I Did It!

I *finally* fixed that typo on my home page!!!  “Challenger” is gone; challenge is in its rightful place (if you’ve been following me for awhile you’ll understand).

And, I did finally resign from my medical transcription job.  Today, as a matter of fact.  Am I retired from the career as a whole?  Who knows what the future holds at this point.

Well, I do know a little of what my future holds and that is my new position as Assistant Director at the Henry County Historical Society!!  I am beyond thrilled to work for the Museum.  Not only do I get to work there, but I also will still be able to volunteer!  Not having my part-time day job opens up more hours for me to help out at the Museum.  Our major project starting after the holidays is utilizing our PastPerfect software.  INVENTORY PARTY!  I will also be holding a monthly after-hours meeting at the Museum where I combine a DAR Museum program with items in our Civil War era collection, preparing a World War I commemorative event, and, of course, keeping up with social media and some trivia (2018 will be My Name Is Henry County).

Along with working/volunteering at the Museum, I will also be ramping up my genealogical research consulting business as much as possible and doing a little artsy genealogy too.

I have to admit that in my old age I’ve become more and more assertive.  The position I’ve earned at the Museum was not previously a position.  I asked that it be created for me so I could resign from my day job and devote more hours at the Museum.  Never in my life would I have dreamed I’d do something so gutsy.  This is the type of job where you think to yourself “they pay me to do this?”  Honestly, if I was independently wealthy, they would not have to pay me to work there.  I love how I’ve combined my love of local history with my passion for genealogy and will have the ability to help and share with others who are on their journey.

Check back here for tales from a small house museum historical society genealogical junkie!

Twists and Turns!

Life is full of them! And a twist and turn are in my very near future.

As of Monday, December 11, I will be available full-time to conduct genealogical research. Plus, I’m adding another side venture, a combination of paper craft and pedigree chart. I’m working on building my website for that and will share here when it’s ready.

I’ve been insanely busy this year with volunteering at the local historical society, my local DAR chapter, and my genealogical society. Plus, I’m attempting to write an article about my Abbott ancestors for the IN Genealogical Society. Whew! I visit a local assisted living facility once a month and help residents with their online family trees on FamilySearch.org.

I also tried making a dream catcher…epic fail! I’ve tried needle felting. Nice way to get out some aggression by punching a super sharp needle into wool roving to create cute 3D objects.

I am on the waiting list for an upcoming ProGen class. Excitedly awaiting that!

As for medical transcription, my career in that is ending soon. Bittersweet. End of an era, for sure!

Watch for hopefully more frequent updates here!

More Decisions…

I really need to take a deep breath and collect my thoughts on an upcoming decision.  I may have an opportunity to do something I’m passionate about, and, if I’m good at it, it could be my job until the end of my time.

And it’s not medical transcription.  I would finally be able to leave MT behind.  Bittersweet.

This opportunity would be full-time hours with part-time pay, and I’m fine with that.  This opportunity would also move me out of my comfort zone.  I’ll have to be fine with that.  This opportunity would require a lot of learning, and I’m fine with that.  This opportunity might come sooner than I expected.

Deep breaths!

Day #209

Been busy of late! I found this good question to pose to myself:

What’s more important to me, the money or the work?

Honestly, they are equally important. You need money to survive in this world. I only need enough money to pay my bills, feed my family, and have shelter. I don’t need a ton of extras.

The work I do is also important to me, whether it be medical transcription or genealogy. I provide quality work at my job with patient care always at the root of what I do. It is for the patient that I do what I do.

With genealogy, I’m focused on quality, as well, for future generations and the client and myself.

What it comes down to is I strive to do a good job at whatever I’m working on.

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Working on Pinterest

Lately, I’ve been adding a lot of content to three Pinterest sites:  My own, the one I’ve created for our museum, and the one I’ve created for Life/Citation.  There is so much neat and interesting content out there that it’s hard not to get trapped into just…looking and looking.  One thing that I decided to check out was blog prompts to liven up things here a bit.  In trying to be spontaneous, I chose a 365 blog prompt article and pinned it (check it out here).

Since I’m beginning at an odd place in the year and not on day #1, I guess I’ll go with what today is in terms of this year (out of 365 days).  Today is day #127.

Prompt #127:  Know-it-all: Write about something you are very knowledgeable about, for example a favorite hobby or passion of yours.

I’d like to say genealogy and researching family history, but, even after several years of doing such, I’m still a newbie! 🙂  What I do feel knowledgeable about is my first career of medical transcription (MT).  I’ve been doing this since November 1999 and have been certified since February 2004.  For a good 10-15 years, I did this job full-time plus and was involved in the national organization and local groups to keep up-to-date with my education and the field.  The thing that I loved the most about MT is learning something new every day.  At one point, I could not believe I was being paid — and paid fairly well — to do something I very much enjoyed.

The past 2-1/2 years, though, has dealt a crushing death-blow to MT, I’m sad to say.  My credentials expire this summer, and I’m letting them go.  There is no future in MT.  Technology has played a big role in the downfall of the career, and, sadly, that technology is not up to snuff by any means to completely replace a human editor.  It’s sad that something that was considered a career now only pays minimum wage…if you’re lucky.  If you want more objective information about the demise of MT, check out the free forum mtstars.com.  Prepare to be depressed.

With that said, I’ve cut my hours to part-time.  The stress was not worth it.  I wanted to devote more time to my other passion, genealogy, so I cut some of the dead weight.  I still put in 20 hours per week doing MT, and my volunteerism has more than doubled.  I have three projects in the works at the museum, plus I do something for ECIGA nearly every day.

Maybe by the time #127 prompt rolls around again, I’ll write about genealogy!

Bonus: The creepy cloud picture…one of the first things I posted!

Happy Holidays and Genealogy Do-Over!

Excuses, excuses…now work has me working overtime nearly every day, plus Christmas and New Year’s Day. The upside to this is, if I’m still at this job this time next year, my scheduled 2 days off will be Christmas Eve/Christmas and New Year’s Eve/New Year’s. So. I’ve got that to look forward to. Unfortunately, it takes away from my researching endeavors. And blog posts. Six months!!! I guess I need that to be a resolution, as well. I’ll see if I can find an interesting 52-week blog prompt.

I’m gonna hit that button!!! The Genealogy Do-Over button!

This is a wonderful idea from the one and only Thomas MacEntee. You can find more about it here: http://www.geneabloggers.com/announcing-genealogy-doover/

You set aside what research you’ve done and start from the beginning (with the exception of records you’ve purchased or traveled a distance to procure). Will try to keep you apprised of my progress.

Right now, I’m trying to decided what ancestor I want to “do over.” There is a good number of them. I’m leaning toward my 3rd-great-GF, John Ford. I’m working on a post for him right now. My research on the man, though, is scattered hither and yon and I need to reign it in. He was born in upstate New York but grew up mainly in Elba, NY. I hope to culminate my Do-Over by visiting Niagara Falls later this year and then visiting his early stomping grounds.

I hope your holidays were spent making more fabulous memories with your friends and loved ones!

Now, a little bit of my history…

Why do I want to move from medical transcription to something in genealogy?  I’m a Certified Healthcare Documentation Specialist (CHDS) and have been since 2004.  My MT career began in Nov 1999.  I’ve been at it for awhile, always working in an acute care setting.  For nearly 20 years, I worked for the local hospital until they could no longer afford me. Let the outsourcing begin! They went with a national company who offered me a position, which I took only for the health insurance, most assuredly not for the pay. The pay is laughable. I lost half of what I made at the hospital annually. Rude awakening, for sure, but on with life.

I literally get paid $0.0505 per line of dictation I edit. CENTS! This is editing speech/voice recognition of what a physician/clinician has dictated for a patient’s medicolegal record (sometime I’ll post a snippet of it so you can see what it looks like raw). When my job at the hospital ended, I figured I’d need to edit 4k+ lines per day to earn a comparable salary. Most days, I manage around 1800 lines total.

The one thing I love about MT is the research, learning something new every single day. Something I don’t love about MT is when your system crashes inexplicably in the middle of a god-awful long report that you will most likely need to type over because, even though they say the system saves your corrections, it doesn’t. Whee!

Enough about medical transcription. If you have any questions about the job, feel free to ask. Unfortunately, at this point, I don’t suggest it as a new career for anyone as I anticipate its complete demise in the next 5-10 years.

ETA: I worked in-house all those years at the hospital; now, I work from home.