Pay with DICT8 Extra Plus

[Whitestar55]

Hi all, has anyone else started a new thread yet?

I use a foot peddle and headphones and I'm really sick of not even making 10 ph, mostly much less even than minimum wage, as we all know. It's impossible to sit solidly for hours typing away without breaks to increase income too.

........it's actually getting to the point where it's counterproductive for the company as transcribers are being forced to rush through work running the risk of mistakes being made. How do they expect us to check and re-check, listen and re-listen, read and re-read, explain every discrepancy in the notes box etc, as they state in the manual, can they not see that it's becoming less feasible for transcribers and maybe that's why they are having problems recruiting?

Have had more than three feedback letters in last week, absolutely ridiculous comments, words I have been typing for over 20 years in NHS, now all of a sudden they are wrong and moaning about getting hospital numbers wrong, its no wonder if the dictation is so dire!! Just can't be bothered. Let them get new typists and see how long they last!

I'm cracking up, I typed 'peddle' instead of 'pedal', my brain is fried by this job!

@Whitestar55 I used to use a foot pedal when I worked in the hospital. I don't find my typing is slowed by not using one. The natural um's and err's in the dictation take care of that!! I have some days when I do as much as £10-12/hr depending on a task then can drop to £5 to £8/hr ... to my mind it is all to do with the dictation given/complexity of the task. I am so hot I am going to have to take a couple of hours off now.

I am more productive if I "power type" for half an hour at a time (or less). I have found I earn more this way.

Does everyone do this constant rechecking or just type and send ?

I type then check and send and I find doing brief spurts better than sitting for hours battling the terrible dictation!

I'm finding it hard to do it all lately, it's just so boring and low paid, I'm losing the will and my health is suffering.

@Whitestar55 was talking with my GP regarding stress (family issues) and explained about this job. She was quite shocked at the way we are treated and strongly advised me to quit !!! I think when you are at home alone and the abusive emails regarding your work keep coming you tend to accept over a period of time that this is the norm, but when you start talking to people and explain how you are treated for micro-mistakes you do realise you have been practically brainwashed into accepting the treatment meted out by this company without question. I have realised that my confidence has, over the past, been completely shattered by this company (not so much now) and am taking a long hard look at my job life at the moment in order to make some changes.

definitely low paid, lucky if you make minimum wage

@Meha5a - when they inundate you with feedback over a period of time, three times a day, every day for a week it is definitely abuse and cruelty, when you log in your laptop at 8am - there is the feedback telling you what you did wrong - supposedly and so it goes on throughout the day. Until it suddenly stops, as if you are now a good transcriber again. It is a power trip for them the way they pick on people. Hence I am now very picky as to what tasks I do and type more for Tpro. My offence committed for all this negative feedback? I got phoned to ask how much longer it would take me to submit the letter I was typing as the doctor wanted it back urgently. I replied - I am not typing anything currently, I have already submitted the letter. Woman on the phone was not happy as she had not refreshed her screen to see I had completed the task. She got snippy and sent me a week long load of negative feedback on all sorts of imagined wrongs. All beyond my control, and so I was unable to do anything about it. It got to the stage when I was apprehensive about typing anything in case I made a "mistake." So silly as no-one goes from being a good typist with lots of positive to feedback to a poor typist that they needed to whip into shape overnight.

@Meha5a sorry you've been going through stress. It's not so much the feedback that bothers me, it just makes me laugh really, it used to bother me a lot but not now. I've not had much lately anyway, they seem to go through us all in a repeating sequence don't they, with newbies getting priority. It's more the fact that it's so draining and tiring and time consuming, full time work for part time pay over the day basically, and at the moment it's my only job so its getting me down. I am looking for something else though, but don't want to go back in the NHS.

@Gally123 that's not constructive feedback, it's harassment! They're fortunate not to have driven you away altogether.

I read as I go along what I am typing. At the end I do a spellcheck. Then submit.

@ I do that too, any other way is not worth the time. Dict8 suggest more thorough checking, but they can't tell us how to do the work if they want to keep us on SE status.

@Whitestar55 and if I was so bad as a typist why did I have 7 specialties at the time and had also turned down adding another 2 as they kept asking me to add more?

@Gally123 I would take it as a compliment if they keep asking you personally to take more specialities……I have only ever had the generic emails sent to all

@Chrissols - and when I tried to drop specialties to get them down to a more manageable level as you just get all the crap dictations with so many I was asked what would I like instead???

@Gally123 years ago I had a similar experience regarding a task. The feedback was wrong and I told them, and like you I got emails and nasty phone calls and at one point my work was stopped. I still have all the emails sent, as I mentioned before. They crushed me to the point where I didn't have the confidence to actually go out and get a job, and just continued working for them. Like you @Whitestar55 I think I am coming to the end of this job, but do not want to go back in the NHS as I do not agree with any of their policies.

I will never go back and work within the NHS. When I can get out the house, and if I can get another job, I would prefer to apply to the private hospitals just to do Audio work (part-time) ... Overtime on offer/paid holidays/sick pay, etc and a decent wage at the end of the month. Have to take travelling time into that and costs too but I think it would be more helpful than being stuck in home 24/7 - it is not good for mental health nor sociability. Perhaps when my grandchild gets into school?!

I work in a private hospital 3 days a week doing both private and NHS Choose and Book. I really enjoy it. The only problem is that a lot of private hospitals will only take you on as bank which is what I am, but I am contracted for 22.5 hours a week and I do get holiday pay and a pension (nowhere near as good as a NHS pension though) and I am on PAYE. I can do more hours if I need to snd am paf accordingly. Tbh I would prefer to be employed but all the private hospitals I've dealt with seem to do it this way. The pay is not great, only just equivalent to the bottom of a band 4 but it suits me at the moment and it's regular money. I just do Dict8 to supplement it. It definitely beats working in the NHS with all the politics, etc. I pretty much do my own thing and am not usually bothered by management. Just keep looking on Indeed, they usually advertise on there.

To me it's not about the lack of sociability, I just find the job very tiring, probably because I'm more inclined toward practical/technical activities than writing and communication, which I find difficult as it doesn't come naturally, I can't get through interviews where you have to describe situations and your reactions etc, I'd rather draw them a picture or fix something to impress them haha.

I only ever did temp work as a med sec, which I got into because I had a background on the clinical side so could understand the terminology and the hours suited me at the time when my daughter was young. I didn't have a clue about communication as a med sec and I found it stressful answering the phone and organising people and being interrupted all the time, and hated it. I found typing ok, as it's pretty creative, but it soon becomes less so and monotonous and I feel like my brain can only take so much of a verbal bombardment before it shuts down, but somehow I got stuck in a rut, you know how it is. The only job I truly loved was working on a farm after school from the age of 12, where I looked after the chickens and goats and helping with evening milking of the cows. I learned how to milk a goat by hand too, I did this in return for free livery for my pony which I bought off the farmer. I couldn't be involved in livestock farming now though as I get upset when they have to go for slaughter 😥but at the time being less aware as a child I loved it.

I couldn't work for an organisation such as the NHS that is hell bent on cancelling women. Interestingly I read online about a website that has gone up about women's experiences in the NHS and the amount of abuse/harassment etc that goes on !!! Years ago we had one consultant that we made sure we were never left alone with !!!!

I am terrible at interviews and always got jobs via temping !! It's really bad I have even left halfway through interviews, mind you in one they asked that question - where do you see yourself in 5 years (I hate that one) "alive I hope" and then walked straight out the door 😂

@Meha5a oh the amount of times I wish I’d had the courage to do that hahaha….classic 😂😂