Weigh all aspects for opportunity
Posted By: dontmisstheboat on 2007-10-27
In Reply to: new to QA - have ? - Ayn
I am making $14/hr QA with national and that was supposed to be "starting" pay over a year ago..still waiting for my raise to bring me equal to my peers who are making just a buck or 2/hr more. I don't know about in-house QA but I am a 30-year veteran MT and when I see you say you've been 9-year MT, I am seeing for YOU what I would call an OPPORTUNITY which is something that is hard to put a price on when you're 'relatively young' in your career. I'm just trying to think about when I had 9 years under my belt as an MT in-house and yes, as you say, you still are learning something every day and even at 30 years, I am always learning something every day. In this business if you're not willing and eager to learn each and every day, then you're going to be lost real quick...There are many other factors you should weigh beside pay when looking at this. You need to consider benefits and long-term possible advancement that may be there for you. You have already impressed these people and this could be your chance to get beyond the MT aspect (which, I might add, is becoming more and more of a losing prospect IMO). I'm just saying that you should weigh ALL factors other than pay and see which one offers you the most for your future in this industry and don't miss an opportunity here...you can always go back home if it doesn't work out! Good luck to you.
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You've got some aspects wrong, Curious.
No one is trying to screw anyone out of lines. It's just not our job to make sure YOU have your work done, period. We're doing what we are told and allowed to do, flat out.
It isn't my responsibility whatsoever to make sure lines are spread out evenly, to make sure anyone else has lines, etc. My job is to get the work done with as much quality and speed as possible. My responsibility is to ensure my household is stable and to keep a good, solid relationship with my employer.
Your "poor me, I'm a victim" mentality does you in.
Oh I know, I've studied legal aspects of med recs, too, been in this a long time. sm
I totally get everything you say, and I don't argue with any of it.
But I work for a national that has had the same errors in the same normals for YEARS, so we're talking probably thousands of charts by now. I can't fix years of apathy. If I was in charge, you betcha I would.
The doctor's name is what's on the document, it still comes down to him/her.
You don't know why they weigh you?! sm
I hope you're just trying to make a point. You must know that they want to weigh you for the same reason they want to take your vital signs - it gives them important info. about your health. If you've lost or gained weight, that could be a sign of illness, obviously.
Years ago, I lost about 15 pounds from one visit to another, and my doctor noticed and asked me if it was intentional. (It was.) I liked that she noticed and asked. Weight gain or loss can be a sign of so many things: thyroid problems, depression, eating disorder, just to name a few.
Of course, I suppose you can always refuse. I'm sure that's your right. Just like you could refuse to have your BP or temp taken, but... why would you?
I will say, they don't need to weigh people "out in the open" so to speak. My new dr's has the digital readout of your weight up high, where it could conceivably be seen by other office staff, which I thought was a little odd...
Hopefully others will weigh in. ?? SM
Hi, 135. My first thought is that you may need to figure out what else might be contributing to your low line count. I say that because I'm a slow typist too but with an Expander quickly improved beyond that. So, sorry if any of these are ridiculously inapplicable, but here go some thoughts for anyone trying to get faster:
New to typing? Butt in chair typing away as many hours a day as you can stand until speed is good enough, tiring though it is.
New to medical language? Same as above. The more hours each day, the faster you get good (but the progress in this is obvious and exciting to see).
Use reference books instead of computer references? Books take way too much time to get out and thumb through, and you can't do wild-card and most associated-word searches. Get computer dictionary and medical language programs and get in the habit of constantly googling for terms, often even before the programs.
Type and then go back to adjust punctuation? I saw people do that on my first job, and my heart ached for them because I knew they were doomed to do poorly or fail outright if they couldn't learn to punctuate as they went, continually putting more words on paper.
Slow reader, and maybe slow punctuator? Practice reading. For weeks until you're faster and written-language patterns become second nature. Reader's Digest has a nice crisp minimal writing/punctuation style that's good to absorb, but any books or magazines enjoyable enough to read a lot will help tremendously over time.
Killer high standards? I also worked with a woman who focused on every report as if it was her critically ill mother's. Another major production and income killer as there are drastically diminishing returns on time spent achieving perfection, and no one will thank you for it, neither hospitals paying by the hour, nor production-pay outfits. I suspect a few of the people on this forum who say they cannot make a living have this problem. Most companies require 0% critical mistakes but are happy to accept 98%+ overall accuracy. Over 98% is the goal. And in editing, punctuation corrections are made as needed for reading clarity, not for pretty. This also can be hard emotionally, but it's something else we aren't thanked, much less paid, for. A lot of us have our personal obsessions we can't stop fixing, but settle on a couple of indulgences and relax the others to industry standards.
Problems with a bad work platform? Get another job as soon as you can find it.
Set a goal of $150 for 8 hours now. Once you have that you can start paring your shift down to 6 hours, then even less, to achieve it.
Nothing else is coming to mind right now, so if none of those apply, head straight to productivitytalk.com with notepad in hand. There are lots of InstantText gurus sharing away over there.
And once you bump that production up a bit, definitely find someone who'll pay you a higher base rate AND offers a good incentive pay scale. The incentive pay for higher daily production should get you handily to your $150 goal.
Best wishes.
I used to be 235.5 pounds and now weigh 115.5 (sm)
I am in the process of registering with the weight loss registry. I couldn't believe there was one! I did the yo-yo dieting forever. My recommendation to you is to scare yourself into the weight loss. Go get some labs done, etc., and find out how scary some of those numbers are. I personally had a scare, and that's what led to my weight loss. I've kept it off for a year and a half, including through a pregnancy. The weight loss registry has found that those who lose weight and kept it off have been essentially scared into it.
Good luck!
Please be sure and weigh in on the survey, thanks. nm
nm
I weigh 290, am 5ƍ" and totally comfortable...sm
with my body. I've been overweight since I was a child. I've lost the weight several times over the past 30+ years but didn't maintain it long because I do enjoy eating. I work out at the gym 4 times a week. I got married this summer to a wonderful man that loves me for who I am and doesn't care that I'm fat. I have no problems with being naked in front of him. He is about 15 pounds overweight so he's basically at a good weight.
I have yearly physicals done and my labs always look great. I've read many articles/research studies showing that it's actually safer for an overweight person to stay at their weight than to go up and down the scales because yo-yo dieting isn't good on the body. I'm quite content with the way I look. I do anything I want to do. I don't get it while some people think that if you're fat you don't have energy. I have tons of energy - and each time I've lost weight it didn't increase my energy. I basically do whatever I want to do and enjoy life each day.
But labor intensive. They never weigh the
operating costs either against what they are saving. And of course they do not realize that there will always be upgrades down the road to pay for.
I am heavy by society's terms. I weigh
about 210 and am 5'6" tall. Every single female in my family tree for generations had the exact same body habitus. We are all German with big bone structures. I cannot lose weight - period. Been there, tried and done that save for gastric surgery. It is genetic in my case. Seriously, it really can be. I am totally comfortable with my body and how I look - I even love clothes, shoes, jewelry, until....I have to go to the doctors for anything - a hang nail, and its because I'm -- OBESE -- you name it, a cough - its because of that. And THAT makes me MAD! My cholesterol is normal, I don't have high BP and am 50. I am what I am what I am, and am happy with it until the med profession makes me feel like pond scum. All my relatives also lived into their 80s and 90s, the old healthy as a horse body types. I am super strong and in shape. I guess you get the picture. I have no arthritis, either, or any of the normal problems of mid life. I also drink milk - I LOVE MILK. I would probably lose 10 pounds max if I eliminated milk, but then I feel sick and run down. Its been a long time until I did get happy and satisfied with my body structure, but I still honestly hate doctors for their bias. And sometimes it is bias.
I second this; definitely see if you can get an opportunity
to listen to some dictation before you commit a lot of time and resources to it. Not that you should really understand it right off, but I think in people who have "the knack" there's more of an "aha" there than in people who don't.
What do you do when your wrists ache and your hands weigh a ton but you have to keep typing?
I know I have read posts on here before regarding this topic but I can never find them in the archives. Besides a different keyboard, is there something you can take like a vitamin or different foods that will help? I have noticed that if I eat potatoe chips, my hands are stiff the next morning. Is there a certain brace or splint you can buy that you can wear when not working or do you even wear these when working? I thought I saw some magnetic splint somewhere. I am not like this every day, just some of the time but when I am, it is very frustrating.
In adversity there is opportunity . . .
... Good for you that you are going to school and moving on!!! I know it's hard. I worked my fingers to the bone doing transcription all my life. I started when I was 17 years old, and stayed in it for 39 years. I'm 56 now, and barely going to college. It is never too late. In fact, I find that my age is an advantage. Because of my background in the medical transcription field, I find I am ahead of the kids in college, and my life experiences give me an edge. I am one of the few getting A's in most of the classes!!! I am going to go into law, if all things go as planned. I will get a batchelors degree in paralegal science, and then once working in that field, will move on to a law degree. I am determined.
Yes, that is correct. This way, others have an opportunity to
/
great opportunity ?
Not to the people who are laid off because of it. Sending work to India is a "great opportunity" also - eh?
She just wants an opportunity to brag about all the
If the hubs were to walk out on her and leave her with no alimony, no nuthin', I wonder how rah-rah she'd be about having to sell most of what she's got just to keep a roof over her head.
With the time & opportunity to do so, I'd get
I fell into MT as well, and it was a good fit for many years. But things changed in the 1990's, and even at a good-paying in-hospital job, they started treating the MTs like crap. Pay didn't go down, but morale was abysmal. Working at home freed me from management abuse, but now I'm pretty much chained to my PC, as the only way to eke out a living at this profession is to type ALL THE TIME, every day. Even a quick jaunt to the supermarket feels like a 'vacation', these days. And a real vacation? Forgot it. I've been kicking around the idea of learning something else, but I'm now almost 58, and time and money are 2 things in short supply around here.
Doing straight typing, you'll be hard-pressed to find a job that pays more than 8 cpl, 9 if you're lucky. And it's really not enough to live on. (Yes, you currently have a dual income, but you should always factor in that that could possibly change someday. By then it might be too late to get out of MT and start over again.) And American MT jobs seem to be headed in the direction of being solely ESL-and-VR-editing, at a microscopic 3 cpl, which will probably just go lower in the future.
Given a do-over, I'd go to school and learn something that isn't done on a PC, and which is less likely to be sent offshore.
What would you do? I have been given the opportunity to work from home sm
for a start-up company in mass media (please don't ask name of publication since I can't release that yet). I know the owners, husband quit job to pursue this full-time along with a few other people to start this media company. We've been meeting once a week for about 6 weeks. Right now I am part-time. I am doing the editing for this company, a lot of reading and research and today was told, if I decide to work for them frome home, that I could also be the corresponding editor, meaning once their first publication comes out in April, whenever someone has a "letter to the editor," that email would come straight to me, I would either route the mail by importance to the appropriate staff member or answer them myself - it will all be up to me. Basically, I would be an administrator for the company as well as edit articles, speeches, ads, etc. that come in. This job would be multifunctional.
About the pay: We haven't really discussed this yet. The owner gave me a list of salary ranges and I would fall into the editor/administrative salary range which is a little more than what I make right now. Would you make the jump??
I am married and my husband's salary pays most of our bills, but I definitely need to work. I've taken a few days off to meet with this new company and to decide if I should quit MTing/QAing to dedicate my time between work and family with this company. I can't do both. No way! They want to start sending me stuff right now and then I have my company counting on me to QA.
Today was my first day back QAing and I am dreading every single minute of it. I want to edit and email and meet with these people, but I'm hesistant to do so. Not sure how much security is in it. I would hate to quit and then this media company can't get off their feet.
What would you do? Editing/administration is my gift. And I can still work from home. Would you do it? 
MTSOs: Politely declining a job opportunity?
I sent out some flyers and got 2 accounts at roughly the same time. One is wonderful, keeping me busy, and I love, love, love it. The other one negotiated the price down and has not been particularly cooperative. I realized today the latter account hasn't signed the service agreement, and I would just like to tell them properly and politely that it simply isn't working out, but I don't know how to go about it. Has anybody had to do this before? How would you suggest going about it? I don't even know where to begin.
Thanks in advance,
Tonya
Change is hard, it be the worst thing or an opportunity sm
It is all about attitude.
I have done a fair amount of switching in my time. I have one of my IC situations for 3 yrs, the other for 6 months. I am giving up on the 6-month arrangement for a full time, with benefits and using my favorite expander, actual job. This is all just in time for the new year and I am excited about it.
I won't lie to you, a new job with new software, new voices, new management, new people to work with, new specialties...it is stressful and there will be a learning curve. Sometimes the learning curve is too steep, the platform a dinosaur and all the voices seem to speak Greek and not Latin like they are supposed to, and you move on again. I am convinced the right fit exists for each of us.
You also need to know that most of the situations out there currently pay you about 2 weeks after you do the work, they do offer direct deposit and other nice things. Having not had a rubber check in the past 5 yrs, I can tell you it is nice not to worry about that either.
Best of luck to you. You are not alone, come back and tell us how you are getting on.
Finding a legitimate work-at-home opportunity
Finding a legitimate work-at-home opportunity can be very confusing task, but once you get in to the field you feel great by working at the comfort of your home. You may come across many opportunities but you have to very ideal in choosing the best which suits you. In case, if you have always worked for someone else and are depressed with this situation, or if you want to spend more time at home, you may want to consider finding a work at home opportunity that will allow you to earn money but give you the free time you are looking for.
Sticky 'note' ...not stone. All notes have an opportunity to blow away.
Let it go.
Great opportunity now. Work full time, show
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