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.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Doesn't anyone speak English anymore?
All right. Pet peeve of mine. America has been called a melting pot, well, I just people would assimilate and melt already, for pete's sake. Yeah, this is going to irritate people when I say this, but I am sick and tired of people who cannot speak English or whose English is so heavily fractured and accented that you can't understand them. I'm not talking recent immigrants. I'll always cut them a degree of slack, but come on people, if you're going to live here, learn to speak the language. If I decided to move to a foreign country, I'd try to learn the language BEFORE I got there and then work really hard to become fluent.
So what does this have to do with transcription? People from all walks of life get into accidents and they get interviewed. If they speak English at all, many times the accent is so thick that they might as well not be speaking in English. I'm supposed to figure out what they're saying? If they really aren't comfortable in English, then by all means, they should have an interpreter. It would be nice, though, if the interpreter didn't have a HEAVY foreign accent and broken English that you couldn't understand either!! Interpreting services, please hire interpreters who speak both languages fluently and clearly. Is that too much to ask?
To those who say, oh, poor immigrant, it's SO hard for you to learn the language, we'll just coddle you and never make you learn English, I say GIVE IT UP! I see people who've lived in the US 20, 30 years and they still don't speak English. What's wrong with you? My son, who is currently in Brazil and has been there only since December, now speaks fluent Portuguese. He never spoke a word of it before November. NOT ONE WORD. When he speaks English, he now speaks with a Brazilian accent. Is he a genius? I love him to pieces, but no, he's not a genius. However, he has the desire to speak Portuguese and it comes down to total immersion. No one is coddling him, no one is making excuses for him. If he wants to communicate, it's up to him.
Back to transcription, hey, adjuster, guess what? If you can't understand what the person you're interviewing is saying, don't assume I'll be able to figure it out any better than you. I speak English, German, some Spanish and some words in Korean, but I don't get paid to interpret.
So what does this have to do with transcription? People from all walks of life get into accidents and they get interviewed. If they speak English at all, many times the accent is so thick that they might as well not be speaking in English. I'm supposed to figure out what they're saying? If they really aren't comfortable in English, then by all means, they should have an interpreter. It would be nice, though, if the interpreter didn't have a HEAVY foreign accent and broken English that you couldn't understand either!! Interpreting services, please hire interpreters who speak both languages fluently and clearly. Is that too much to ask?
To those who say, oh, poor immigrant, it's SO hard for you to learn the language, we'll just coddle you and never make you learn English, I say GIVE IT UP! I see people who've lived in the US 20, 30 years and they still don't speak English. What's wrong with you? My son, who is currently in Brazil and has been there only since December, now speaks fluent Portuguese. He never spoke a word of it before November. NOT ONE WORD. When he speaks English, he now speaks with a Brazilian accent. Is he a genius? I love him to pieces, but no, he's not a genius. However, he has the desire to speak Portuguese and it comes down to total immersion. No one is coddling him, no one is making excuses for him. If he wants to communicate, it's up to him.
Back to transcription, hey, adjuster, guess what? If you can't understand what the person you're interviewing is saying, don't assume I'll be able to figure it out any better than you. I speak English, German, some Spanish and some words in Korean, but I don't get paid to interpret.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Will they never learn?
Okay. I could probably right a book about this after all the years in the business, but doggone it, when are these insurance companies going to learn to invest in decent equipment to do their recordings? First, it was poor-quality, low-end tape recorders. Now it's crappy digital recorders or recording software. Take your pick. The end result is that the quality of the recording is, to put it mildly, abysmal in many cases.
I seriously believe, though, that they are either oblivious to it or assume we have fancy equipment for voice recognition and cleaning up of the audio signal such as the FBI does (ever watch the TV show, "Numbers"?). At what they pay for their transcriptions, they aren't going to get that, not now, not ever. What we have are highly-trained ears, but even then, we as human beings are limited by our very nature.
Years ago, I came across this article on the Web that addresses many of the transcriptionist's concerns, http://www.ethics.ubc.ca/papers/tips.html. I wish it was required reading for anyone who dictates, whether it be electronic or tape, with the desire to have a transcript made at a future time.
The company I work for has software that it recommends to the companies, but some of the companies are obstinate and insist on using something different, usually to the detriment of recording quality. While MP3 files may be good for music, by and large when it comes to recording over the phone, it's a bad format. For some reason, it always sounds distorted as if the recording was done under water. My guess is because it's a compressed format. Believe it or not, the simple WAV file almost always comes out on top in clarity, even if it does make for a larger file size.
It all goes back to the old acronym back when I first started dinking with computers 30-plus years ago, GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. I'm suspecting the adjusters who send us these files that aren't clear are expecting us to do magic and use the powers of extreme discernment to clear up the parts that they themselves cannot understand when listening to the recording.
Hah. If you see a lot of [inaudible] throughout the transcript, it's not my fault, it's YOUR fault. Get a CLUE!!
I seriously believe, though, that they are either oblivious to it or assume we have fancy equipment for voice recognition and cleaning up of the audio signal such as the FBI does (ever watch the TV show, "Numbers"?). At what they pay for their transcriptions, they aren't going to get that, not now, not ever. What we have are highly-trained ears, but even then, we as human beings are limited by our very nature.
Years ago, I came across this article on the Web that addresses many of the transcriptionist's concerns, http://www.ethics.ubc.ca/papers/tips.html. I wish it was required reading for anyone who dictates, whether it be electronic or tape, with the desire to have a transcript made at a future time.
The company I work for has software that it recommends to the companies, but some of the companies are obstinate and insist on using something different, usually to the detriment of recording quality. While MP3 files may be good for music, by and large when it comes to recording over the phone, it's a bad format. For some reason, it always sounds distorted as if the recording was done under water. My guess is because it's a compressed format. Believe it or not, the simple WAV file almost always comes out on top in clarity, even if it does make for a larger file size.
It all goes back to the old acronym back when I first started dinking with computers 30-plus years ago, GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. I'm suspecting the adjusters who send us these files that aren't clear are expecting us to do magic and use the powers of extreme discernment to clear up the parts that they themselves cannot understand when listening to the recording.
Hah. If you see a lot of [inaudible] throughout the transcript, it's not my fault, it's YOUR fault. Get a CLUE!!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Adventures of a Traveling Transcriptionist
"Adventures in Tech Hell."
And by that, I mean that my side is the hell side, so don't feel sorry for the script monkeys in tech support. I wrote this back on March 25th, 2009, when I was on a business trip with my husband (his business trip, I was just along for the ride).
Here's my fun story for the week. As of tonight, I'm sitting in a hotel room in the Washington DC area, so server dude, if you look at my IP, it's not my normal one. I've been in this hotel since the 20th. While my husband has been attending his business conference during the days at the convention center across the street, I've been doing my job from my mobile setup in the hotel using the "free" high-speed access from LodgeNet, the service the hotel chain uses. Part of my job involves downloading and uploading files to a secure server at work. I have to do this a minimum of twice a day.
Day 1, I try to download my workload to see what I'll be working on Monday morning. What? Cannot access the ftp server. Try to do it through IE, Rumba and Firefox. None work. Get suspicious, but okay, my husband can log onto his work and going out from the firewall at his work, he can access my files and download them to a flash drive to move between his laptop and mine. So we're good there. But I still decide to call tech support on Monday and see what's going on.
Day 2 and Day 3 are spent between downtown DC and visiting the National Zoo (those pandas are pretty darn cute!).
Day 4, Monday. I try accessing ftp again. No luck. Call tech support. Get a woman who's either in India or from India as that's what her accent is. Who knows these days with outsourcing? Anyway, I explain what's going on and of course, the first thing out of her mouth is "can you browse okay?" Duh. Yes, I can browse, I can go all over the web. What I cannot do is ftp. I think she really did not know what ftp means so she had to bump me up a level in support.
Next level, we go through the same thing. You can tell they're looking at their script on their monitor and following all the steps, but they aren't getting what I'm saying. I tell the guy point blank that my guess is that your sysadmin is blocking port 21 and won't let me through the stupid firewall to do ftp. After all, we can't have people doing that as they might :::gasp::: download illegal files like porn or torrents (and I didn't say torrents 'cause I figured they wouldn't get that either) or mp3 files. You know, that peer-to-peer thing. Okay. I get that. But I'm logging into a secure server at work which I need to do for work.
I get bumped up another level. Finally I get a tech support person who gets what I'm saying. We go through all the stupid steps of checking my network connection, which is NOT the problem, but it makes them feel good and their little script says they must do that. He does something that fixes it, but he doesn't tell me what (obviously he opened the port so I could get through). Didn't tell me it was temporary and that if I closed my browser and shut down my computer, I wouldn't be able to get back in and I'd have to do it all over again.
I got my first set of files uploaded and thought it's good now.
Day 5, Tuesday. Go to download my files to work on for today, Wednesday. No ftp access. Have to get my husband to download for me again.
Day 6, Wednesday, today. I finish my files early and want to ftp them, but I have no access. I decide around lunchtime to harass tech support again. I call, go through the first level and they say they'll have someone call me back. I wait an hour and a half and no one calls. Well, I'm on my way out to go do a little sightseeing and won't be back until after dinner. I get back to the room and there's no messages on the phone. I call tech support AGAIN, go through the first level to the next level. Am getting impatient with this nonsense. I tell the guy that I have done everything they are going to ask me to do so don't even bother asking me again. Just open the stupid port and let me do my file transfer. But they still make me do it. Finally, the guy admits that the firewall is blocking ftp, which is what I said the first time I called and was assured that, oh, no, we don't block any ports. Like heck they don't.
So it's unblocked and he said it will stay that way for three days (I didn't tell him I'm checking out tomorrow and flying home).
Oh, yeah, and then I've been having problems with my outgoing emails, maybe some of my incoming ones, too. I think at first it must be Outlook, but I switch to using webmail and I'm still having problems. None of my test emails seem to be getting out. Finally, they start coming in. I examine the headers and find out that it's taking anywhere from 11 to 48 hours for my mail to make a circle and come back to me. I tell tech support this and they want to blame the ISP I have email with. I said, no, it's not their fault. I can read headers and I can tell you exactly where the mail is getting stuck and it's within THEIR system. It's ridiculous for mail to get stuck like that.
Don't you just hate it when you know more than the tech people and you have no degree in it, no formal training, just 20-plus years of computing experience?
The upshot in the future is that I will have to use a broadband card with my laptop when I am ftp'ing files because it is now confirmed that LodgeNet does indeed block that capability with their firewall and I am done talking to their idiot tech support.
And by that, I mean that my side is the hell side, so don't feel sorry for the script monkeys in tech support. I wrote this back on March 25th, 2009, when I was on a business trip with my husband (his business trip, I was just along for the ride).
Here's my fun story for the week. As of tonight, I'm sitting in a hotel room in the Washington DC area, so server dude, if you look at my IP, it's not my normal one. I've been in this hotel since the 20th. While my husband has been attending his business conference during the days at the convention center across the street, I've been doing my job from my mobile setup in the hotel using the "free" high-speed access from LodgeNet, the service the hotel chain uses. Part of my job involves downloading and uploading files to a secure server at work. I have to do this a minimum of twice a day.
Day 1, I try to download my workload to see what I'll be working on Monday morning. What? Cannot access the ftp server. Try to do it through IE, Rumba and Firefox. None work. Get suspicious, but okay, my husband can log onto his work and going out from the firewall at his work, he can access my files and download them to a flash drive to move between his laptop and mine. So we're good there. But I still decide to call tech support on Monday and see what's going on.
Day 2 and Day 3 are spent between downtown DC and visiting the National Zoo (those pandas are pretty darn cute!).
Day 4, Monday. I try accessing ftp again. No luck. Call tech support. Get a woman who's either in India or from India as that's what her accent is. Who knows these days with outsourcing? Anyway, I explain what's going on and of course, the first thing out of her mouth is "can you browse okay?" Duh. Yes, I can browse, I can go all over the web. What I cannot do is ftp. I think she really did not know what ftp means so she had to bump me up a level in support.
Next level, we go through the same thing. You can tell they're looking at their script on their monitor and following all the steps, but they aren't getting what I'm saying. I tell the guy point blank that my guess is that your sysadmin is blocking port 21 and won't let me through the stupid firewall to do ftp. After all, we can't have people doing that as they might :::gasp::: download illegal files like porn or torrents (and I didn't say torrents 'cause I figured they wouldn't get that either) or mp3 files. You know, that peer-to-peer thing. Okay. I get that. But I'm logging into a secure server at work which I need to do for work.
I get bumped up another level. Finally I get a tech support person who gets what I'm saying. We go through all the stupid steps of checking my network connection, which is NOT the problem, but it makes them feel good and their little script says they must do that. He does something that fixes it, but he doesn't tell me what (obviously he opened the port so I could get through). Didn't tell me it was temporary and that if I closed my browser and shut down my computer, I wouldn't be able to get back in and I'd have to do it all over again.
I got my first set of files uploaded and thought it's good now.
Day 5, Tuesday. Go to download my files to work on for today, Wednesday. No ftp access. Have to get my husband to download for me again.
Day 6, Wednesday, today. I finish my files early and want to ftp them, but I have no access. I decide around lunchtime to harass tech support again. I call, go through the first level and they say they'll have someone call me back. I wait an hour and a half and no one calls. Well, I'm on my way out to go do a little sightseeing and won't be back until after dinner. I get back to the room and there's no messages on the phone. I call tech support AGAIN, go through the first level to the next level. Am getting impatient with this nonsense. I tell the guy that I have done everything they are going to ask me to do so don't even bother asking me again. Just open the stupid port and let me do my file transfer. But they still make me do it. Finally, the guy admits that the firewall is blocking ftp, which is what I said the first time I called and was assured that, oh, no, we don't block any ports. Like heck they don't.
So it's unblocked and he said it will stay that way for three days (I didn't tell him I'm checking out tomorrow and flying home).
Oh, yeah, and then I've been having problems with my outgoing emails, maybe some of my incoming ones, too. I think at first it must be Outlook, but I switch to using webmail and I'm still having problems. None of my test emails seem to be getting out. Finally, they start coming in. I examine the headers and find out that it's taking anywhere from 11 to 48 hours for my mail to make a circle and come back to me. I tell tech support this and they want to blame the ISP I have email with. I said, no, it's not their fault. I can read headers and I can tell you exactly where the mail is getting stuck and it's within THEIR system. It's ridiculous for mail to get stuck like that.
Don't you just hate it when you know more than the tech people and you have no degree in it, no formal training, just 20-plus years of computing experience?
The upshot in the future is that I will have to use a broadband card with my laptop when I am ftp'ing files because it is now confirmed that LodgeNet does indeed block that capability with their firewall and I am done talking to their idiot tech support.
I Love My Job, I Hate My Job
I’m a transcriptionist. Usually when people hear the term “transcription” they think of medical transcription. While I’m trained and qualified to do medical transcription, it’s not what I do. I work for a company that handles recorded statement transcription for insurance companies. If you’ve ever been in an accident and filed a claim on your auto insurance or someone else’s, or got hurt at work and filed for Workers’ Compensation or had a claim under homeowners insurance, you’ve probably done a recorded statement with the adjuster handling the claim. They ask you questions and you give them answers about what happened in the incident. We take the recordings and transcribe them into MS Word documents, which are then emailed to the clients. Originally, I believe they were printed out as hard copies and given to the clients that way, but more and more we are increasingly digital.
When I started this career in 1997, all of our work was given to us on either standard-size cassette or micro-size cassette tapes. Companies still do send tapes, but as technology has advanced, more of the clients are making the switch to using digital recorders and dealing strictly with audio files. I have not had to transcribe an actual tape in probably two years, which is nice as I no longer have to make the daily trek to the drop box rented by the company (they have them in strategic locations in the metro area so depending upon where you live, your tape work will be delivered to the drop box closest to you).
But back to the digital files since I don’t deal in tapes these days (seniority, rank, whatever you want to call it). The bulk of the work is on an ftp server. I download my audio files, transcribe them in Word, then uploaded the complete documents to the ftp server. We also have clients who want even greater security, as in they don’t want their files to be downloaded to your personal computer. With those, we log into our own remote desktops on a secure server and type the transcripts directly into a copy of Word that resides there and then move them to the appropriate folder on the server once the work is done.
How does transcription work? Well, if you’re transcribing a cassette tape, you have a foot pedal that’s connected to a Dictaphone. You can control the speed, fast forward and reverse on the tape using the foot pedal. Same principal when transcribing digital files, only you eliminate the need for a Dictaphone. We have software that works with the foot pedal using the PC. A different program is used when logging into the remote server, but it works the same way. The only difference is that when you’re typing keystrokes on your keyboard, they’re going across your internet connection and appearing on the copy of Word you have open on the server. Sounds simple, except that unless you have a super-fast broadband connection, you’re going to be frustrated at the time it takes for the characters to show up on your screen. You’re typing 75 words a minutes and there’s a delay and it will slow your typing down considerably.
You don’t want that because as any typist/transcription knows, time IS money and the faster you type, the more money you can make in a day. So I’m giving a shout out to Comcast Business Class for delivering the speed I need to make my job go smoothly. And a big thumbs down to Qwest, which I used to have, and its poor excuse for “high-speed ” internet in my area. They can advertise their fiber-optic service on all the billboards around town and on TV, but since it’s only available in a tiny amount of neighborhoods and none are anywhere near me, they lost my business several months ago.
Perks for my job? I am 100% virtual. I haven’t been into the office in almost 12 years. All communication is either via phone or email. I don’t have to buy clothes to work in, heck, I can work in my jammies if I want or if I was really weird, I could wear nothing at all (that thought should make you shudder). I can take breaks when I want to. I don’t have to go out for lunch or pack a lunch. Kitchen is just a few yards down the hall. Same with the bathroom. I have an exercise bike on the other side of my desk and I can take a virtual ride if I need to stretch. Because I’m what the IRS calls a statutory employee (you can look that up at www.irs.gov) I am allowed to claim business expenses. In the days when I had to drive to pick up work every day, I had mileage that I could claim. I don’t do that anymore, but I still claim the costs of items that I deem necessary for my job. Internet access, email account, computers, etc, equipment rental, whatever it takes.
Downside to my job? As anyone who works out of their home knows, you have to make clear lines between when you’re working and when you aren’t. You have to let your family, friends and acquaintances know that just because you’re at home, it does not mean you’re available at their beck and call. You cannot just work around everyone else. If you take time out during your work schedule to do that, you end up having to make the time up at another point in the day and for me, that can mean some long nights at the end of an already tiring day. Deadlines are deadlines and you have to meet them consistently or you won’t last at the job. Many a dewy-eyed new mommy with visions of being able to do this work around the needs of her baby or other young children has had a rude awakening. Something or someone is going to suffer. I started doing this when my youngest was seven years old and the oldest was seventeen. It was a challenge to work around the five kids at times because there were times when I had to drive them here and there or had to take time out for doctor appointments. But those are the sort of things you have to do if you have children, whether you work at a job that takes you out of the home all day or your job is at home. You learn to adjust, your family learns to adjust.
Why am I writing this? It’s because another one of the downsides to the job can be a sense of isolation. I know there’s a lot of other people who work for the company I work for doing the home transcription, but we never connect with each other. You can feel like you’re all alone. So I’m reaching out to others in the field.
Plus, there are days when you think the content of your transcriptions just can't get any weirder if it was fiction and not real life.
When I started this career in 1997, all of our work was given to us on either standard-size cassette or micro-size cassette tapes. Companies still do send tapes, but as technology has advanced, more of the clients are making the switch to using digital recorders and dealing strictly with audio files. I have not had to transcribe an actual tape in probably two years, which is nice as I no longer have to make the daily trek to the drop box rented by the company (they have them in strategic locations in the metro area so depending upon where you live, your tape work will be delivered to the drop box closest to you).
But back to the digital files since I don’t deal in tapes these days (seniority, rank, whatever you want to call it). The bulk of the work is on an ftp server. I download my audio files, transcribe them in Word, then uploaded the complete documents to the ftp server. We also have clients who want even greater security, as in they don’t want their files to be downloaded to your personal computer. With those, we log into our own remote desktops on a secure server and type the transcripts directly into a copy of Word that resides there and then move them to the appropriate folder on the server once the work is done.
How does transcription work? Well, if you’re transcribing a cassette tape, you have a foot pedal that’s connected to a Dictaphone. You can control the speed, fast forward and reverse on the tape using the foot pedal. Same principal when transcribing digital files, only you eliminate the need for a Dictaphone. We have software that works with the foot pedal using the PC. A different program is used when logging into the remote server, but it works the same way. The only difference is that when you’re typing keystrokes on your keyboard, they’re going across your internet connection and appearing on the copy of Word you have open on the server. Sounds simple, except that unless you have a super-fast broadband connection, you’re going to be frustrated at the time it takes for the characters to show up on your screen. You’re typing 75 words a minutes and there’s a delay and it will slow your typing down considerably.
You don’t want that because as any typist/transcription knows, time IS money and the faster you type, the more money you can make in a day. So I’m giving a shout out to Comcast Business Class for delivering the speed I need to make my job go smoothly. And a big thumbs down to Qwest, which I used to have, and its poor excuse for “high-speed ” internet in my area. They can advertise their fiber-optic service on all the billboards around town and on TV, but since it’s only available in a tiny amount of neighborhoods and none are anywhere near me, they lost my business several months ago.
Perks for my job? I am 100% virtual. I haven’t been into the office in almost 12 years. All communication is either via phone or email. I don’t have to buy clothes to work in, heck, I can work in my jammies if I want or if I was really weird, I could wear nothing at all (that thought should make you shudder). I can take breaks when I want to. I don’t have to go out for lunch or pack a lunch. Kitchen is just a few yards down the hall. Same with the bathroom. I have an exercise bike on the other side of my desk and I can take a virtual ride if I need to stretch. Because I’m what the IRS calls a statutory employee (you can look that up at www.irs.gov) I am allowed to claim business expenses. In the days when I had to drive to pick up work every day, I had mileage that I could claim. I don’t do that anymore, but I still claim the costs of items that I deem necessary for my job. Internet access, email account, computers, etc, equipment rental, whatever it takes.
Downside to my job? As anyone who works out of their home knows, you have to make clear lines between when you’re working and when you aren’t. You have to let your family, friends and acquaintances know that just because you’re at home, it does not mean you’re available at their beck and call. You cannot just work around everyone else. If you take time out during your work schedule to do that, you end up having to make the time up at another point in the day and for me, that can mean some long nights at the end of an already tiring day. Deadlines are deadlines and you have to meet them consistently or you won’t last at the job. Many a dewy-eyed new mommy with visions of being able to do this work around the needs of her baby or other young children has had a rude awakening. Something or someone is going to suffer. I started doing this when my youngest was seven years old and the oldest was seventeen. It was a challenge to work around the five kids at times because there were times when I had to drive them here and there or had to take time out for doctor appointments. But those are the sort of things you have to do if you have children, whether you work at a job that takes you out of the home all day or your job is at home. You learn to adjust, your family learns to adjust.
Why am I writing this? It’s because another one of the downsides to the job can be a sense of isolation. I know there’s a lot of other people who work for the company I work for doing the home transcription, but we never connect with each other. You can feel like you’re all alone. So I’m reaching out to others in the field.
Plus, there are days when you think the content of your transcriptions just can't get any weirder if it was fiction and not real life.
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