A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

What is wrong with me - MT2

Posted: Jul 09, 2011

I really need feedback on this. I have been an MT for over 25 years. I am still pretty young (middle age). I have nothing wrong with me physically or mentally. Yet, I hate my job! I have a job with a bigger MTSO, but I am getting less and less in my pay b/c my main account runs out of work often and I get the secondary which is not easy on demographics, and has bad dictators. This is a job which is an employee job and it looks like my pay is decreasing weekly as my production decreases not only b/c more and more bad VR where I straight type, but now I just hate going to work! I am extremely slow when there are jobs and when there aren't I just sit and stare. My bills depend on this but I am tired of going from job to job. Last IC job was a disaster, never ever had a day where I could understand the ESLs they were so abundant that it was seriously extremely mentally debilitating. I am sorry this is coming off so down, but I keep thinking I should be grateful for a job, I should work extra for the higher money to pay the rent, but now that I have to go to work, I just feel like walking off the job! I used to make 50K at this job, now about 300 a week on a good week and I am my sole source of income! I am tired of testing for jobs and then getting one which pays so little. I feel like something is majorly wrong b/c I am not wanting to find another job, yet my instinct tells me it is the job not me. Please provide feedback. I am not asking anyone to make a decision for me, I am wanting to know if anyone out there has experienced this. Thanks

MT2 - yayaLADYBUG

[ In Reply To ..]
If you can, maybe try casually applying for other medical office jobs locally, and go on a few interviews just to test the waters. Either you will find something that seems like a better fit right now, or you'll realize that the grass isn't greener after all.

Good luck!

What's Wrong - MT2

[ In Reply To ..]
That's a good idea, that way I will find out if I'm just bored in general or if it's the job. At least in an office an hourly wage would help things knowing what I'd be paid is a good thing. Thanks for the idea.

Perhaps just burnout? - BTDT

[ In Reply To ..]
Maybe it's just burnout in general. I had been doing rad for 4-5 years, the same crew of voices over and over again until I literally felt like I had ADD during my shift. I couldn't focus, couldn't concentrate, just couldn't motivate myself in general to produce to my maximum ability. I'd dread 4 o'clock every day because that's when my shift started. My mood would start dropping about noon and then rapidly disintegrate even further around 3-3:30...the closer it got to my shift starting, the more miserable I became.

I took a little part-time IC job doing multispecialty clinic work just to break up the monotony and that helped immensely. Not only was it far more interesting (I get bored with the repetition of radiology easily), but I actually discovered how much I had missed having some variety in my work. My productivity skyrocketed back up within a really short period of time and my attitude improved immensely. I started to see the glass as half full rather than wanting to throw the darned glass across the room, LOL!

Is there any chance you can transfer to perhaps another account for the same employer or start training on another account just to break out of the monotony rut? I don't know if you're doing clinics or acute care or radiology, but maybe if you're with a large national with multiple accounts, they'd consider training you on something totally different.

I know how you feel and you have my complete sympathy. Hang in there and let us know how it goes.

What's wrong - MT2

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks. That's a good idea. Yep. I think I am bored. Especially with VR b/c it is such less of an active experience. My wrists are saved, but my mind is really numb. I am the type that used to thrive on brain surgeries and the most difficult things. Now everything is easy and though I shouldn't complain, but I get paid for an easy job too, that is much less than when my technical knowledge was paid for. I think a lot of it is my identity was tied in my expertise and it has been so many years at least 10 in which my technical knowledge has been appreciated or even recognized. I believe that goes for all of us. Used to be an employer appreciated the words we knew and our medical understanding, now we are just somebody who can get thrown away for someone new they can train on words and then oversee by QA.

I think you're spot on with the identity issue, MT2, - also an issue of feeling you are

[ In Reply To ..]
a helpless, hapless victim, unable to control what's been happening. We're all feeling them. You know what to do about both of those, of course. Best wishes.

I hear ya on that one. I used to have a strong work - ethic, but --- (sm) - Meerkat

[ In Reply To ..]
it's hard to be all rah-rah about working when even if you work overtime, you're either going to not get paid for it, or what you do get isn't going to be enough to make a difference, anyway. I already suffer from depression, and this job isn't helping.... just exacerbates the problem, even with meds. It gets so discouraging when I steel myself to sit down, crank out the work all day without even coming up for air, only to realize that the bill for the electricity to run this equipment and keep the lights on was more than I earned today. I've been looking for other work, even in other fields. But I don't think, in my present state of mind, I'm going to be that chipper, perky, go-getter person all the employers seem to want. I used to make about $47,000/year, and this year I think it's going to drop below the $20,000 mark. I try to tell myself to be grateful I at least have a job, but whenever payday rolls around, and I see how little I earned for my past 2 weeks of hard work, experience, research, knowledge, etc., it makes me feel like a real sucker for working so hard for so little.

wow, I couldn't have said it better myself (sm) - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
I guess the one "good" thing to come out of all of this is the knowledge that we're not alone. I feel so alone, and then I come on this board and realize that others feel exactly the same way I do.

It's so sad that, like you, I used to make close to 50,000 a year and I barely made over 20,000 last year. Yet, I have been working longer hours and working harder than I ever have in the past. I'm so sick and tired of wasting my life away in front of this computer with nothing to show for it except a mountain of debt and basically no social life to speak of.

***sigh*** I wish I could hold on to the belief that it's going to get better, but I just can't anymore. If it gets any worse, though, well.... let's just say if it gets any worse I will be in real trouble.

I was just coming over here to vent, but your post really summed up my feelings. - (sm) SoTired

[ In Reply To ..]
The MTSO that I work for is a good fit for me, but I've grown beyond tired of this work. Each year the dictators get worse and worse and our pay gets lower and lower. It's frustrating to work in a profession that requires so much of us yet compensates us so minimally. The isolation; working many hours a day, weekends, and holidays; missing out on time with family and friends; and always having to worry about how I'm going to pay the bills is finally getting to me.

It helps to know that others feel the same as I do. I wish the OP well and hope that she finds a solution in something that someone says here.

What's wrong with me - MT2

[ In Reply To ..]
maybe the answer is to having support groups in person for each other, seems like a lot of us feel the same way. My problem is though I am switching careers it will be years before I can finish my degree to get it. I am in my middle age years and all I know is transcription. To take a job in retail or something is no good, I have no experience and they see me as over-qualified. I am like stuck in limbo. On days when the dictations are straight typing that is if I get 1 or 2 and they are good and interesting it is like the old days again. I get a fast line count, the science is interesting and I feel alive. Then, back to correcting on the VR (retyping b/c the VR gets nothing right and the doc keeps spelling things or recorrecting, etc.) and I know I am getting paid 3 cents to do it. I never know what my pay is going to be because of the variables I am acting happy if it is 600 take home for 2 weeks which is a miracle. I have to split my rent payment in 2 and my landlord hates it b/c when the cable goes down I don't get paid for it. He doesn't understand why I am unable to get a job out of the house that pays well. He thinks my job is a scam, a sham, or that I lay around all day and claim I have a job. The utter disrespect for my profession. Anyway, the problem being that I am in it for so long it is hard to find something else, I stick with it. But maybe if we could have a group outside of the house and talk about these issues in counseling sessions between MTs it could be worthwhile and lift our spirits. Problem is we all live so far away or most of us work and not working fatigued from staring at the computer and walls all day...

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