Can You Afford to Trade Your House Payment for a Political Statement?
I love the internet, but it does bring out the worst in some people. . . Whilst it is wildly liberating to people with limited ability to make connections in real life, the polar opposite is that it enables some real narcissists to run amok, as well. Over the years, I've witnessed friendly message boards that devolve into WW III, personality disintegrations, and scenarios too silly for even the worst soap opera storylines. I always thought it would be fascinating to write a thesis on the social dynamics of an internet message board, but having lived through several doozies, I'm not sure I would have the patience to get that close to the fray again. Sometimes, though, there seems to be no avoiding it. Everyone and his brother has a blog these days, so I figured it shouldn't be too difficult to lie (relatively) low and stay out of trouble. Once in a while, we get an enterprising fanatic who wanders in after googling the 'net for his favorite key words (my fave here was the guy incensed because I dared to suggest we cut doctors a little slack--he apparently lives for malpractice stories and had a blog devoted to them), but for the most part, it's quite a task to get Advance readers to quit sitting on their hands and join in any discussion.
Imagine my surprise, then, when last week's entry inspired at least two people to use my rant against SR as a means to promote their own blogs, as evidenced by the manic self-pimping across MTville. I figure if they really wanted to create a dialogue, they would have posted here--but then in doing so, they don't get that revenue traffic or attention, which I suspect is the real motive. Not that I really care to discuss the failings of SR with people who either have never even worked with it or have tried to actively profit from it. It's hard to take criticism seriously when that's the case. I do resent the implication that I am a moron for speaking out against the technology because I hadn't read up on it (no, the sales pitches are part of the problem). It seems that working with a few thousand other peons being forced into SR lends me no authority with some folks. Granted, I've only seen comments from a fraction of my coworkers, but a statistical sampling doesn't require an entire population to render an accurate result. The fact is that the vast majority of comments I see from MTs themselves are that it doesn't work well and is costing them money--on the order of anywhere from $100 to $300 a paycheck, even after several months.
The real booger, I think, is the condescending contention that MTs who cry about SR are either too lazy or rigid to change with the times or to stand up against employers and refuse to take half wages for something that requires almost as much work as straight transcription. The Airheads are undoubtedly hoping this will bolster their plans to push for credentialing, with a promise that in doing so, it will lend an air of legitimacy to the field (forget that it makes no sense to have to work that hard for a job that pays less than you'd make as barista at Starbuck's). To a myopic MTSO, it may seem it should be a small matter to throw off those shackles and unionize, or at least stage a walk-out in protest, with no grasp of what it really means to rely on that paycheck. We should stand up for ourselves or quit whining, right?
Duhhh. . . then again, you're talking about people (mostly women) who are already living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to just walk. Yes, I have groused about the hobbyists who've helped drive wages down because they're willing to work for "anything" just as long as they can earn a little pin money from home, but I would guess that over half of us are either our families' sole support or very necessary contributors to keep the wolves away. If we do walk, where are we going to go? Every big national is already implementing SR and no one's paying that well anymore. Many of them have been in a holding pattern, if not an outright hiring freeze, for quite some time now. The small-time MTSOs are even losing their grip on clinic accounts these days as the nationals gobble them up. Where are we supposed to go with unemployment in general trending ever upward? Besides, given the failings of AAMT to rally us all, I seriously doubt a union would even work these days. Now more than ever, we're even less than names on a company payroll--we're faceless numbers bobbing out here in cyberspace, most of whom will never even see a coworker in the flesh, let alone our bosses. There's no loyalty to the peons and at 2-7 cents per line, the peons aren't going to go out of their way for a show of solidarity when there's no picket line to be seen crossing. Face it--the pink collar ghetto is the last bastion of the sweatshops and there's no one advocating for us.
So. I've heard enough from salesmen, apologists, company cheerleaders desperate to believe their own hype for the sake of profits, and know-it-alls with zero hands-on experience. Since my own observations don't seem to hold much water with some, I think it would be very useful to get some legitimate feedback from MTs (especially those of you who've been doing this for a while and can compare and contrast) who work with SR and can attest to whether it works or not. Where do you think this is heading? Are you optimistic? Frustrated? Frantically scoping out the room for your own exit? Now's the time to get off your hands and let it fly. No one here even gets any ad revenue if you do, and you just might feel better. At least "whining" anonymously on the interwebs is a way to stand up for yourself without jeopardizing the family farm.