was about losing a client and in that post I mentioned that the company has assured those of us who worked on that account that we would have plenty of work to do.
Hmm...why is it this looks an awful lot like a very, very bad time back in 2000, where the company had lost a contract and there was very little work to go around? All of sudden, I was making about 2/3 of what I usually made. That translates to a LOT when you're trying to put food on the table. It was pretty rough for a time until new clients were brought in.
I'm not supposed to be working less and less and making less. Bad, bad, bad. Of course, less work means less time sitting in my desk incurring pain (I have severe osteoarthritis in both knees) which is good, but less work is less money. So far this week since the loss of the contract, I have worked about 50% less hours and even less pages than normal. I'm getting less files per day to work on. Assignments usually go out around noon each day and I try to get half of the assignment done that afternoon and then finish the other half the next morning. Deadline isn't until 5:00 p.m. the next day. However, I'm finishing all my work in the afternoon it's assigned and having my mornings free.
There we go with the love-hate thing again. I like having the mornings free...except I won't like it when next month's paycheck arrives.
Hmm...why is it this looks an awful lot like a very, very bad time back in 2000, where the company had lost a contract and there was very little work to go around? All of sudden, I was making about 2/3 of what I usually made. That translates to a LOT when you're trying to put food on the table. It was pretty rough for a time until new clients were brought in.
I'm not supposed to be working less and less and making less. Bad, bad, bad. Of course, less work means less time sitting in my desk incurring pain (I have severe osteoarthritis in both knees) which is good, but less work is less money. So far this week since the loss of the contract, I have worked about 50% less hours and even less pages than normal. I'm getting less files per day to work on. Assignments usually go out around noon each day and I try to get half of the assignment done that afternoon and then finish the other half the next morning. Deadline isn't until 5:00 p.m. the next day. However, I'm finishing all my work in the afternoon it's assigned and having my mornings free.
There we go with the love-hate thing again. I like having the mornings free...except I won't like it when next month's paycheck arrives.
Friday, June 5, 2009
You win some, you lose some
As of yesterday, I transcribed my last file for a particular client. I remember when the client first contracted with the company to have us do their recorded statement transcription. Everyone was excited as this was a major client and we all wanted to make a good impression by returning flawless transcripts in a timely manner.
And we did that. We excelled at it. But to tell you the truth, I always had mixed feelings about the client. While they paid well, their recordings tended to always be on the long side, frequently over 20 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but the rule of thumb is that it takes about three times the length of a file to transcribe it. So a 20-minute file takes approximately an hour. It was weird, but I could never put my finger on why it would take them longer than any other client to do the same type of interview. Maybe their customers were just more long-winded. So I had a love-hate relationship with them for the years that I worked on their files.
Recently, we got told that we had lost the contract. Unfortunately, during this time when banks are being swallowed by other banks (e.g. WaMu by Chase, Countrywide by Bank of America, etc.) the same thing has been happening in the insurance world. Losing the contract was not due to our quality or timeliness. No, in fact the client was sad about the ending, too. But their company was absorbed into another insurance group and was being forced to go with the vendor that the other company uses. And so it goes in our business. Clients come and go.
We've been assured that there is plenty of work to go around from other clients, but one thing you could say about the longer files is that when you get paid per page, the more pages you do, the more you make. So even if you still have work doing another companies files, you may get the same amount of files, but the total minutes are less and the page counts are less and you make less money. It really is mixed. On the one hand, I am feeling less stressed out from overwork, but on the other hand, my paycheck may be small and that's stressful, too.
And we did that. We excelled at it. But to tell you the truth, I always had mixed feelings about the client. While they paid well, their recordings tended to always be on the long side, frequently over 20 minutes. That may not sound like a lot, but the rule of thumb is that it takes about three times the length of a file to transcribe it. So a 20-minute file takes approximately an hour. It was weird, but I could never put my finger on why it would take them longer than any other client to do the same type of interview. Maybe their customers were just more long-winded. So I had a love-hate relationship with them for the years that I worked on their files.
Recently, we got told that we had lost the contract. Unfortunately, during this time when banks are being swallowed by other banks (e.g. WaMu by Chase, Countrywide by Bank of America, etc.) the same thing has been happening in the insurance world. Losing the contract was not due to our quality or timeliness. No, in fact the client was sad about the ending, too. But their company was absorbed into another insurance group and was being forced to go with the vendor that the other company uses. And so it goes in our business. Clients come and go.
We've been assured that there is plenty of work to go around from other clients, but one thing you could say about the longer files is that when you get paid per page, the more pages you do, the more you make. So even if you still have work doing another companies files, you may get the same amount of files, but the total minutes are less and the page counts are less and you make less money. It really is mixed. On the one hand, I am feeling less stressed out from overwork, but on the other hand, my paycheck may be small and that's stressful, too.
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