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ESL & poor dictator stress - LessStress4me
Posted: Feb 01, 2013
No more microscopic QA dissection for me. My new plan is to shoot the job full of blanks and send it in - far less stressful for sure. Each and every time I hear something that I am not 100% sure of - they get a blank. This is not now nor was it ever MY personal problem. Today I'm quite tired of being penalized for someone else's inability to dictate clear enough to perfectly discern what was said. No more cleaning up sentences either. QA: Verbatim you want? Verbatim you get. And don't try to give it back to me fussing about blanks - it's not my problem. It's a dictator problem and a company problem, but it has never been an MT problem. By the way QA, just so you know, I am keeping a documented written log with the job number, and the difficulties I've faced with those reports that get a blank. When and if you try to make the numerous blanks my problem and threaten my job - please know that I plan to sue you high, wide and handsome. I'm sure those voice files played to a jury in a civil suit will find that no one can reasonably be held accountable to the company standard of 100% written perfection on a dictated job that is at best 70% orally correct. What I will never understand is - why do these companies test us on English grammar, sentence structure and punctuation to hire us, and then demand we transcribe vocal garbage verbatim that has no remote similarity to proper English? Oh yeah, that's right the BOS rules, AKA Lame Man's English.
Good plan! - You go, MT!
[ In Reply To ..]Have you noticed the anger building industry-wide? Something's gotta give!
I stopped caring about two years ago. - Fed Up
[ In Reply To ..]When I made a very good wage, I diligently tried to find answers that I didn't know. I listened over and over, changed sentence structure, tried to make it perfect. NOW, I can ONLY make a good living if I am typing nonstop. I cannot AFFORD to stop and fix this mess that the doctors dictate. So, I also have just stopped the research. If it doesn't make sense then I leave a blank. The only things I look up now are things that I know I heard clearly and maybe am just not familiar with that term. I don't mind looking that up, because I feel the doctor did his job by speaking clearly, I can do mine by looking it up, but the rest, nope, not anymore!
They want to pay less, they can get less. They can hire new MTs that lack experience or just hire us "old" ones that could give a crap less with the wages they want to pay!
True that, I used to go back and fill in blanks at the - end of every report even if
[ In Reply To ..]all I had was one or two, I would go back and relisten and try to fill it in. Now if all I have is one or two blanks, I just send it through. Im not about to be taking the time to fill in one blank when thats time I can be spending editing or typing another report. To heck with that.
exactly! - anon
[ In Reply To ..]I also used to be meticulous trying to generate a blank-free, perfect report. Now, if I don't know what is being dictated after listening twice, I blank it and go on. I don't spend time correcting poor grammar and broken English anymore, either.
I still have some good docs who are very courteous and profession in their dictation style, and I do give their reports more attention. But if others are obviously careless in their dictation, I feel it is not my job to research excessively, piece together, and rewind, rewind, rewind. If I cleaned up every dictated mess like I used to, I'd probably made 2 bucks an hour.
I leave way more blanks than I used to, and if/when I'm called out on it, I'll deal with it then.
stopped caring - MeToo
[ In Reply To ..]Boy Howdy. I quit "over-editing" a long time ago too.
that is my attitude also - and Amen
[ In Reply To ..]One dictator is impossible to understand and he's not even ESL. He makes no effort to be understood, just mumbles through the BP, heart rate, temp at warp speed. I was told by QA to pull up previous reports to piece it together. Well, you can't really do that with vitals and lab info, now can you? I was spending up to 2 hours on a 15 line report. Got tired of that PDQ.
And furthermore, I now pretty - much ignore
[ In Reply To ..]all the audits, feedback and other nonsense I don't get paid for. They acquired me without any real assessment of my skills, and if after 30 years of doing this job I am suddenly incompetent, by all means let me go so I can collect UE, retrain and get skills for a real job. Unfortunately so far this has never happened. The only thing that makes me unhappy now is that I have such a rotten attitude.
ignore - MeToo
[ In Reply To ..]What cracks me up, I'm supposed to "leave a note" for QA explaining the reason for the blank. Okay, will do. 
you obviously do not have "punitive QA" then - either...where you lose
[ In Reply To ..]1 cpl for the QA to even "open" up a report sent to them, not to mention taking more cpl for each "error" or "blank" they have to correct. First they give you crap you can't even understand, WANT you to send to QA and "not guess", but penalize you by taking money away when you do... talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't! I have had the "privilege" of working for three of those types of places in the past year! They nit pick you to death too, and then fire you within 30 days because you "couldn't cut it." yeah.. good luck with that one!
question about losing cpl - anon
[ In Reply To ..]Just curious. When you lose cpl due to "errors," do they document that on your check stub? How do you know how much they dock you each pay period?
I had always kept track of my own line counts... - but their line counts were
[ In Reply To ..]always different. Finally a QA person told me flat out that if they even have to "open" a file with blanks you sent to them, they "automatically" take 1 cpl from you just because you sent it to them in the first place and they had to "listen for blanks." All blanks were counted as "errors" no matter what. so basically you were "punished" monitarily for not being able to understand something being dictated. It was not just for the one line with the blank left in it either, it was 1 cpl for the whole file. That just is not right, in my book! Why even have a QA at all if you are not supposed to send them anything or be punished for it? Just another way to bilk the MT out of money is all!
sheesh, dirty rotten business - anon
[ In Reply To ..]Just another example that, to me, proves these companies have covered their butts from every possible angle and made it so the MT cannot win.
So if you send a 50-line report to QA for a blank, you are docked 50 cpl?
exactly! - 1 cpl for a 50 line report
[ In Reply To ..]would be 50 cents off your paycheck. and you are not "allowed" to send reports to the client with blanks in them, so you HAVE to send to QA, but then when you do, you are docked 1 cpl no matter how long or short the report is. If you are earning say 8 cpl, if you send it to QA, it is automatically 7 cpl for the whole report, whether there is just one blank left or 50. That's what they call "punitive QA," and I have gotten now when I interview with anybody so that I ask if they have punitive QA or not. You would be surprised how many actually do!
Sorry to hear that... - MTGoneFishin
[ In Reply To ..]...after I left MT, it was like a HUGE weight had lifted and it was like being freed from an abusive relationship. The account I was on for years sounds very similar to yours, but the harder I would try to deal with the situation (and I tried SO many different techniques, drawing from my own management experience, even resorting to begging practically for at the least occasionally getting a mix of good dictations with bad), it would get worse. There are a lot of sadistic type personalities in this once awesome profession.
Best to you; you will need it, if my experience is any indication.
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