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

Participating in essay contests - old and burned out

Posted: May 05, 2013

I know that many of you need extra money but when you participate in things like company essay contests you demean and degrade MTs and what we do. We are not high school students required to do what the teacher tells us. We are adult employees who should not be asked to grovel for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate. This is a way for this despicable company to get free marketing material without having to pay a copywriter to produce it.

I could not agree more. - just my opinion

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I'm disgusted by this essay nonsense. If the MT field was not female dominant, there would be no essay contests, no silly Walmart gift cards, and the pay would be at least 50% better. I'm certain a fair amount of sexism is to blame for that. I feel like I'm in a state of constant mourning looking at how pitiful this industry is now. When we worked in hospitals and clinics, we were respected for our contributions to patient care and medical records. It seems, again in my opinion, that as soon as we were "sent home," that is when the you-know-what hit the fan. All of these ads spouting "work at home," showing pictures of happy little moms working at home, then the speech rec, the EHR, and don't even get me started on outsourcing. Now MT is just a joke. So terribly sad. Sorry for the rant, having a bad day.

And by extension, the - whole idea

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of MT Week is now a complete farce. They should call it "week we throw a few warm fuzzies to the pitiful fools who are still trying to do a job we are doing our absolute best to eliminate."

I guess I feel like a fool then - had no idea

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They have been doing games for the past 7 years now, since CBay bought us out. Well, I have participated in each one, and another company I worked for part time did games also. There were a few puzzles, an essay, and even a "guess who" game (which supervisor drove which car, or liked which ice cream). Some of these games from the other company took over an hour each to complete and even then, all the winners were entered in a drawing and the prize wasn't all that much either.

I guess I am just appreciative that they do anything. I did not know that it was for free marketing material. Where are the old essays? I never saw one in marketing ads. I won a large amount of money on a contest several years back.

I guess I am a loser then. I never meant to be. I am angry at the company for many things. I am no cheerleader. I just have to find something positive now. Anything. But I guess even doing that was a negative now wasnt it.

No, of course you are not a loser.... - sm

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I understand the need to look for something positive, but I don't understand how asking us to write an essay, in order to win a "prize," is a show of appreciation for what we do as MTs. You say you're appreciative that they "do anything," but what are they really doing? When you truly appreciate your employees, you give raises, a Christmas bonus, you treat them with respect for what they bring to the company. Have you ever heard of another company that asks its employees to compete for the chance to win a prize? I sure haven't.

yes... that is what I said in previous post - had no idea

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The smaller company (mentioned a few times on these boards) that I worked for part time did the same thing. They had contests and any winning entries were put in a drawing and there was one winner. I thought they all did that.

They don't all do that - see message

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The company I worked at before being swallowed up sent us $10 gift cards for MT week and a box of gourmet brownies on our birthday. Unfortunately, they also sent all of the management type jobs overseas and didn't have anybody marketing for work to be done in the U.S.

They acheived their goal of having 80% of the work done overseas and the company collapsed.

don't feel like a fool - ...

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darlin', if you can get 100 of their dollars, there's nothing wrong with that. Good for you. I hope you win. :)

Thank you. You are very kind. - had no idea

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If I win, I will share with you!

What it really is - sm

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Essay contests are just busy work "assigned" to deflect from the whole NJA issue.

The contest is probably rigged anyways - mom2huskies

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I could be wrong, but they probably already know who they are going to give the gift cards to anyways. They just want the free marketing.

Debbie-the-Generic-MT is going to win it, anyway. - Why even bother to compete with her? nm

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Really... what other - "appreciation week"

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i.e. nurses, doctors, x-ray techs, housekeepers, cafeteria workers (the last hospital I worked out had a "week" for practically everyone who worked there), have the requirement that in order to receive your "appreciation" you write an essay, solve a puzzle, get lucky in a drawing? This shows just how much they really "appreciate" us.

Absolutely - North MT

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So it is okay for them to treat us horrible for 51 weeks but as long as they throw us a bone on the 52nd week it makes up for it? Where is our 401K match that they promised? Where is our new improved email system? Why are we still receiving tier rate pay that has not increased since 2006? Where is the ASR that is supposed to make us earn more money? They should just give us a prize rather than make us "earn" it or just not do the MT week at all. We already know they despite the US MTs. Why are they pretending otherwise?

yes. I agree - so what are we doing about it

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Are any of us writing Amy with our opinions? Are we letting our TSMs know? Why just complain here?

I wrote the Queen herself and got written up - Not just complaining here

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If I thought writing Amy or letting the TSM know would work I would be the first to encourage it.

I sent an email after the All Hands Call asking about the no raise policy and several facts that she contradicted in her call. I got written up and told I was out of line. Not just from her, but from Shaw, the VP and my TSM. Conference call, the whole bit. They do not want opinions or facts, they want silent worker bees. So I diabled my corporate email and increased my class load at school. Ignoring the noise and focusing on what is important. Apparently the company is too.

Guess I should reconsider writing to Amy. - dnr

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I have been thinking of writing to her about the fact the average lph for ASR that she is so proud of is only equal to about minimum wage. My ASR lph depends totally on the quality of the ASR output along with the amount of formatting I have to do, with H&P's being the worst. With some H&H's for some accounts, plus adding in the fact that 90% of the necessary commas for lists in the PMH, meds, etc., can take as long as 6 minutes to format. I usually format and quickly add obvious commas first before listening because it is so frustrating to be constantly stopping to fix this. If I didn't have to make so many corrections, I would not have to stop.

Also, we were promised the change to ASR would yield a sizable increase in earnings, but, why is it that the gave us a 40% pay cut for ASR and my pay has dropped 40%. ( rhetorical question)

Were you courteous? Figure you were, but just asking. - dnr

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Just trying to wrap my head around getting written up for writing to the COO. Guess I might put that off until I quit in about 9 months.

I don't think getting "written up" means much. - Ive been "written up" more times -SM

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than I can count anymore. On 2 or 3 occasions, taken all the way to the brink of termination for one "infraction" or another. I pretty much said, "Yeah, yeah, okaaaayyy... uh-huh... will try to do better" and then just continued on doing things the same way. I would have loved to be fired, because I live in a state where I'd have more than likely gotten UE even if I'd showed up in their office with an AK-47. And I'm still here, dammit. What does it take to get fired from this Hades-hole?

Getting written up was a good thing for me. When first - bought out, expected to work Sm

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with NO tools. Couldnt access past job. Gripped enough that first day, I got written up, but I also got access to Documanage the next day.

You aren't out of line, iM*Moral is out of line. - Meerkat -n/m

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