Monday, April 23, 2012

CART Problem Solving: Summer

CART Problem Solving Series

Sitting Apart
Handling Slides
Classroom Videos
Latin
Superscript and Subscript
Schlepping Gear
Late Hours
Expensive Machines
Communicating Sans Steno
Cash Flow
Lag
Summer
Test Nerves
Ergonomics
Speech Recognition, Part I
Speech Recognition, Part II
Speech Recognition, Part III
Speech Recognition, Part IV

CART PROBLEM: CART work is harder to find in summer than in the rest of the year.

Most full-time CART providers work in universities, which tends to be highly seasonal work. Academic CART work is great because it means steady weekly hours over the course of a semester, but when the semester is over and the summer begins, it can be tricky to fill the gap until the school year starts up again in the fall. There's occasionally some conference captioning to be had, but it's hard to keep a roster of conference captioning clients on deck, since so many opportunities have to be turned down while the school year is busiest. There's also the lucky break of getting summer classes to caption, which I'm happy to say is going to be my solution to the problem this year. I just got word that my medical student passed her classes and will be passing on to her second semester. Unlike most universities, medical schools tend to run year-round, so even though my onsite work has dropped off drastically (I'll have only one weekly onsite class), I'll have plenty of work to keep me busy, which is a real treat. In past years it hasn't been so easy, and I have no guarantee of what next summer will bring, but I'll definitely enjoy it while it lasts. When steady summer academic work is thin on the ground, what are the potential alternatives? Here's a couple I can think of:

* Get daily remote work (usually a mix of academic CART and employee CART, with occasional public meetings thrown in) from a big national company. These jobs are usually scheduled only a day or so in advance and there's a lot of competition for them, so you've got to be glued to your computer on Monday if you want to schedule anything for Tuesday. Even so you'll usually have a few false starts before getting any assignments. These sorts of jobs can be good if you live somewhere with a relatively low cost of living, since rates for remote work and onsite work might be close to par even with the national firm's cut off the top, but if you live somewhere expensive like New York City, you'll be working at a significant discount. The jobs are also usually fairly short -- an hour or two per day, typically -- and the audio quality is not always of the best. But even an hour here and an hour there is a lot better than nothing, and at least there's always a nice variety of work. The biggest disadvantage to relying on this sort of work is that you always feel like you're hustling. You spend a lot of time camping out at your computer waiting for jobs to come in, and you can't plan out your schedule each week, since it changes from day to day.

* Get daily offline transcription work. This pays much less than remote CART work, but it has the advantage of flexible scheduling; you can get it in the morning, go for an afternoon walk in the park, and turn it in that evening, unlike the remote work, which has to be done at the particular hour appointed by the firm. Still, it takes an awful lot of transcription work to make ends meet, and again the audio quality can sometimes be a little dodgy.

* Do depositions. I think this is the option preferred by most of my colleagues, but I've personally never done a deposition, so I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm not a notary public and I've never prepared a legal transcript, so if you need advice on the details of this one, I'm not really the one to ask.

* Do quick-turnaround sports transcriptions. One of my colleagues does this sort of work, going around to various games and transcribing post-game interviews with athletes for journalists. I know nothing about sports, so this is definitely not the job for me, but it sounds like a fun summer interlude for people who are into that sort of thing.

* Live off savings. One the one hand, you get lots of free time to go out in the sunshine and enjoy the summer. On the other hand, watching that bank balance drip down day by day with nothing to fill it back up until September can be a pretty unnerving feeling. Still, if you plan ahead well enough and you've got a fairly solid margin for error (estimated taxes, unexpected expenses, overbudget vacations, late checks in the beginning of the school year), you'll be sitting pretty. I know a few CART providers who go this route, and while I don't think I'll be planning to kick back all summer any time soon, I do intend to take a few weeks of unpaid vacation this summer to see my brother in Seattle and my parents in Montana, which will definitely be a nice respite from captioning medical school.

* Mix and match. A combination of any or all of the above. A little here, a little there, and maybe some other paying piecework to spackle in the gaps. Anything I missed? What do you do?

19 comments:

  1. Back home, the medical student is the student that almost always have no time to enjoy a full day's relaxation. Always holding on to their medical books. It would be a treat to hear a story that they enjoy a study day, despite the presence of of pool fences in Tampa Bay, preventing pushing of their colleagues unto the water.

    Theodore Van

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rid yourself from the stress by availing our help with accounting homework. We call to solve all your homework woes in a jiffy at Tophomeworkhelper.com.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here provide information about top Seo company in indio so Indeed SEO is a certified white hat SEO Company in India that has a squad of experienced SEO experts. Top seo companies indiaIn fact, from the start till the end, SEO marketing professionals produce an outcome that grows the value of their business.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Find attorneys based on the legal services they offer for prospective parents (hold ... If you know the name of an adoption attorney Find a Top Rated Adoption lawyer Near You If you are focused on building or solidifying your family through adoption in South Texas or Central Texas, a dedicated attorney at The Amsberry Law Firm can.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The very first point to do is to take get rid of the coil. while at it, you must separate the storage tank parts apart. Below, you need to be exceptionally attentive to see just how these parts have actually been meshed. Constantly be organized to ensure that you don't shed even a single item of it. This makes certain that the cleansing procedure is effective too also acquainting on your own with what is within and outside the storage tank. worldvaping.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. oxygen concentrator have an honest range of shapes, sizes and weights. Some models are smaller and should be placed during a narrow space easily , which is vital for patients in small apartments or assisted living scenarios. Some colors and designs are getting to be integrated with the user's room decoration, so as that people who aren't aware of their own oxygen therapy users aren't obvious.

    “Kalimba” and “mbira” are often used interchangeably to explain a kalimba or an mbira. It are often pretty confusing when learning about either of those African instruments and even more confusing when you’re trying to shop for one. to make sure you've got the simplest experience when buying your new kalimba at X8 Drums, we thought we’d talk a touch about why a kalimba isn't an mbira.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Don’t be afraid to experiment with temperatures – thermoplastics can be temperamental, so it isn’t essentially your printer’s fault for high quality issues. If your print temperature is too too|is simply too} low or high, you can to|you possibly can} expect issues with interlayer adhesion, surface high quality, and nozzle performance. While many 3D printers have automated bed levelling and can high precision machining position the nozzle routinely, the printer doesn’t always get issues proper. You may need to manually compensate for an uneven work surface and set it up.

    ReplyDelete
  8. pg-slot-org ซึ่งทางเว็บไซต์จะมีการแนะนำเว็บไซต์ที่เกี่ยวข้องให้ท่านเข้าถึงได้ง่ายขึ้นอีกด้วย PG SLOT โดยท่านสามารถทำการสมัครสมาชิกเพื่อเข้าเล่นเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ขั้นตอนการสมัครสมาชิกที่ง่าย

    ReplyDelete
  9. pg new game สล็อตออนไลน์ ไม่ผ่านเย่นต์ pgslot เว็บไซต์ ใหม่ที่ปี 2023 แม้คุณกำลังหา สล็อตเว็บไซต์ตรงเล่นอยู่ แล้วไม่เคยทราบว่าจะเล่นเว็บไซต์ ไหน มองอย่างไรว่า เว็บไซต์ไหน

    ReplyDelete
  10. เว็บ เกม pg สล็อต คนนิยมเล่นสูงที่สุดต้องชูให้เว็บไซต์ PGSLOT ยืน 1 เว็บไซต์ตรงสล็อตpg วันนี้พวกเราอัปเดตเว็บไซต์ใหม่ ใช้ระบบล้ำสมัยเร็วแรงไร้ขีดจำกัด ฝากถอน รวดเร็วทันใจ

    ReplyDelete
  11. ทาง-เข้า-เล่น-pg90 เป็นเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ที่มีความนิยมอย่างมากในปัจจุบัน และมีความสนุกสนานระดับสากลที่หลากหลาย PG SLOT หากคุณต้องการเข้าเล่น PG90

    ReplyDelete