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.