Whenever I have had someone not get something completed,
such as a study assignment, an article with a deadline for a newsletter, or any
task that might have a specific time frame, I don’t like to hear the job or goal
was not accomplished because “life got in the way.” Life does not get in my way—it is my way. Of course, there are things in our lives that
keep us very busy, oftentimes having more to do than it would seem there is
time in the day. When that happens, then
you do have to prioritize, as there are always things that can be put on the
back burner for a later time. So I’m not
going to use that excuse for my allowing more than a month go by without adding
to my blog. I love to write, but there
are times when I don’t make it a priority, or I simply put it down towards the
bottom of my “to do” list. And, yes, I
will also confess that a little bit of procrastination must also be added to
the mix.
So as I was discussing way back in March, I took a job with
a small national MT service, and once the word got out I was hired, one of the
largest companies, Medquist, decided to buy this small MTSO because they did
not want to lose out on my skills! Yeah,
we know it did not really happen that way, but I did become an IC for Medquist
literally before I transcribed one single line. They would still be using the platform used by
the smaller company, so I had to fly into Dayton, Ohio, to get some training,
which was a great trip, because I was being trained by my good friend Sandy,
and after that, we headed to Columbus to meet up with other MT friends, a
picture of which still sits on my desk.
They provided me with a computer because it was specific to
their platform, which was WordPerfect DOS, if you can believe that. They kept saying they would be changing that
over, but it never happened while I was there.
I still had my small service, so there I was working with 2 computers in
my office—one for Medquist and one for my local clients.
I will tell you if you think you can stay away from
transcribing for any length of time and jump right back into it, more than
likely that will not happen. I had been
transcribing chart notes, some operative reports, CT scans, things like that,
over the last several years, but only in a few specialties. It had been probably about 5 years since I
had transcribed acute care dictation of discharge summaries, H&Ps, and so
on. They did take me off QA after the
first week, because I did clearly show I had the skill set and good quality of
content. What slowed me down was the
researching time, since I was hearing new medications, new terms, new voices,
even new formats and account specifics.
I worked on 3 different accounts, and all 3 had different formatting
rules. It took me about 3 months to get
up to speed, which was a surprise to me, but it did make me realize your skills
can get rusty in short order.
Students have told me over the years, at least once in a
while, that they thought I was being too picky or even unfair when taking off
points on a test for not following directions.
I am so happy that I had the experience of working for a large national
company, because I learned firsthand about the importance of following details,
even if I did not agree with them. One
account required only 1 space after a heading with a colon. I was in the habit of using 2 spaces, in
fact, would hit that space bar twice without giving it a thought. I was told 3 times about that error, and on
the third mention, my boss was not pleased with my refusal to follow that
particular guideline. I actually wrote a
note and pinned it to my desk in big letters about that one space for that
particular account so I would not forget.
I’m glad I went through that incident, because it definitely came in
very handy to use that situation when dealing with a student who felt those
types of details were nonsense.
Employers and/or clients can be picky to a point of being almost
ridiculous, but it is not up to us to make those types of decisions unless we
are given that option.
I worked at the national level from July 1998 to January of
2000. It was a good experience, and I
feel it was a huge help when I found myself heading into a new area of my
profession, that of teaching. Now that is something I never dreamed I would do
or could do. I had a good friend, in
fact my best friend, who saw something in me I could not see. Sometimes it is better to listen to someone
else and not your own voice. It can lead
to amazing things, which I will get into next time.
