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Every company is different -- I worked FT for one as an employee but worked a split shift - sm

Posted By: XXX on 2006-02-20
In Reply to: A silly question, but - I've not worked for company at home before

So I never took breaks. I would work 5 hours, break for about 4 hours then do another 3. Another company I worked for did not care what hours you worked (IC) but wanted a min. amount of work each day, 500 for PT and 1000 for FT-- BUT they paid you by how many lines an hour you put out, the higher the lph the higher up the scale you made per line in pay; they have since changed everyone to a flat rate with incentive. But bottom line, if you are an IC it does not matter what hours you work, though many ask for a schedule and ask you to stick to it, they just want you to meet line requirements daily, i.e. 1000 per day, 1200 per day, whatever it is.


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yup, employee, split-shift.
x
Do any of you work a split shift? Are you employee status or IC? Thanks!-nm

Should clarify, I was an IC for a company working a split shift. nm
d
I worked the 3rd shift for 5 years and....sm

found that each night shift person has to figure out for themselves what sleep pattern works best.  For some sleeping in the morning after finishing work is best, for others sleeping in the afternoon/evening before starting work bests suits them.   For me what worked best was when I was working from midnight to 8 a.m. I would log off at 8 a.m. and sleep  until noon, then would go back to bed between 8:30-9 p.m. and sleep about 3 hours.  Most of the time I didn't get sleepy during the night doing this pattern but if I did it would be around 4 a.m. and I would just log off and take about a 20-30 minute nap which would be enough to refresh me. 


Some of the best advice I can give you for sleeping during the daytime is to go to Target and in the girl's department they're currently selling some blindfolds, or you can go to Claire's boutique as I've seen them there.   I would have never survived sleeping during the day well without my Delta Airlines blindfolds that I had - they do a great job of tricking the body to thinking that it's night time when it's daylight outside.  


My blindfolds now reside on my brother-in-laws head at night as I'm no longer on nights and he is with his job - so he snoozes during the day with them on. 


Good luck to you!


Have always worked weekends and second shift. nm
X
When I worked for a hospital, 2nd shift was defined as 3p to 11p and SM

3rd shift was 11p to 7a.  They also had policy that said if you worked something like 12 noon until 8 p.m. you would get 2nd shift, shift differential pay for all the hours worked after 3 p.m. and if you worked 7p.m. to 7 a.m. you got 2nd shift differential until 11 p.m. and then 3rd shift differential for the rest of your shift.


I wondered if they could have complicated it more?


When I worked as an employee we just had to IM - sm
if we were stepping away from our desk for lunch,etc. Just so they knew why you weren't working. Personally I did not like that aspect of it, big brother watching and all that. I only worked when the kids were not home and tried not to answer the phone. As for power outages, I have 2 backups, a 20 minute battery back up for my computer so I don't lose work and can power down, and if power is out for too long, we have a generator I can fire up...as long as the phone lines aren't down as well (dial-up). But I am sure you can always call your employer and tell them that a storm knocked out the power if that is the case, and that you will get back to work once the power comes back on. Also as an employee there is still no guarantee you will have work. Good luck in your quest.
Have never known shift lead who just worked 8 hours a day for 5 days. By the time they
:+
An employee who has worked somewhere 15 years..

even upon leaving. At least an acknowledgement to let you know they realize you are a person with a life, not a machine plugged into a machine! I know how you feel.


I was a FT employee, but I had 24-hour TAT. Worked for a small
local MTSO.   Currently work for a small national and while I don't have babies anymore, the MTSO is a mother herself and is very understanding and allows me some flexibility because she knows I am reliable and good at what I do. 
Here's how it worked at my company
First let me say I am not a recruiter, but I did work for a large company and I knew the recruiters well. They told me that their hiring WAS tied to bonuses; however, it also was tied to retention. In other words, just because you hire someone doesn't necessarily qualify you for a bonus. That MT had to stay a certain amount of time, and the bonuses paid to the recruiters was based upon how long the MT stayed, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.
Wish I had worked for a company. sm
long before I did.  I worked at our local hospital for 12 years, was transcription supervisor.  After my children were born, I quit work to stay home.  After 1 year without working, couldnt stand it.  Branched out and got my own accounts......well let me tell you if I had it to do all over again I would have gone with the national then.  Instead had my own accounts for 16 years, made a fortune, and worked my butt off.  Yes I was home with my kids, but was always working.  Finally had it about 6 years ago, and went to work for a national.  WOW, it is wonderful.  No rude OM's to deal with, no gossiping backstabbing women, no picking up tapes and delivering tapes, no more typing all night long,  none of the hassle.  Now I get up grab the coffee, in my jammings and flipflops,  and type til I am done and that is it, finished for the day.  Absolutely wonderful.  I highly recommend it. 
You can do it! I worked for a company that .....
required 120 minutes a day or they bumped your pay down a half-cent and that was awful, so 60 minutes is a breeze! Have faith and confidence in yourself!  
worked for a company... sm
Last year, and my line removing all the epidermal was 9.5 with 7+ years of experience. I currently work as an employee, and make 8.5. Don't even know if that is reasonable, as I have never had an employee position, but, so far there are incredible benefits and I love the people, so It is a trade off!
I have never only worked for 1 company but sm
in your situation, I think I would throw in the towel and stick with company 1 as it seems very stressful for you. If you are a good MT, it doesn't take long to know if a company is a good fit for you or not and it doesn't sound like company #2 is a good fit for you at this time.
I worked in QA for a company who...sm

used them as a vendor so I saw the quality of their work for myself - based on what I saw, I'm overqualified anyway.  Still it was a silly email to send....lol 


I have worked for a company before that
charged based on the Courier New font, since that is what a typewriter types, and then would change the font to whatever the client wanted. I just made one folder that had the documents in Courier New and another folder for the client, so that I had the correct files for billing time, or if the client needed me to re-send something it was also ready to go. I believe with Courier New it puts 65 characters on a line. If they did not mention anything about the line count, I would just continue billing them the same way that I always had done and send them what they want.
I got up early, worked during naps, and worked when DH got home.

You have to be disciplined to make yourself work when baby is napping instead of maybe watching TV or doing housework, etc.   


I might also go the route of having a teen come into your home, or either trying a mother's morning out program at a local church/daycare.   I've been home since my youngest was born and he has never been in all-day daycare, but I did have him in a mother's morning out program 15 hours a week at a local church.   It didn't help a lot with my work schedule because I had an older son in school and was a room mom and tutored other kids, but that might be an option.  The only problem with the mother's morning out program is they are around other kids and tend to pick up every germ.  I finally took my DS out of the program because he stayed sick.  You were supposed to keep them off if they had green nasal discharge and I did, but no one else did.  Every time I got him well after 2 to 3 days back he would be sick again.  Other than that it was very good for him because he would not have had a chance to be around kids his age otherwise. 


no, I have never worked for a company that deducted for
errors. I have worked for companies that would fire you if you had constantly under their required level of accuracy but you get paid in full for the work that you do. Deducting is not fair and I would avoid any company that does this
Not sure but I once worked for a company that insisted on....
120 minutes a day or you were bumped down a half-cent per line. Kind of tough to do with cherrypickers and mostly 1 to 3 minute ER reports!
I worked for a big company and this happened to me.....(sm)
I was so afraid of not making enough to pay the bills. I first picked up one part-time second IC account. When I was comfortable with this, I picked up an almost full-time IC position and quit the big company. I now have a third very part-time IC position. Between the three I have never run out of work and all three are very small companies.

This is what works for me.
I only worked for one company that used a c-phone sm
and we signed off on each job as we listened and transcribed.  If you signed off, it meant the job was completed.  They would not have allowed us to sign off on jobs if recording them. 
I worked for a company about 8 months ago that did this sm
threw the MT/QA under the bus and let the hospital call the shots. In my opinion that is very wrong. We are responsible for the reports yes - but the client should not be dictating who specifically does their work. It makes the MTSO look weak when the client has that much control. I argued and won my case but I was stung and quit pretty soon after that. I didn't want to work for someone who threw me under the bus and yet never listened to my suggestions/complaints about dictators, etc. Fair is fair - and I just did not feel it was fair. You work for the MTSO - not the client. Sure, the client is always right - we need to do it their way - but the MTSO is there as a buffer and needs to protect the MT/QA people
a company I worked for set its counts down, sm
I only get 40% of what I did this same time last year, same doctors and same work. They changed the platform and that was the result. Seems they are all doing it or anyway most of them. They do NOT CARE about the employee or IC's either. Not even a thank you at Christmas time or an e-card. Times are hard and we need to support each other. I feel for all of you and hope and pray you can make ends meet.
LOL, I worked for her long ago when she micromanaged a different company. nm

In my experience, every company I have worked has only edited
reports that I send to them with blanks or questions, which is probably less than 5%.  From reading these boards, I get the impression most of the work from India needs to be edited.  So you would think if it needs so much editing, it would not worth it.  But maybe not.  Who knows - we'll just have to see.  If doctors complain about the quality that would probably slow the offshoring down.
You are lucky you worked for a flexible company
x
Sounds like a company I worked for called
f
Last year I worked per dium for a company- sm
just doing discharge summaries. The hospital docs were super backed up, took about 5 weeks to get them all done with 2 of us working on them on a PT basis. I loved it as it was a good rate and not difficult work. Use a C-phone though which I really do not like using. Another IC job I had, you could tell when the doc was about to lose privileges as all of a sudden about 50 discharge summaries, H&Ps, etc would appear. We worked in a pool so it all got done in TAT for the most part. Where I am now, they know if they have 4 or 5 docs dump 100-200 mins each on us all at the same time that it will not be done in TAT. What they need right away they mark as STAT and the rest gets done by the oldest first.
A company I worked for reset its counts down, SM
probably a number gradually, long after the account was well established with EditScript, without telling us, and it was only with time that people monitoring their production realized we were all getting our pay slashed without notice. It's very doable, and in these days of intense competition to hold onto accounts, keep work onshore, and still make a profit, it was being done. As said, it's not necessarily eScription exactly, it's the employer. That said, there seem to be a lot of bewildered and unhappy people working various places with eScription who are struggling and failing to achieve lost production levels.
Had this problem before, and worked for a credit card company too

I also had problems with travelocity, which ultimately was routed back to hotels.com, where I booked it for one date, they reserved it for a different date, and I ended up having to pay for both dates, PLUS a HUGE fee.  I challenged them on it, but nothing ended up happening, other than me biting my tongue and paying it.


HOWEVER, since you were told that they would credit the amount, you need to talk to Hotels.com first.  Make a concentrated effort to speak to supervisor after supervisor until they give you an apology and credit it.  ALSO (and, if they refuse to give you the remaining credit), call your credit card company and explain the situation.  They can do a few different things here.  They can, and probably will remove the over-the-limit fee for you, if you explain the situation, as long as you don't have a long over-the-limit history.  Don't let them tell you that they can't remove it, just keep going up the chain of command until someone does.  All CSRs in that situation are able to remove the charge, and if they don't, ask for their manager (they will just put you through to a phone queue where the people have higher capacity to remove stuff like that).  The second thing that they can, and will do, is, if hotels.com won't do it, you can dispute the charge, explain what happened, and it will be removed while they research it.  Most of the time, they remove it and you never hear about it again, other than to tell you that it's been taken care of.  If they decide it was a valid charge, which they won't, they will add it back to your credit card balance after getting hotels.com to prove that they provided the necessary service.


Make sure you contact your credit card company, even if hotels.com refunds your money, at least to get the over-the-limit fee waived.  I would still dispute the charge, and that way, it is covered if they say they are going to refund it and don't.  If you dispute it, and they end up refunding your money, just alert the credit card company, and it will be a wash.  Good luck!


I worked for a Texas company who had 90% ESLs and not just Texans sm

It was EFD and OMGoodness!  They were the toughest reports in the world!  They were primarily Hispanic and the 3 American's who were not ESLs were Texans and might as well have been ESLs.


If it is EFD I am here to tell you, really great people when I was there, but the account was tough for me THEN.  I suspect that these days I would be fine. 


I've worked weekends for 10 years, now I want to move onto a company
that does not require at least one weekend day.  I realize hospitals are open 24/7 but you would think that companies seeking good MTs would be more willing to offer a M-F shift.   
When I have worked for disreptuable company in the past, I "threatened" to bill...more
the client directly if payment was not forthcoming and if they failed to respond.  I do not believe you should work for free or write it off.  This has happened to me at least two times.  I have never actually had to go through with it before though.  Some might not like to use this tactic but it worked for me.  I do not believe in working for free.  When I want to work for free, I volunteer. LOL
So, are you working for the same company. I have worked for 2 companies and I have noticed a huge
difference in the lines I got from each company. The accounts were similar. I never ever got what your talking about but I would average 600-700 lph at one company and the other one  I was lucky to get 400 lph so then I figured out they didnt pay for spaces, footers, headers etc.. and that does factor into your line counts on that platform.
split shift
split shifts are great!  you will do much, much better if you split your 8 hours up by 4 and 4.  Early in the day and then late evening are usually the best. 
Split shift

Employee;  afternoon and late night/early morning split shift.


split shift
I work Sun-Thu 6A-10A, 6P-10P. This works really well for me, as I could not sit at a computer for 8 hours straight, and I have Fri and Sat off to spend time with my kids.
split shift
I work M, T, W, & F 8:00-12:30 and 2:30-7:00 (9-hour days).  I, too, find it hard to sit for a complete 8- to 9-hour shift and enjoy the split.
Split shift
My kids are all in school, so I work M, Tu and W 12 noon - 3:30 p.m. and then 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., Thu 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. and Sun 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.  This works real good for me.  I'm part time.
split shift
10a-2p and 7p-11p

works well to give me time in the morning to get my child off to school and a few things done, same when the bus comes. my child is a little older so the 7p is just a couple hours before bedtime and I take a break for bedtime. I love my split.
Split shift helped me a LOT! Was
getting very painful to type eight hours straight.  It has helped to the point where I barely realize any pain anymore.  Also, I can seem to go "great guns" the first hour or two of my shift, and then slow down some after that. This way, with split shift, I have two sets of "two hours" of gungho, at least as gungho as I can get...LOL. 
Have you considered a split shift? DH and I

are on separate schedules (though I have some flexibility) and we find we have to plan private time.  I'm a night person, he's a morning person - just doesn't work very well.  If you worked Sunday through Thursday schedule you'd have a chance to have some time to sleep on Friday and you could still have a weekend and not be dragging your butt.   If kids are all in school you could sleep during the day and working nights might not be so bad.  There will be a period of adjustment and there will have to be some compromise about when you sleep and when DH takes care of the kids, but you do what you have to do. 


I have a daughter and a split shift.

My daughter will be 2 in April...Maybe you can try something like this... I am working 5 a.m. - 8 a.m. and again at 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.  


IC - work split shift. nm
v
I would think a split shift would benefit them!

I know where I work they swoon over people who can pull a split shift...say early in the morning and then again late afternoon into evening.  I think it really helps get places out of TAT jams.  I once did 7am-11am and then 3pm-7pm for a while and it worked out great for me at the time and was equally beneficial to them.  Have you tried pointing out the potential benefits for them, to them?  Might be worth a shot if you haven't already.  Good luck! 



Split shift and kids
I find the same with the split shift. It works out great to get kids to and from school, dinner, etc. but I am wiped out. I feel like I have no downtime. I have thought about homeschooling but I am also hesitant that it will take too much out of me being that I already feel so exhausted.

I'm no expert but my neighbor has home schooled 3 kids. She told me that there is an association or something that she is a part of where a large group of home-schooled kids get together for field trips and more structured lessons and things like the all important health videos that no kid wants to watch with their parents. lol Not sure what is is called but she did say it is online so maybe some googles might turn something up in your area.
Definitely split shift...I use a hot parafin wax dip when they're really bad -- also,
i have my "magic typing gloves" You can buy them at most major drug stores... they're kind of like support hose stockings for your hands.. fingers are free, but hands and wrists are warm, toasty, comfy and happy. About 10 bucks a hand, but truly worth it..
I usually work a split shift on Sundays
10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (there really isn't much to do during that time), then I log back in after 9 p.m. when I get my son in bed and will usually work for 3 or 4 hours. I am usually busy then because the docs are all dictating their pre-surgical H&Ps for Monday morning surgeries. I'm on the East Coast and my hospital is on the West Coast, so it works out good that way.
I will occasionally log in on Saturday afternoons too, but work is slim to none then, so I usually don't bother.
I work a split shift just for this very reason.
After about 6 hours, I am toast. Now I work 2 4's with a 4-hour break in between. I always come back to work so refreshed, and it has really helped my productivity.
Split shift MTs---what hours do you work? sm

I'm trying to revamp my schedule around transporting kids.  Would be interested to know what works for you.  Thanks!