Progressive Clots of the Disk Space

...should have been, "...progressive collapse of the disk space." Sigh. Sometimes I can't believe the feedback I see from my QA team. And then I think about how lucky I am.

I used to work for an MTSO where 90% of the workforce was in India. I won't mention any names (coughCBcough), but most days working as an editor were pure hell. Seriously. My husband stopped laughing at my shrieking and screaming and pulling my hair out for 8 hours a day when my blood pressure went way too far above VERY BAD. Day after day after day, our QA feedback fell upon deaf ears. It's not even that I had that big of a problem with offshoring at that time--it was more the frustration of hearing "okay, okay, thanksverymuch, we won't do it again," and there it was, again, and again, and again, the same idiotic errors. The funny thing was that those MTs were actually financially penalized for critical errors, sometimes not even getting paid for an entire document if it was really bad. No, that's not exactly funny, but being hit in the pocketbook didn't even seem to phase them. They just kept cranking out mistakes, much worse than clots of the disk space, and really didn't seem to care.

Gives me tachycardia just thinking about it. Shudder. Gee, I love our MTs.

What a long, strange trip it's been

It is our 22nd wedding anniversary tomorrow, so after work, we are getting on our bikes (mine is just like this one, but red) and riding to Oceanside for dinner at Roseanna's Cafe. The weather is supposed to be absolutely perfect, 70 with a breeze. It'll be hard to think about work tomorrow!

Batteries for labor and delivery

Blooper seen in a document today:

The patient was having A cells and D cells.

I've been contemplating lately what it is that makes an MT want to guess and leave complete nonsense in a report rather than leaving a blank. What's the psychology behind this? I remember how stupid I felt as a newbie, not knowing something I should have known. Back when I started in the Cavewoman Days, though, there was no such thing as QA for the 10-MT service I worked with, at least in the beginning. So maybe I felt like no one was going to see it anyway--no big whoop, right? They definitely would see big holes in the reports! Just fill it in and no one will be the wiser! I don't think patient care was on my mind. After spending 10 years as an LVN, I should have known better. I would never have guessed at a medication dosage at a patient's bedside or "guesstimate" what time I last changed his IV bag.

During the time I worked for this MTSO, the owner had a friend who was in court reporting and wanted to work in transcription, so she asked me to teach her friend MT through our local business college. Over the course of a summer, I gave her a crash course in MT, using an HPI quick-learn program available at that time. Thankfully she was very bright and learned quickly. But the day I learned this court reporter turned MT (thanks to me!) was going to be QA'ing MY work (mine!! the EXPERT!! the DIVA of transcription!), AND I still was not going to get a raise after 3 years, I quit.

This pseudo-QA person (I really did have a 'tude) took it upon herself to print out my work and highlight errors, then tucked the printed reports into the Ziploc bag that held my daily tapes. (We used to pick these up at a PO box, take them home and transcribe, then return them the next day for more.) I was way too full of myself to even look at her corrections.

At least I don't guess anymore.

Tacos de pescado

We had the best thing for dinner--fish tacos. They reminded me of when we lived in SoCal and used to go down to Rosarito Beach for 50-cent margaritas. These are so easy. Get those frozen beer batter fish fillet thingies, and while those are cooking, finely shred some cabbage and toss with a little lime juice, salt and sugar. Mix a little mayo with some lime juice and a bit of salsa verde. Heat up some corn tortillas and slap them all together. I think my husband ate about 6 of them.

Save a quarter of lime for your Tecate and get out the Trio Los Panchos CD. Ay ay ay!

Newport, Oregon, and OAMT

The 5th annual OAMT conference is on October 20 this year, same place as last year, Newport, Oregon. In 2370 days, we are moving to either Newport or Manzanita--probably the latter--so not only are these business trips, they are land- and real-estate-hunting trips.

I wondered last year why OAMT would choose to have the conference in this gorgeous locale by the sea, where looking out the windows made it extremely difficult to concentrate on the pathology discussion at hand. The previous year, it was held near the Portland airport at your standard meeting room type of setting. I couldn't wait to get out of there. But in Newport, being able to take your breaks right outside the conference room meant breathing in the ocean air and looking forward to having a glass of wine later on the balcony of your room, forgetting about anything you learned in the past 8 or 9 hours--and later, when you got home, remembering.

Because I have too much time on my hands

Kathy's talked me into it. I have created a couple of blogs in the past but got bored and quit posting. I'm giving it another try because...today I need to pull weeds and clean out the car and wash the kitchen floor and scrub the dog's face and look at the mess of reviews Breena left me to do and interview and put together a new and improved QA policy and send back movies to Netflix and shop for dinner and put the mountain of laundry away and clean out my web mail and procrastinate on all of the above to sit here and start this blog!

Today started off on a "swell" note. Aidan tripped at the park last night and injured his left wrist. I thought for sure it was broken; this morning, the NP announced it was only a sprain, much to his dismay. He already had an alien abduction story planned to tell about his new cast. Tripping at the park just isn't very exciting. Last Monday, Holly was riding home from work on her bike when she was struck by a pickup. Thankfully, it was a low-speed collision, and the only injury she had was a hematoma, the likes of which I have never seen in all my medical years. It's about 10 inches across and encompasses almost her entire thigh from hip to knee. I am amazed that my ultra-skinny 26-year-old doesn't have a worse injury than that and thank the Lord that she does not. She was in such shock at the time of the accident that she managed to get only the name and number of the pickup's driver, not insurance info. So far, a week later, he has not called her back. But we know where he lives, and if he doesn't return her call soon, so will Portland's finest.