I've posted something similar before. It's no news to anyone who knows me this is MAJOR pet peeve of mine. I'm not alone. Any MT worth her/his salt is going to be annoyed no end by this practice.

I'm not looking for solutions - only my employer can come up with the solution. I'm not looking for sympathy - I can either put up or shut up - or go find some place else to work.

My purpose is to educate - and maybe shame a few of you out there into stopping this obnoxious behavior. My guess is that there are 16,000 members here, thousands of hits a day - I guarantee you - someone reading this is guilty.

I work on an account with a significant number of ESLs. In all reality, a good portion of them really are not all that bad - they just take time to get used to. The silver linings on this account have always been that it never runs out of work and there are a few job types/dictators that you can breeze through that make up for the rougher ones.

Lately this account has gone to hell in a handbasket. It is constantly behind. And every time I try to get in there to work - I'm playing clean-up for the lazy slobs who cannot and will not take the time to slow down and learn how to deal with the difficult dictators. Why should they when there are bonuses to be obtained by doing extra lines and plenty of easy work they can get to when they skip over the harder stuff and no one ever punishes them for it?

Since I started work at 10:00 a.m. I have done nothing but consults from Friday. When I called about the old work - I was told that work that has a longer TAT and comes up after consults in the pooling was current. Just so happens this particular work type is always dictated by the easier dicators, has tons of canned text in it, and pops those line counts up quite quickly. The person I spoke to admitted to people throwing work back on purpose.

Hello, you cherry-picking, lazy, worthless piece of crap. Enjoy your bonus dollars while you can - but it won't be for long.

The hospital is bitterly complaining about the TAT. I don't blame them. The company is begging for extra help. What they fail to realize is that when someone like me (because I'm surely not the only one playing clean up here) goes in to that account and is handed one difficult report after another - I do not have it in me to push any more after getting my required line count for the day and perhaps an extra 100 or 200 lines --- certainly not anything that's going to make a significant dent in this mounting pile of work.

So............when the account goes bye-bye - you'll move along and find some other account to cherry pick off, I'm sure. But realize that what goes around comes around in this world.

They'll be a day when you are counting on an account to put food on your table - and some a$$hole like yourself will come along and screw you over the way you're screwing me and other hard-working MTs over.

Your day will come.

The person I spoke to also admitted that the people doing this were new people. Didn't quantify whether they were just new to the company or new MTs. Probably a combination of both.

But..........when I scream about the need for a decent education and when I don't have the patience for people who feel they can get around it and then get mad when they're not given a chance...........THIS is why. Maybe you think you wouldn't do it. But maybe when you're trying to get your own line counts up or you're afraid you'll be out of there -- or maybe when you don't want to admit you can't handle the work and you have to send report after report to QA -- or maybe when you actually have to stop, take the time to ask for a sample to be faxed to you and slow down to get this ESL -- you just might.

Just remember SOMEONE out there has to the work you are too lazy or too stupid to do. That someone is going to be me, or Jane, or Mary, or Barbara.....but SOMEONE is going to have to do it. One day - it might even be you. We may not work in an office side-by-side - but we're your co-workers all the same.

Think about what you're doing before you send that report and the next report and the one after that and the one after that back.

If you wish to pick and choose your work - go get your own accounts.

And yes indeedy - my employer is in great part responsible for allowing this to continue. I won't put up with it for long if it does continue and after my saying something doesn't make a difference.

I'll let the $30,000 slap in the face slide - but I won't let my income slide because they refuse to do anything about a$$holes they hire.

Don't even think about defending these people - anyone - it won't be pretty if you do - because there is no defense - NONE.

If anyone made it all the way through - I'm done.

Annie, I wish you could see me because I am standing up applauding! I felt the same way Friday a week ago when one after another excruciatingly long, boring stat DS kept coming my way, nonstop ALL day. As soon as I hit my line count I was outta there.

This issue came up with my branch office once before and I remember our mgr firing off a not-too-gentle message that if you ditch reports, they will hunt you down. But how well can they enforce that, really??

I hope you feel a little better, as you opened up a world-class can of whoop-a$$ on some people who, I'm sure, must know who they are!

Very well said!!!!!

If the MTSO's take the time, I really believe that some companies do have the capability to track the transcriptionists as to what reports they are taking and in what order in more or less "real time" (I know not all do, but at least some could effect this). I think a fair punishment would be to be temporarily suspended from the accounts or from work for a period of time, say 1 day.

In the same vein, and this isn't cherry picking but somewhat along the same lines, I found it frustrating when doing QA when transcriptionists would tackle the difficult dictator and then pass it on to QA looking like Swiss cheese (sometimes with 8-10 blanks in a half-page report). THAT burns my you-know-what too. Sometimes the answers would be found in the doc's many samples we'd provide if THEY'D ONLY ASK FOR THEM. I guess they'd at least try, but I'm really not sure how much they learned if they ran through it and didn't put in the bit of extra effort required to actually LEARN.

BTW, it's cherry season here, and for a millisecond, I thought of that when I saw your subject line. YUM!

JG

All of us can handle one or two bad files per shift and still maintain reasonable production. But what happens when that is ALL you get for your ENTIRE shift? Is it fair that Annie (you're a good example ) essentially takes a cut in pay for the day because she is forced into these terrible reports, one after another, for an entire shift...don't forget that the new MT (or new-to-the-company MT) that lacks experience (or didn't want to invest in a solid education, or is lazy, or whatever...) is maintaining his/her production at the same time.

I don't mind carrying the load, doing extra QA, supplying additional support, etc. for an MT new on an account, but there is a huge difference between getting help and being a parasite of the system. Cherrypickers are parasites, IMO!

We luck out because we are a smaller service, and the first time an MT, without authorization, goes into another MT's worktype to grab the easy work, they are gone. No questions. On the other hand, no one MT is expected to deal with all the rotten docs either.

Still feeling for ya down in Texas, Annie!

Darn typo!

[ 06-09-2003: Message edited by: straws ]

As you know, I recently got a job with a company willing to let me learn MR dictation. It has been slow-going; sometimes I'm lucky to do 600 lines a day with the minimum requirement being 1,100. And, this company is wonderful because they know they hired me to do ER (my area of expertise) which did not pan out due to technical problems. For someone like me who is struggling to do a good job in an area of transcription I've not done in over 20 years, the only thing left to do is plow through those in order to get to the next report in the queue. Then, in the morning, I send an email asking for the corrected sample so I can keep them close by to refer to, and it does get easier.

I completely agree; there is absolutely no excuse for this sort of behavior. When it compromises my ability to earn money and do a good job, I am beyond pissed off about it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And not for the reason you think.

You have just provided us with a critical piece of data -- apparently MTchat.com has at least twice the membership of AAMT. An important consideration to those who care.

quote:

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I really believe that some companies do have the capability to track the transcriptionists as to what reports they are taking and in what order

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They can track, janie. You're absolutely correct. The problem is enforcing any kind of punishment for it. Even if it's just a phone call from the TC saying "we know what you're doing and you are to stop or else.." We've had this problem in the past and when I scream loud enough it stops - for a while. I'll take the "while" for now - and then won't let it go for weeks again like I did this time.

As for the QA issue - I'll tell ya - from my POV - when I've gotten to Dr. Mumbles for the 20th time in a day and I've had it with trying to figure out what the hell he's saying - I do then just get through it and get it out of the system. We're not supposed to put personal commentary on our notes to QA but man...would I love to say "this is the 20th dictation of his that was thrown back for the past 3 days by who knows how many other MTs before me...be thankful you're only getting 1" I know - shitty attitude - and generally not the way I handle things - but this is just one more repercussion of cherry pickers. I will say that QA in the office I work for is excellent and absolutely will fax samples immediately if need be or get them in the mail and bend over backwards to help someone get through that rough dictator.

Yep, Julie and straws - I do indeed feel better.

Kudos to you, Jackie - and I'm not surprised one bit by the effort you put in to getting through and becoming a better MT.

Any time, George...any time.

[ 06-09-2003: Message edited by: Annie ]

BTW...LOL...hell in a hand basket...I always thought it was hell in a ham basket...LOL...
what does it mean anyway?

Nel

About the cherrypicking...if anyone could ever permanently put an end to it, they'd deserve the Nobel prize.

mavis

The person responsible, so many, many years ago, is still looking for that cushy job. Me? Never found it. Found something else, work harder, reap more rewards, though.

What comes around, goes around. The shame is how friggin' long it takes.

DEFINITELY a major sore spot with me.

Kelly

[ 06-09-2003: Message edited by: AnnR ]

The situation improved. By that time I was able to handle that doctor's reports so fast that it wasn't much of a problem for me. It was the principle of the thing though. I didn't want to be forced to do any reports just because other people didn't want to do them.

I want to make sure that my students are aware that cherrypicking is unacceptable behavior. I'm off to tell them!

In my own business, same thing - there's no such thing as cherry picking when all the accounts are yours. You have to sit down and transcribe the whole tape. On the plus side, you can pick and choose your clients a little bit better and you have more control to talk to them about improvements. And I've let go a couple - mostly because they refused to work with me than that I just couldn't/wouldn't do the dictation. (I have a thing about doctors who tell me to live with it - they get told to find someone else who will live with it because I don't have to!)

As a manager, I have "cherry picked" - it was just impossible to get the work done and stay in TAT otherwise. But I fought to get higher pay for the MTs who could do any dictation and got stuck with the worst. They also got priority when volume was low and nobody who had to have their work "cherry picked" for them was eligible for volume incentive pay. I have never thought it was fair to pay incentive to people whose work goes to QA 50% of the time, or who cherry pick so their volume is high.

On a more positive note, we have the ability to see an MT's number if he/she tried to do a report and threw it back or signed off of it. I report every single MT to the supervisor who does this.