Life is just a B movie
Memory can be a fickle thing--or perhaps it's just the way my particular brain works. I apparently have a knack for picking out minutiae from any situation and applying it to myself. In fact, it often seems to be deliberately set in my path because it's something I need to learn. Case in point: An old song from the early '80s done by poet Gil Scott Heron, called B Movie. Now, I remembered this was political, from the Reagan era, but I didn't remember that it was seriously political the whole way (actually, a very relevant rap even today). What I took from it was one of those life-changing ideas that I actually have a hard time even finding in the spiel now--that life is like a movie script and we're just extras. (Hey, maybe I'm mixing Shakespeare in there!) You don't like the way your story is written? As the author, you have no one to blame but yourself. You cast costars you don't care for, a role or lines you don't like? Then change them!
This has occasionally been a touchstone for me. It took some years to work up my gumption, but I eventually rewrote my script to train for a new career (maybe I should make that "career," now I've found it's really just a job. . .), jettison a lousy marriage, and now to begin to recreate myself and perhaps recapture those lost years and get a do-over. When I became dissatisfied with the direction MT has taken and the feeling that the job security and my ability to support myself with it are crumbling away, I once again hearkened back to that concept and researched where I might take my skills again, to continue my story to the happy ending I desire--that I deserve, even!
I know I've been very vocal about the state of affairs in transcription, the fact that MTs have been badly served by the organization that was supposed to represent us, and you can't go anywhere online in MTville without running smack-dab into people even more angry and frustrated than I am. It is often jokingly said that the reason MTs never succeeded in unionizing is that they're too independent. You get more than a handful in one place and it's like herding cats--i.e. you just can't do it. It's an exercise in futility. At this stage of the game, it's not even worth attempting.
What remains when MTs as a group cannot change our future? We need to do what we've always done--look out for our own interests. Whining, complaining, and threatening to revolt do no good. At a time when veteran MTs are valued at the same substandard wages as rank beginners, employers can just laugh and invite us to be quick about our exit, if that's our wish, because there are misguided people eager to start at any wage to take our place, and clients are quickly learning to accept any quality as long as someone promises a quick turnaround time, so experience isn't even much of a bargaining chip anymore. Hardly a week goes by that I don't see some nitwit declaring they'd be glad to work for FREE, if it would help them get a foot in the door. (Thanks for helping to tamp those wages down, people. . .) So what to do? I know quite a few MTs--many of them veteran and highly respected small service owners themselves--who have stopped to look around, have seen the futility, and are making plans for another chapter in their own lives.
Rather than stand around with fists clenched, a lump in our throats, and a rising panic in our guts, maybe it's time for everyone to take stock of where they stand and where they want to be, whether next year or ten years down the line. Perhaps you're an MT who doesn't mind the spiraling wages or crush to move the work to speech recognition editing. Many of the SAHMs who were lured into MT aren't looking to support their families and just want to make enough for extras, so maybe the crap wages aren't an issue. Otherwise, perhaps there's something healthcare-related that would utilize your MT skills, or perhaps you have a yearning to get into something else altogether or build a hobby that you love into your next career. Surely, there's something that would cast you into a happier role, a starring role, rather than a bit player with the crappy lines.
Change is scary, but it can be revitalizing--and it beats the heck out of sitting there frozen like a deer in the headlights as the future bears down on you.
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol