Thank you for an excellent post. I wish we had our own board. nm

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I think sometimes, in our zeal to get hired, we throw everything into the pot. We declare that we possess every skill that might help us to make the cut over other applicants. We're a nurse, we transcribe, we can make coffee, can get grease spots out of a Brooks Brothers suit, drop his kids at day care on the way to work - no! it's no trouble at all, really! - whatever. In this case, having your office nurse also be your Transcriptionist probably seemed an attractive prospect, until the doctor's wife figured they were paying twice for what she thought they should be paying for only once. Now these very skills have been turned against the worker. So your points 1, 2 and 3 are particularly valid.

I have seen ads for MTs in local papers and the description of duties sometimes says, 'medical transcription, reception duties, appointments, filing, other duties as needed.' Then I know I don't even want to apply for the position, as I have no idea how I could be MT as well as receptionist. How frustrating it would be to have my concentration constantly interrupted! This practice wants a secretary/receptionist they can make transcribe as well. Lots of luck getting someone who can do both well.

Any professional should balk at being told that a salary covers 'anything the boss expects' them to do. Especially if this throws out an established arrangement and doubles someone's work load. While we all like to be team players, if only the owner gets a tropy this diminishes our team spirit considerably.

I'm of two minds on this. I would either agree and simply not bust my butt getting the transcription done until it was piled so high SOMETHING had to change. Certainly there is a limit to how backed up this practice will allow its reports to become? Meanwhile I'd be looking for new employment. Of course, as the reports piled up, you have to know the office manager would be timing your trips to the bathroom with a stop watch and accusing you of wasting time on her dime (as seems to be her nature) but I'm sure you could perform all your usual nursing duties with just a bit less alacrity in order not to appear idle. Or I would simply call their bluff and refuse to go along (which might be shooting myself in the foot unless I had another job to go to. )

I would like to bring up the new technology of VR where the use of word Expanders no longer has the impact that they have with straight typing.

I am doing editing and when I talk to others they were doing 300-400 lines with straight typing and word expanders. Now they are editing that same work and perhaps doing an average of 400 lph and yet making half as much money. It is an entirely different skill set learning to navigate quickly and get the work edited for speed, something which I am struggling with. I would love it if editors would share their speed tips but usually all the posts I get go something like this: I do 500 lines and hour and make more money editing OR I had to take a pay cut editing but no specifics as to why or how to build speed. So that is not really helpful as to why there is more or less $ with editing. I use my keyboar and not my mouse. I am working as hard as I can but I only can do maybe 100 more lines tops with editing than I can with straight typing but my pay has dropped by 50%. I don't see editing going away so to that end it seems as if the pay is dropping in transcription. Does anyone else see where I am coming from????

like you think the MT's control the pay in the MT world? Either you need the job and you take it for the pay or you have another option. MT's without another option will take the job at 6 cpl, or 4 cpl or whatever. When working at McDonald's becomes an option that is equivalent to MT work, then MT's will choose McDonald's.

The Transcriptionist is just ONE cog in the wheel of the whole industry. If people continue to look at only the MT's part, they miss the big picture. If all it took were people saying Let's all stand up together and demand better wages, then why couldn't the cashiers at the grocery stores across the US do the same thing? They can't. Because it they don't cashier for $8 an hour, there's somebody else who will. Same thing has happened with transcription. If you don't take the job at 6 cpl, somebody else will. It might be somebody from India (which you so quickly discounted) but I'll let you in on a little secret. The people from India who are doing MT typically have 2 master's degrees. They are hungry for work. They are intelligent, competent individuals, willing to work hard. They might have a little bit of a quality issue right now because of the language barrier, but it won't be long before you have lots and lots of Indian MT's with 2 years experience, who have learned from their mistakes, who have learned American idioms... and then you are really going to see the bottom drop of out the market.

I need opinions please...I work on a very small account with just a handful of ladies. Because of the nature of the software (trying not to get too specific here) we can see who is working online and what reports they are working on in real-time...

We have one cherrypicker on the account. Instead of using FIFO method, she retrieves the reports by author ID - usually picking the better dictators of course. She knows I busted her and she did admit to it in on our work e-mail (not too bright) which I am saving just in case she gets out of hand - so far I'm still able to make money since really most of the dictators aren't bad.

But every night it's starting to wear on me since she's screwing up turnaround time. I don't really want to cause a big uproar being that it is such a small account and I need to work with her almost every night usually one on one.

What would you all do? I want to handle this as delicate and professional as possible because we can't really afford to lose anyone on this account. In other words, I refuse to stoop to her level by cherrypicking right back.

My boss has asked me several times why so-and-so does so much more than I do...I just bite my lip at that point but one of these days I think I might explode and just open up a can of worms....

Hey Blondee,

What language did you're folks speak before they came here to the great melting pot?....Did they come through Ellis Island, Angel Island, on the Mayflower or in the bottom of a ship in shackles...We're all immigrants....unless, of course, you're a Native American or Inuit.

I speak a few languages and had gotten called outta my office at any given time to translate in the ER or OR. If it helped to save someone's life and/or calm a family's nerves, that was cool with me.

It would be nice if everyone just spoke the king's English.

Cat

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Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN

Are we "SLOW LEARNERS" or what?

Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907