I have read through the reviews by other transcriptionist/editors and have been nodding my head for an hour. Yes, I experienced everything they did; their reviews are legit; I experienced this myself.
Where do I begin? I was recruited for this job. I’ve been transcribing for over 30 years. This was the worst experience of my professional life. Right from the get-go, the recruiter represented the compensation was at more than $0.08/line, but that was a lie; he had said nothing about the “edited” work was compensated at half that.
I worked here for about 15 months. It was awful. I was required to be available to work 40 hours a week; my shift began in the afternoon and I worked until 11 p.m. or something. However, there was never enough work to work more than 30 hours/week. I was scheduled to work, couldn’t work for anyone else, but for at least two hours a day, there was no work and no pay. I was still supposed to check in periodically to see if there was work, but this was uncompensated. I honestly couldn’t afford to live on $12K for a full-time job.
At the time I was l living in poverty working for them, Nuance’s CEO Paul Ricci was reported to be the highest paid executive in Massachusetts, earning around $33 MILLION per year.
There were frequent problems with the platform I was using. I found the IT folks pleasant, but the hours I waited for a callback for someone to remote access my computer and fix things were uncompensated time. I was repeatedly told “Nobody else has these problems” and it was suggested that I get a new computer. The computer I was working on was less than a year old, but I did go out and get a new computer, and the problems persisted. I supplied the computer, the Word software, the high-speed internet connection, the electricity; Nuance’s contribution to this overhead was ZERO.
There were phone meetings and emails from managers where we were continually promised more work which never materialized. I worked on several accounts and each account had different editing/transcription standards. The QA was punitive. I was expected to contend with horrible sound quality (imagine 5 minutes of static) and produce a transcript with zero blanks or else my compensation rate for the entire pay period would be reduced. The entire system was designed so that transcriptionists were paid the lowest rate possible while keeping them constantly hungry for work. I came across an article on sick systems at issendai dot com and it really hit home. This is the Nuance business model.
I remember bursting into tears and telling my supervisor of the moment (they changed frequently) that I had to borrow money for groceries. This was met with stony silence.
By having us work at home (this was touted as a benefit) Nuance kept its transcriptionist/editors isolated; we couldn’t join forces or discuss working conditions and we couldn’t unionize or collectively bargain.
Soon after I started, they announced with great fanfare and patting themselves on the back that everyone with Nuance NTS (the transcription end of Nuance) would be getting 40 WHOLE HOURS OF PTO PER YEAR. Cue the confetti. This was PTO that had to be used for sick leave, holidays, and vacation. The crappy health insurance plan had a $2600 yearly deductible. That’s right; on an annual salary of $12K/year, I was supposed to pay the first $2.6K out of pocket before the insurance would kick in the first dime. I have been on state medical assistance and it had better benefits.
I was actually offered a promotion and higher rate to work as a member of some sort of special group of MTs that worked with new accounts, but my start date kept getting pushed back, which was disappointing; I kept hoping for more work and a tiny bit more money, but it was never going to come. (They can’t control you effectively by fulfilling their promises, can they?)
I had applied for another job and asked my Nuance manager if I could use her as a work reference. She agreed and stipulated she’d use her personal email address. She mentioned that Nuance never answered any employment history inquiries. Under her breath, she suggested that I not give Nuance any notice of my impending departure. If I gave them a two-week notice, her superiors would have forced her to take me off the schedule.
I heard later that Nuance fired all its California-based transcriptionists because that state instituted a higher minimum wage ($10/hour) and well, Nuance’s business model is based on exploiting an underpaid workforce. (I just noticed on Nuance’s website that they no longer hire in my state, either; our state minimum wage was increased to about $10/hour, too. I ESCAPED THIS HELLHOLE JUST IN TIME.)
After I resigned (escaped), I was contacted about a class action lawsuit concerning uncompensated time. I didn’t join the lawsuit because I still felt traumatized over the company's abusive, dehumanizing treatment.
I was with my current employer about a year when Nuance had that big meltdown/computer virus thing where for days and days the dictation system couldn’t be accessed. Part of me was thrilled that this had happened to them, but I know that this disaster was borne on the backs of the MTs who couldn’t afford to lose even a day’s pay.
