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Help..someone with information on Focus! - Disgusted

Posted: Dec 03, 2009

Could someone give me the dirt on Focus? Hours, work, supervisors, QA, workload> Thanks in advance!...

Plenty - Archives

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I wanted to know the same thing. There is plenty in the archives.

I can say this - onemore

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I am in the process of starting with them. Although it has been a lengthy process, they seem so far to be well organized and I have received some useful information on sites, etc. As for the pay, it is VR editing, so any way you look at it, the pay is horrible, but is a job to get me by for now. They only hire as employees, which means if you are out of work and they do not supplement, you at least can claim unemployment. I was given an option of full-time or part-time and when I stated part-time, I was given specific hours to work within, 2-10 or something like that. They do have direct deposit and benefits. Hope this helps.

Please explain: You work PT, that means 5 hours/day... - how?

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and they give you a time frame from 2:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. to turn your reports in?

I was told - onemore

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I don't remember the exact times, but was asked if I wanted full-time or part-time and I told them part-time and then they said that the hours that are needed for that specific account was between 2-10 and asked what hours between that time I wanted to cover. I did just find out though that they off-shore for overnight work. Ugh! I didn't realize this.

focus - newish

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I'm not so certain I've made a good move....never enough work for me...there is a lot of transitioning and new accounts coming on board but I don't know how much longer I can hang in...

thanks for explaining.nm - how?

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nm

In your post, you stated that as an employee - MT4ever

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you can get unemployment if there is no work available (I assume for long periods of time)? I don't understand how this could work. Would you mind explaining?

Thanks

Focus Informatics - MTstill

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I am also thinking about starting with Focus. They tell me there is a ton of work and I won't run out. This does not seem to be what I am reading here though. Is anyone working for Focus now and making good money with plenty of work?

They don't run out of work because Dictaphone owns them - nm

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nm

Do you work for them? - MT

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In a post above, newish said there is not enough work. That is why I am wondering what it is like from someone who works for them.

FOCUS RUN OUT OF WORK - Alice

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Whoever told you that they never run out of work was sadly mistaken or maybe referring to an account that is an exception to whatever else is there.

This approach reminds me of a car salesman who told me that a certain model was "the best car" on the lot. Though sales "puffing" is not illegal, it certainly is misleading and can be downright incorrect, to put it mildly.

I worked on the EditScript platform. I tried all kinds of shifts and still ran out of work. Whenever they decided (or sold a client an offshore deal on an account), they didn't tell us until the last minute or we would log on and find that the account was gone to India. I left after this happened to me 7 times.

Whenever an account would go offshore or volume was low or nonexistent for some other reason, they were very slow in getting me more work.

I begged for a new account. There were ads on the Internet by Focus, recruiting more MTs, for supposedly "NEW" accounts. However, I didn't have enough work.

I worked mainly on EditScript. When a major section of my work went to India or "the client" decided to use a point-and-click system, doing away with the need for the MTs, I asked to be switched over to one of the "NEW" dictaphone accounts that they were advertising, but was told that I could not switch from EditScript to Dictaphone. It was simply not allowed. I wish I had known then what I know now about the "filing for partial unemployment benefits" option.

BTW, yes, you can file for partial unemployment benefits if your work volume has been depleted through no fault of your own, even if you are still working for the company. Laws may vary from state-to-state, but I was told by the Labor Board of Massachusetts, where FI offices are located, that this option was available.

Currently, I have a friend who still works at Focus and she has been waiting for weeks for a new account assignment, as she runs out of work pretty much every day!!

What I found was it was great for part-time pin money, but not a reliable source for enough work to actually rely on to pay bills. Also, I learned to not expect to find work whenever I would log in; therefore, when work was available, I was pleasantly surprised..

I think it is a shame what some companies tell MTs just to get them to accept a job!!! It should be illegal, IMHO.

Alice, question about partial unemployment - MT

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It seems to me if you did file for partial unemployment while still working for a company, they would not look too kindly on that, and you would be "let go".

Likely, - Alice

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I think you are right. However, I'm thinking that it couldn't be possibly that easy for them, and there must be something that an employee could do in response to that.

In a hypothetical situation, since I no longer work there, if it were to happen to me, I would fight it. After being "let go" in response to filing for partial unemployment, it seems that I would then be eligible to claim full unemployment, that they created a hostile working environment and fired me simply because I filed for partial unemployment benefits, no matter what kind of "reasons" that they had drummed up in the process. Then, I'd have to add the details about how they expect employees to sit and wait for work and not get paid, while they are actively hiring new employees, etc.

focus - newish

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I run out every night. I also am left with the stuff no one wants to do since in my position we route to ourselves. New account on board, "lots of work, overtime" promised, but so far, still run out of work.

Curious - Strange

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I sent Focus an e-mail and they were really nice writing back. I normally work evenings for my company so I will have plenty of work because everybody wants days. I thought it strange that Focus said they did not have night positions available.

Reply - Alice

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I never worked days at Focus; there was NEVER any work available to me on days. I regularly ran out of work on 2nd and 3rd shift. Oftentimes, the lack of work was for the entire shift, while I was required to monitor the queue. I did it then, but I wouldn't do it again.

It seems that the only way to find out if this job will work for you, and if there will be enough work, is to try it. It may work out great for you, especially if you do not need the money to pay basic bills, like food and shelter, electricity, etc.

I'm just saying that my personal experience was that the account managers were not totally honest with me regarding the workflow. When the volume was low, they would act like they had no idea what was going on. Later, on several of my accounts, I found out that they knew ahead of time that the accounts were being slowly offshored to India, but they kept it a secret until the last minute.

Recently, I read on this forum that the work goes to India on third shift (?).

Focus is based in India - American MT

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So the majority of their work is done by the ILPs. The overflow work is done by the US MTs. That's why so many people run out of work. I can't remember who owns whom in the Focus/Nuance/Dictaphone triangle, but their headquarters are in Bangalor (I'm pretty sure). They have offices in the US where they say they are "headquartered" but those are the "cover" offices.

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