Mr. Joseph works in a medical transcription company. Once this company used to give a big advertisement of half page in The Sunday Statesman. It was really a costly advertisement. It carried comments from the company employees. He saw such big advertisements when he was about to join its training. An advertisement was also given regularly at Times of India. At the time of training, the fee was Rs. 20,000. It was a 6 month training. He joined the training. The company was giving training on medicine, American English, and medical transcription rules. The book was given. We used to take down dictation of American doctors.
We used to do dead job files at the end! My father used to joke, “why they are calling it dead job?” But they are such mindless people. Our training was good. At the end of the training, he got the job. At first, he joined as a training transcriptionist for 3 months. After 3 months, he became permanent.
He used to get the following job facilities from the company:
1. Night shift allowance.
2. Attendance bonus. A person present on all the days in a month gets an incentive of Rs. 1000. If he remains absent for 1 day, then he gets Rs. 500 and for a 2-days absentee, he is not given any incentive. In my case, he used to get regularly the incentive of attendance.
3. Free canteen facility. The company used to provide food in the morning, evening, and night shifts free of cost.
He was doing the job and an inclement was awarded, which was Rs. 400. He was doing his shifts dutifully. All was going well. But the salary was not enough for him. Then a day came when the company decided to start a Variable Pay Scheme. The scheme was meant for those who has good accuracy and can score a good line count will get good salary, otherwise the salary will be a peanut for him.
Where is the difficulty here??
1. The difficulty is that in America, people from all countries come here and become doctor. Each of them has his own typical accent.
2. A person’s accent is much influenced by mother tongue.
3. It is also influenced by educational background.
4. The pain of the transcriptionist, rather the difficulty lies when he types wrong words …….. say homonyms, then it becomes difficult for the editor to edit. The file takes much time to edit causing him/her to become very angry over the transcriptionist!!
He was doing his job. But he was put under a variable pay scheme. So he was working dutifully. A time came when the company decided to stop the canteen facilities from December. His company also decided to give canteen foods after payment of each meal. So some worker took tiffin for breakfast, some went out to have their breakfast. Some took their breakfast at home.
In the meantime, in the fear of variable pay scheme, some employee feared that their salary will be drastically cut down. So they decided to leave the company. As a result, a large number of editors, senior editors left the company. The young skilled people were given the responsibility of editing. So in this way, the company was trying to cope up with the loss.
Often Mr. Joseph faced the problem of late salary. He often got salary on 10th of the month. He was surprised and asked the managers. The managers said that it was a fund shortage. They stated, “It is due to problem of cash flow!” Once he was given salary in 2 halves, the first half say on one day and another half the next day. It was all a matter of cash flow deficit.
One day a person from the administration came and gave him and his friends a sheet of paper where the name, address, and contact numbers are listed. It is like a form. There are 12 blanks. The transcriptionist will be given Rs. 1000 if he or she can refer to someone and the person gets passed in the admission test in the training. The editors will be given Rs. 2000.
He was thinking about his company and his future one night after returning from work. He took his notepad and wrote a poem like this:
From giant to church house
We all go to a house
Where supervisors are spy
We don’t know why
The receptionist tells all lie
We still don’t know why
The experienced MTs and editors fly
To greener pasture
For an increase in pay
This is what they want to say
For greater perks
They do not get in the present one and often barks!!
You work and work and work
In the afternoon shift
There is no food to make your energy lift
You go out to have tiffin
With a pain so acute and gripping
With the supervisors screaming and whipping
“Slog! Slog!”
Just like a dog
In the fog (an illusion)
That you will get more
More and more of everything!
One manager assured, “We are expanding!”
We have no ties
With clients saying us “Hi!!”
Some quite are quite difficult
Really burning our ears
We often take the help of peers
In an atmosphere
Which is hot and humid
At night
We fight
With the American accent
To earn a wage quite decent!!]
I call it a wage…
As we have become a sage
Typing page after page
To improve the company’s image
To produce more lines
We create storm in keyboard!
Straining our motherboard (brain)!!!
A transcriptionist like me often wants to share
His thoughts with his friend
He often sends nice messages
In orkut
To people of all ages
Whether it is young, old, married, or bachelor..
Communication is not allowed in his office
There are a lot of spies
They have created software
To make them aware
What sites their employees visit.
The employees often do orkuting
When their supervisors and managers sleep at night
When they are caught, a hard battle is fought.
What the management has to say
“We will suspend!!”
But if they suspend,
They will lose the transcriptionist they badly depend!!
So it all goes on secretly
The people do not care about spying
They resort to lying.