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More Adventures in Transcription Editing
Sep. 28th, 2007 06:16 pmSo before I bid you all adieu for the weekend, I thought I'd offer this little update on my raise situation, along with a bonus quiz!
I asked Shannon (casually, so as not to create animosity this early in our burgeoning relationship) where we stood with my raise. She asked me when it was approved, because all raises had been "placed on hold" since June. I got the word from Felicia that I had passed my review on June 30, so I guess that hold applies to me. Unless you consider that I had to pester her for a couple of weeks before getting that far, and indeed might have asked sooner if I had noticed before then that it was getting to be that time again. I had been turned down the previous year on the basis of failing my review (just barely), making it now 2 years since my last raise.
I think I have reason to be angry. Is it fair that I had missed this narrow window (that I didn't even know existed) because my supervisor had her head up her ass and didn't care about doing her job properly? I don't feel that it is. And intended to say as much after giving Shannon a fair chance to do right by me.
But here's the thing: I started doing the speech recognition reports today, and they're nothing like what I expected. I assumed I'd be listening to a doctor and repeating his words into recognition software on my computer, but of course that's silly. Instead some of the doctors have been (unknowingly) switched to ASR and I get the reports to proofread and edit, giving me a dual job title of Medical Editor. I LOVE this work. It's what I was born to do. As an English major, spelling errors are already highlighted in flashing red in my brain anyway, and I've often wished for a giant pencil that would let me edit the world. Consequently I breeze through these reports quickly and effortlessly, which enabled me today to finish right around my usual line count, and I could conceivably get much higher as I get more proficient with the editing techniques (they've sort of anticipated that though; after a 60-day break-in period, ASR reports will pay 30% less than typed ones, taking into account at least a 30% increase in productivity). Today I had so many ASR reports that the few times I DID have to stop and type were a stone drag.
So here we go, poll time:
[Poll #1062956]
Just a quick word about the ASR training while I'm here -- I'm pretty isolated working from home, so it's always kind of a surprise to me when I realize what idiots some of my co-workers are. The training was a combination conference call and online virtual classroom. It was me and 6 other girls. One of the girls admitted right off the bat that she wasn't terribly computer-literate (how/why did she get a job telecommuting then??), and by about halfway through was floundering so hopelessly she sounded on the verge of tears. The bulk of the course was teaching us keyboard commands to move around text quickly, highlight, copy and paste it, plus the crucial application of tags to hide misrecognized or stammered phrases. The instructor whipped through these pretty rapidly, and I had asked early on if we could continue using our mouse until we picked the many commands up. The answer was yes. Then at the end of the course, one of the girls said, "I feel a little overwhelmed by all these commands. Is it okay if I use my mouse at first?" Umm, is it okay if you paid attention to other people's questions to avoid asking the same ones? I rolled my eyes but the instructor had infinite patience and acted like it was a brand new question.
Then after covering the basics she was trying to move us along to more advanced material. In her haste, she used some keyboard commands too sloppily and left a period in the middle of a phrase where it obviously didn't belong. I kept silent, but I knew, I just KNEW someone was going to mention it. Sure enough, after we had gotten two paragraphs down, someone interrupted, "I'm sorry. Is there a reason you left that period in that sentence up there?" The reason is of course that we weren't there to learn basic punctuation, but again the instructor was ever patient and professional. "Ahaha, you're a natural editor!" she gushed. It seems to me the more valuable editing skill is knowing what's important and germane to the task at hand.
Not to mention throughout the entire 2-1/2 hour course, every time the instructor would stop and ask if we were clear or had any questions, no one else made a peep, so I ended up speaking for the entire class (because if I were the instructor, that would drive me crazy).
Yes, I'm being very harsh. But I just assume everyone doing this job is at least as smart as me.
Adieu!
I asked Shannon (casually, so as not to create animosity this early in our burgeoning relationship) where we stood with my raise. She asked me when it was approved, because all raises had been "placed on hold" since June. I got the word from Felicia that I had passed my review on June 30, so I guess that hold applies to me. Unless you consider that I had to pester her for a couple of weeks before getting that far, and indeed might have asked sooner if I had noticed before then that it was getting to be that time again. I had been turned down the previous year on the basis of failing my review (just barely), making it now 2 years since my last raise.
I think I have reason to be angry. Is it fair that I had missed this narrow window (that I didn't even know existed) because my supervisor had her head up her ass and didn't care about doing her job properly? I don't feel that it is. And intended to say as much after giving Shannon a fair chance to do right by me.
But here's the thing: I started doing the speech recognition reports today, and they're nothing like what I expected. I assumed I'd be listening to a doctor and repeating his words into recognition software on my computer, but of course that's silly. Instead some of the doctors have been (unknowingly) switched to ASR and I get the reports to proofread and edit, giving me a dual job title of Medical Editor. I LOVE this work. It's what I was born to do. As an English major, spelling errors are already highlighted in flashing red in my brain anyway, and I've often wished for a giant pencil that would let me edit the world. Consequently I breeze through these reports quickly and effortlessly, which enabled me today to finish right around my usual line count, and I could conceivably get much higher as I get more proficient with the editing techniques (they've sort of anticipated that though; after a 60-day break-in period, ASR reports will pay 30% less than typed ones, taking into account at least a 30% increase in productivity). Today I had so many ASR reports that the few times I DID have to stop and type were a stone drag.
So here we go, poll time:
[Poll #1062956]
Just a quick word about the ASR training while I'm here -- I'm pretty isolated working from home, so it's always kind of a surprise to me when I realize what idiots some of my co-workers are. The training was a combination conference call and online virtual classroom. It was me and 6 other girls. One of the girls admitted right off the bat that she wasn't terribly computer-literate (how/why did she get a job telecommuting then??), and by about halfway through was floundering so hopelessly she sounded on the verge of tears. The bulk of the course was teaching us keyboard commands to move around text quickly, highlight, copy and paste it, plus the crucial application of tags to hide misrecognized or stammered phrases. The instructor whipped through these pretty rapidly, and I had asked early on if we could continue using our mouse until we picked the many commands up. The answer was yes. Then at the end of the course, one of the girls said, "I feel a little overwhelmed by all these commands. Is it okay if I use my mouse at first?" Umm, is it okay if you paid attention to other people's questions to avoid asking the same ones? I rolled my eyes but the instructor had infinite patience and acted like it was a brand new question.
Then after covering the basics she was trying to move us along to more advanced material. In her haste, she used some keyboard commands too sloppily and left a period in the middle of a phrase where it obviously didn't belong. I kept silent, but I knew, I just KNEW someone was going to mention it. Sure enough, after we had gotten two paragraphs down, someone interrupted, "I'm sorry. Is there a reason you left that period in that sentence up there?" The reason is of course that we weren't there to learn basic punctuation, but again the instructor was ever patient and professional. "Ahaha, you're a natural editor!" she gushed. It seems to me the more valuable editing skill is knowing what's important and germane to the task at hand.
Not to mention throughout the entire 2-1/2 hour course, every time the instructor would stop and ask if we were clear or had any questions, no one else made a peep, so I ended up speaking for the entire class (because if I were the instructor, that would drive me crazy).
Yes, I'm being very harsh. But I just assume everyone doing this job is at least as smart as me.
Adieu!
