[Rainbowgirl]

This doesn't really have anything to do with weight loss. In a sense it does because when I start failing at something I get anxious, I start losing my eyebrows (trichotillomania), and I start getting ridiculously hungry for anything/everything. Once, during a stressful part in my job, I gorged on pickles and chick peas because that was about the only thing I had in the house.

But anyway, I work as a medical transcriptionist for a local hospital. I don't mind my work, but I'm certainly not "in love" with it, which caused some strife earlier this month during my yearly evaluation (which was more about interpersonal relationships than actual work) when I told my boss that I wasn't here (at work) to make friends or be part of a team. Now, I know that sounds bad, but for 8 hours each night we're each plugged into our computers with headphones on; I'm not sure how one can be a "teammate" in those conditions. There are no projects to work on, no research to be done. We sit and we type. When someone needs an extra set of ears, you go help them. I mentioned that to the boss, who said "that" was being a teammate, and then continued to mark me down for not being one. But, I digress.

The pay from the hospital is pretty decent, but the cost of living here just outside of Vancouver is high and with my car and a personal loan, credit cards, and phone bill, I've been having to borrow money from the 'rents the past few months (something I hate doing).

So in January, I was at my wit's end and applied for a job with an outsourcing company based here in Canada. On January 28 I was hired, but it took until late March before I finally started working because they were dragging their feet on getting my credentials for this hospital in Toronto. When I finally started with this hospital it was failure after failure. Every report you do for the first little while is sent to your team lead for review. A 98% accuracy is the cut off for a "pass"; 97.9% = fail. I failed every single report I ever did for them. And a lot of it was because I had inadequate training. I tried for 2 weeks to get help from this girl but got no response. I put notes on the reports, e-mailed her, she'd read them and then dock me marks for what I was asking help on.

After 2 weeks, the account manager called to tell me that I'd be out of this gating (where everything is reviewed) process by the end of the week, only to get an e-mail the next day by the team lead (the girl reviewing) that she was unhappy with my work and that if I didn't correct the "critical errors" in the next round of gating (the next time I typed reports), she had no more use for me on the account (not verbatim; paraphrasing).

To say I was upset is an understatement. This company pays really well. Part time work, which equals to 3 hours a day, brings in $900/month.

After a good cry and yelling at my mom over the phone in frustration (not mad at her, just venting), I e-mailed the account manager and said I wanted a new account; that I wasn't even going to bother trying the last round. I signed in to the system and noticed that the very first report I had was a report that needed to be sent to the ER, and that I had consistently failed reports because I could not figure out how to do it. So, I knew right then and there I'd fail.

After a few weeks, they moved me to another Toronto hospital. The lead there gave me at least 20 documents of training manuals (compared to the fewer documents and the training manual consisting of only 15 pages). We had our training session on Wednesday.

I worked Thursday for them and failed all 13 reports I sent out. She marked down my neglect to put in "Dear Dr." and "Yours sincerely" as "critical errors" (critical errors being anything that affects patient care) so I was frustrated. I began thinking that if I'm always failing this stuff, maybe it's me that sucks and not them!

Regardless, even if I fail I was still making money so I plugged on. I did my quota last night, and halfway through I realized that I didn't select the correct encounters for the patient visit (major critical error). I e-mailed the woman, fully expecting to fail those reports and the rest.

This morning, I get an e-mail from her saying that my "work is good" and that I'm out of the gating process. I can type as required, but that any reports/work types I'm not familiar with or anything I'm not sure of, is to be sent for review. I still get my training bonus for the next 6 weeks, too, which is a huge help.

Basically - I'm flying high right not because by this time next month, I'll have $900 extra cash to pay off my credit card bills and not worry about borrowing from my cash-strapped parents!

[aimeebell]

It has a little to do with weight loss because sitting on your behind transcribing all day makes it more difficult to lose! LOL I know because I am a transcriptionist too. I went to school and got my associate degree in it. What a waste. I don't make enough money and I am bored out of my mind! I want to work in a hospital with people and benefits, but there aren't many opportunities in that area. I work from home contracting work from an outsourcing company and do reports for two major hospitals with many, many different dictators, few "normals", spotty work flow, and low ppl. The only good part is that I have done work for them for almost two years now and know the accounts well, so I have very little direction from management, and I like it that way.

There isn't much team work in transcribing. I remember when I toured a hospital transcription department, the manager said there is very little socializing, "nobody wants to stand at the water cooler and talk about your kids", everyone wants to pump those lines out and go home! So I am surprised your manager would lower your scores for that. That is the nature of the work.

[ANOther]

They call it a "critical error" if you don't say "Dear Dr." and "Sincerely"??? Nitpicky much???

[Rainbowgirl]

Originally Posted by aimeebell

It has a little to do with weight loss because sitting on your behind transcribing all day makes it more difficult to lose! LOL I know because I am a transcriptionist too. I went to school and got my associate degree in it. What a waste. I don't make enough money and I am bored out of my mind! I want to work in a hospital with people and benefits, but there aren't many opportunities in that area. I work from home contracting work from an outsourcing company and do reports for two major hospitals with many, many different dictators, few "normals", spotty work flow, and low ppl. The only good part is that I have done work for them for almost two years now and know the accounts well, so I have very little direction from management, and I like it that way.

There isn't much team work in transcribing. I remember when I toured a hospital transcription department, the manager said there is very little socializing, "nobody wants to stand at the water cooler and talk about your kids", everyone wants to pump those lines out and go home! So I am surprised your manager would lower your scores for that. That is the nature of the work.

It is funny that the manager would mark me down regarding the team member stuff. She also pointed out that I don't make sample reports, or do research on lingo to help the other girls and my only response was "it's not my job" (which, I can tell you, went over like a lead balloon). It's funny too because she's the same woman who, when I first got hired there 5 years ago, told me not to bother trying to organize a Secret Santa or a Christmas party because "we don't do stuff like that here. We don't come to work to worry about stuff like that."

I've also brought in cookies, donuts, candies, cupcakes, etc. throughout the years for everyone and 9 times out of 10 they go uneaten. So, it's not exactly like I haven't tried to do the whole team spirit thing, it just doesn't go over well. I'm not without my faults, I spend far too long on the internet and I know that. In fact, she had received "many" e-mails from other girls complaining about it (which really annoyed me. I really hate tattlers because it's childish) and since then I have been actively working on improving my concentration. I have issues with focus throughout my life; both at work and at home. But since then, I have not made less than 90 minutes/night; going as high as 120 minutes a few times. Our quota for the day there is 80 minutes/night.

She also made note that when her and I shared a desk, I didn't keep it as tidy/clean as she liked. The last time we shared a desk was almost 3 years ago and since then, my desk has been pretty clean (no food/garbage left on it, dusted every week, etc). She said if she could give me a score lower than 1 (the lowest) in regards to a clean desk, she would. Which really irked me. I ended up taking all of my stuff home that night (my cork board that I bought that had some important personal mementos on it, 2 small little Super Mario figurines, my tea cup that held my pens, and a sign that said something about it not being a good day and to take a number, with a picture of a grenade and a number tag attached lol). The coworker I now share a desk with (who is a friend outside of work) almost had a heart attack thinking I had quit (or been fired). When she asked the manager what was up, all the manager said was "her review did not go very well."

I didn't go into this job wanting a team environment. I went in because it was the only thing I could do at home at the time after high school while working for my mom's in-house day care and taking care of 99% of the other house hold duties upstairs including making dad's lunch, making sister's lunch, preparing dinner, doing the laundry, and general cleaning. This job doesn't require you to talk to anyone unless you absolutely have to. It doesn't require that you "work together" on something because it's all individualized work. So, the whole issue of being on a team really just doesn't fit here.

The company I work for now (the one that this thread is about re: not being in training anymore) has me just at the one hospital but there are many, many doctors that work out of it in just about every imaginable discipline. The hospital I work at in house is very much the same; everything from emergency to palliative care, nuclear medicine, cardiology, etc.

The management so far in the past has been a lot of "we don't just want quantity, we want quality too" but then god help you if you don't consistently make that 80 minute/night quota. This manager tried to say that she really wants quality more so than quantity, but she's new to the position so I'll give her another 6 months before she starts demanding both. I'm not sure if it's just because she's stressed or because the dynamic of the relationship has changed, but since she became the manager, she's not the same. Or rarely the same.

Some people have told me that the best choice for me would be to work from home, and sometimes I really wish I could. But I know me, I'm distracted enough in the office, sitting at home for 8 hours a day would be impossible. I would get no work done! There would always be something more pressing that needed to be done. Plus, I do like the socialization at work so staying home would end up making me go stir crazy!

And ANother, this hospital does apparently! The hospital I work for in house doesn't; in fact, even if the doctors dictated "Dear Dr" and "Yours sincerely", if we put it in we are docked marks if that report makes it into our quarterly reviews. Some hospitals can be VERY nitpicky, and the interpretations of the American Association of Medical Transcriptionists Book of Style can be even more nitpicky. Where I am now in house, you're not allowed to use "cc" (ex: 10 cc of epinephrine) even if dictated, it must be changed to mL, even though both are acceptable in the AAMT BOS.

I applied for another job in the hospital, as a program clerk, and while I have been approved for an interview next week, I'm doubtful I'll get the job because I lack the program clerk course. And if I do get the job, I'm scared that I won't succeed at it and I won't be able to go back to my transcription job (it's highly unlikely I would be re-hired. There have been a few too many issues in the past 5 years; some of them entirely my fault, some of them b/c I'm a bit of an easy target; too friendly).

Life sucks; why couldn't I have been born a millionaire?