Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help M*Modal Nuance New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Games Faith Board Prayer Requests Health Issues

ADVERTISEMENT



Main Board

I don't understand why we work so hard to keep this industry going. - Alice

Posted: Nov 18th, 2015 - 12:29 pm

This message is not for those who are super happy with their MT jobs.  I congratulate you and wish I were you.  Unfortunately, that has not been my experience.

I've been trying to understand why we (including me) keep working in this industry if we are unhappy with it.  During my MT career, whenever one MT job fails, I tend to search for another one just like it.  I realize that it is ridiculous to keep repeating the same scenario over and over again and expecting a new and better result.  It never happens.  I've been searching for the perfect at-home MT job for over 10 years and I haven't found it yet.  I came close a few times.  But it seems, just when I became satisfied and "comfortable" with those jobs, something would happen to turn it upside down.  This usually included some upset in the account assignment.  Like in the case of Focus Infomatics (now Nuance), the account would be fine one day and disappear the next.  Turned out "they" knew the account was either going to India or going elsewhere, but they gave us no notice.  After this happened to me 7 times, I quit.  On to the next company and I tried them out part-time before I went full-time.  Once full-time, they started jerking me around from one account to another, all the while expecting speed and accuracy to never falter.  Well, being human, it is difficult to work with a new group of difficult speakers in a speedy way while maintaining 99% accuracy, so my speed went down, my pay went down and I was making minimum wage.  So, I quit that job.  

For some reason that I can't explain, I went in search of yet another MTSO job.  Why didn't I learn my lesson at that point?  I suppose it has something to do with fear of the unknown, fear of doing something new, a certain sense of confidence with remaining in the same industry in which I have experience and knowledge.

In hindsight, I wish that I had started training for some other at-home "job" or "business" 10 years ago while using the MT jobs as a means to an end rather than an end themselves.  There are many ways these days to earn a good living (better than MT) online.  There are free and low-cost courses available to teach the skills needed for such things as online ecommerce (during which we can take advantage of the global economy rather than be a victim of it), affiliate marketing, virtual assisting, retail arbitrage, telephone customer service, writing, blogging and others. 

If you are an MT, you likely have your own computer, and you are an intelligent person and can do so much more, gain control of your life, earn more doing something other online than MT work.  

I am also talking to myself here.  I will continue working my full-time MT job only as long as it takes to get something else going.  Then, I may continue working as an MT part-time, but it will not be my main source of income.  I may not be super successful at finding other ways to make a living online that work for me, but I must try.  If I fail, then I fail, but if I don't try, then I have certainly failed.

One thing I look forward to is determining my own schedule on a day to day basis.  I may work 12 hours a day, but I will have the freedom to decide which 12 hours, and I will be spending that time doing something that I enjoy, not pulling my hair out with frustration over some substandard dictation of which I'm supposed to make sense.  Last summer, on a Saturday in July, I missed my annual family reunion which is only 75 miles away.  I worked for a company that couldn't possibly approve me being off for one Saturday in July, even if I requested it 2 months in advance.  I didn't feel comfortable just calling out on them, but now I kind of wish I had.  One of my dear aunts who lives 2000 miles away and would come to town yearly for that family reunion died suddenly in August and she will never be at another family reunion. 

It is time to get out of the rut.  Work for yourself.  Spend your time and energy fulfililng your own dreams, not those of someone else.  Truly, MT work is not the only at-home job out there.  So why do we keep struggling with it?  I still don't know.



ADVERTISEMENT


Reply By Email Options


Complete Discussion Below: ( marks the location of current message within thread)