The Life Of A Transcriptionist
Apr. 16th, 2008 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmfargoThe life of a transcriptionist is boring, and would probably cause most people to throw their headphones out the window, followed shortly by the computer and monitor. It's tedious, mind-numbing work that people tend to avoid at all costs, so I've found.
I love it.
I get to listen to people complain about the same things, over and over, without stop. I get to a point where I can predict what people are going to say by their first sentence, or tone of voice. I know by the third word out of a person's mouth whether or not they're going to say "thank you" at the end of their 30 seconds of speaking.
But MAN does it suck for telling stories about my "day at the office," especially since I work from home.
I've gotten to the point during work that I can shut off my part of the brain that handles transcription, type it all out perfectly and quickly, while reading my friends list, or comics, or whatever.
I once planned out an entire D&D campaign strictly while working; within the 5 seconds between files I would jot down quick words to remind me of what I had been thinking of while the person on the recording had been talking.
For a while I was the only person doing this job for my company, and it was extremely stressful since there were very strict deadlines that had to be met, or the company would be fined, and I'd get talked to. I was pushing 12 hours daily, 6 days a week, very often 7 days a week for two to three weeks in a row. It was stressful. I started hating my job, forgetting why I liked it, because it was becoming my life. I had nothing else to think about while transcribing things because I didn't have time to do anything else outside of work.
I had to actually start listening to the calls. That sucked.
Now I'm back on a very easy schedule, having a general quota I'm supposed to meet, five days a week. I'm loving, actually loving, the job again. I have weekends free, nights too; something I thought I would never see once I started working nights, but since our volume has increased ten-fold from what it used to be, my boss had to hire more people to help, and I've been able to take my pick of when I wanted to work.
My job is awesome right now. If I ever again start working 12+ hours a day, someone remind me that I need a life outside of work, deal?
That being said, I want to go do something this weekend. Because I can.
I love it.
I get to listen to people complain about the same things, over and over, without stop. I get to a point where I can predict what people are going to say by their first sentence, or tone of voice. I know by the third word out of a person's mouth whether or not they're going to say "thank you" at the end of their 30 seconds of speaking.
But MAN does it suck for telling stories about my "day at the office," especially since I work from home.
I've gotten to the point during work that I can shut off my part of the brain that handles transcription, type it all out perfectly and quickly, while reading my friends list, or comics, or whatever.
I once planned out an entire D&D campaign strictly while working; within the 5 seconds between files I would jot down quick words to remind me of what I had been thinking of while the person on the recording had been talking.
For a while I was the only person doing this job for my company, and it was extremely stressful since there were very strict deadlines that had to be met, or the company would be fined, and I'd get talked to. I was pushing 12 hours daily, 6 days a week, very often 7 days a week for two to three weeks in a row. It was stressful. I started hating my job, forgetting why I liked it, because it was becoming my life. I had nothing else to think about while transcribing things because I didn't have time to do anything else outside of work.
I had to actually start listening to the calls. That sucked.
Now I'm back on a very easy schedule, having a general quota I'm supposed to meet, five days a week. I'm loving, actually loving, the job again. I have weekends free, nights too; something I thought I would never see once I started working nights, but since our volume has increased ten-fold from what it used to be, my boss had to hire more people to help, and I've been able to take my pick of when I wanted to work.
My job is awesome right now. If I ever again start working 12+ hours a day, someone remind me that I need a life outside of work, deal?
That being said, I want to go do something this weekend. Because I can.
