Life got in the way

I've been slack of late in my postings but I've had a good reason. Work and writing and other things - life in general. Okay - not really a good reason but it should account for something.

Before the middle of March, we were basically told that the one account I had been working on since starting with this company wasn't sending us any work or very little and that were all (I believe there were 70 MTs on that account at one point) were welcome to try other accounts within the company if we wanted to. I have been inquiring since October for other accounts to work on but had been told there wasn't anything available. My line counts dropped by about half; no big deal if you are paid by the hour or salaried, but when you are paid on what your produce, half of normal line counts means your paycheck is closer to one-third of normal (being paid on a tiered payscale, those lines really make a difference - how that worked was for the first 3000 lines I typed, I was paid 6-1/2 cents per line; the next 3000 lines 8-1/2 cents a line and everything over that 9-1/2 cents per line -- so when you are used to doing about 9500 or more lines in a payperiod and you can't even make 6000 lines (sometimes it was hard to even get 5000 lines in)), then without that third tier, your checks look pitiful.

So the middle of March, one of the supervisors came to me (I had been doing some psych stuff for her to help out where I could) and asked if I was still looking for another account to help out on. I jumped on the chance. Well, needless to say, I have been hopping since. My line counts for the first payperiod that I worked on the new account rose tremendously (I came to the hand clinic in the middle of a payperiod). The next payperiod - I was amazed at what my lines looked like. Of course since I got reassigned in a sense to the hand clinic, the old clinic decided to find a bunch of the doctor I do exclusively for me and so I've been splitting my time between the two and doing stat psych jobs as needed.

What this means for me is that my "work schedule" is being shifted so that I am no longer really working my original schedule of Sunday through Thursday with the weekends off for my fun stuff, but that will have to change in the fall. The reason is this - the hand clinic work doesn't get downloaded until late evenings on the days they dictate; I've been assigned two doctors and help out on others as needed (am still learning some of the other doctors but overall, it's going pretty good). So basically, my two doctors dictate on Mondays and Fridays and in order to stay within the 48-hour turnaround time, I have to work Monday nights or all day Tuesday and Wednesday to get those Monday dictations done and I have to work all weekend to get the Friday dictations done. Plus throw in the mix of Dr. Bolding and stat jobs, which means I'm working more. But once things get in a nice routine of what I'm doing on a regular basis, then I should be able to go back to a semi-weekend off schedule (Fridays off for now).

I have started the second state story, finally and hope to finish it up tomorrow and go through the editing this week to have it turned in to the publisher soon. I've been told the first one is ready to be illustrated but the illustrator still has other jobs in front of me and she hasn't been paid for her prior work yet, so she's kind of on strike, which is not a good thing. I have been assured that the first state would be out in August. I have my doubts. But maybe I'll be surprised. I can only hope.

So as you can see, life has gotten in the way of things but everything is working out. See you all in the postings - E :)