Your first job - Oh my God!! What do I do?

[Kyung]

You've passed your test. You've paid your dues. You're now a card-carrying CSR. Yeah. You get a flimsy paper card/license. I bet nobody told you that. You've done your interviewing. Now what?

Well, once the agency calls you with a job and you accept, the preparation begins. Make sure you've got extra paper(if your writer is not paperless), your writer, your computer, cables, power strip, Depobook (or some other form of keeping track of your depositions). I pack everything in the car the night before except for the computer. I'm working on that up until the next morning when I leave the house. Print out a map of where you're going to.

In the morning, I suggest you leave early enough to get there at least a half hour early or earlier if possible. Since this is your first job, you're going to be nervous. You'll have to find parking and the office. Make sure you have a phone number for the location that you're going to. That way if you get there or you can't locate the office, you can call the office and ask for directions.

Once you arrive at the office, the receptionist will probably show you to the conference room. Otherwise, there might be a short wait in the lobby. If the time of your deposition is rolling around, feel free to speak up to the receptionist. Be polite, but let them know that it takes you a few minutes to set up and you were told the deposition was to start at whatever time it's supposed to start.

If you're still kept waiting, it's not your fault. When they rush you in last minute, don't feel you have to rush your setup. It's not your fault that you were not allowed into the conference room. Sometimes attorneys like to have conferences w/the deponent before the deposition starts. They will sometimes want some privacy. If you're already set up, by all means give them privacy. If they're in the conference room first, just say, "Would you mind if I set up quickly, and I'll leave after that. That way the deposition will start on time." If they still won't let you set up. No problem. Just wait. When it's time to set up. Don't rush. Make sure all your connections are good. If they have to wait. So be it. This is one of the advantages of arriving early.

Once, you're there and set up or waiting in the lobby area, ask for a caption. You can ask the receptionist, and she'll relay your request to the attorney or the paralegal assistant. A caption is very important. Sometimes the agency will provide it, so ask them the night before. If they don't have it. It's very important to get it from someone the day of the deposition. The caption will have the case number, the names of the parties, and at least information for one set of attorneys and who they're representing. It will be very difficult to complete your index w/out the caption.

When the attorneys start arriving, ask for their business cards and who they're representing. Find out who the deponent is and ask them their full name. Ask them if they have a middle name. At which point, they will give you their name, but don't be surprised that when they're on the record, they'll give their full name and some random middle name which you will not understand and which they did not say earlier. This is also a good time to get the spelling of their names. Just to double the caption. Captions are typed up by people. People make mistakes. People's names can be spelled wrong. Always get it from the horse's mouth.

Anyone else in the room during the deposition, get their name. If they're not an attorney representing a party, then their name goes under Also Present on the appearance page. That means any party to the deposition who is not being deposed but is still in the room, interpreters, legal assistants - if they're in the room during the deposition, put them on the appearance page.

Sometimes a party has more than one attorney or more than one law office representing them, they go on the appearance page but under the For Plaintiff or For Defendant section, not under also present.

When you get in the conference room, look for an electrical outlet. That's the end of the table you will be sitting at. If you can't see one, ask the receptionist. If there's one at either end of the room, ask the receptionist where the court reporter usually sits. I know this seems obvious, but you never know. I've been in rooms where the outlet is in the middle of the table and there's no outlets along the wall.

Once you're set up, take the deposition, go home, and produce your first transcript.

absolute minimum you will need day of depo
Phone numbers to have day of depo: agency, location, tech support
Equipment to bring: writer, laptop, power strip, cables
Office supplies: Depobook, extra paper, rubber bands, pen, business cards, job information

If I've left anything, please let me know.

[Michelle]

I love these comments. I just finish school and now I'm wondering, what next? If you have any advice, please add it. Thank you.

[Elizabeth A. Willis-Lewis]

I think it is so wonderful that CR students have a venue to go to to ask these questions and get real-life experience answers. I certainly didn't have anything close when I was first starting out!

[Irene Abbey]

I use a steno stroke that throws in a paragraph, (REPORTER'S NOTE: and then if I have time to write a little correction not to myself or just write "check check," then before I deliver a rough, or before I put it away if it wasn't transcribed, I go through and search for all caps NOTE, and fix those rough spots first thing. That makes it easier to transcribe later if it's from very cold notes. Thank goodness for CAT. In the days before CAT and audio, you didn't even know if you misstroked something until you tried to transcribe it. Now at least I see it on the screen as it's going in and I can fix a lot more on the fly. :)
(In case anyone wonders, I use KLUP as my stroke to invoke the note. It's easy to stroke, doesn't conflict with any other outlines in my theory, and I've never had it fail. Thanks to the legendary Frank Nelson of Santa Barbara for that tip!)

[Kyung]

Me, personally, I've had that happen to me before. Not in the official world, but the freelance world. I had a job w/a woman who had a terrible Greek accent. I thought I was going to die. I could barely understand her. I was absolutely dreading transcribing bec. I knew I'd have to listen to the audio to be able to decipher what she was saying. And trust me, I had told the attorneys I was having a very hard time understanding her. Well, at the end of the day, their judgment came through and they didn't want the transcript transcribed. I was stoked!!!!

Well, almost a year later, I got a call. Guess what? She was suing someone else, and they wanted the damn transcript. I got that sucker out. But it was ugly. I did have to use the audio quite a bit to be honest. The stuff was not fresh. I hadn't even bothered to change the speakers from Mr. Speaker 1 to the attorney's name. I could barely remember it. Talk about pain.

I think at a minimum, get the speaker id's in before putting it to sleep. If there was any special terminology used, get those words transcribed.

[Cammi Bowen]

Kyung, I loved this post! What a great list.

Now, what about someone who is just starting out as an official? What do they need to remember?

Since this is my goal job, one burning question I have has to do with transcripts. Right now, as a student, we're given tests every day that we can transcribe. They have to be transcribed within two weeks because after that time, the tapes that we are correcting against are erased and reused. I like to transcribe my tests right after the class that they were given in. But sometimes I'm tired or just not in the mood to transcribe right away, and so I store the notes in my envelope. I've found that I'm less likely to actually type those tests up because the material is no longer fresh in my mind or I remember that it wasn't as good a take as I hoped it would be. When I do type them up, it really is a lot harder to figure out the slop than it would have been had I typed it up right after the test.

So my question is - finally - since we're required to keep our notes for eight years just in case a transcript is ordered, and perhaps it was a bad writing day, wouldn't it be a better idea to have at least partially transcribed every day's notes so that at least any unintelligible parts are resolved then and there rather than trying to figure it out years later?

How do reporters really work out these kinds of situations?

There seems to be so many little details about actually working that I'm a little anxious about actually getting out there and doing the job.

[Irene Abbey]

Ditto Corinne's suggestion for a nutrition bar in your case. I always carry cough drops in there, too, just in case my throat's irritated by something in the room. I also carry Post-It notes because they're always asking if I have any. I actually got some printed with my name and phone number now, so at least there's a little advertising going out when I hand them a pad of Post-Its. I always carry a staple-puller in my purse, too, but not one of those hinged kind; I like the ones with a handle like a pen, and you slide the nose under the staple to remove it. I also carry a rough draft order form which I have the attorney sign confirming he/she is ordering a copy of the certified version as well, also the manual for my steno machine, a compendium of the codes relating to court reporters, and an extra realtime cable and flash memory device. And I always carry extra machine paper in my car trunk. I also carry a little sheet explaining the NCRA credentials so if they ask what it means to be a registered diplomate reporter I can whip it out and let them read what NCRA says about the various levels of proficiency. Of course, you carry your business cards, as suggested in the article, and if you work for more than one agency, the appropriate business cards for each one. Enough for now!

[Natalie Rodriguez]

I look forward to your "blogs for beginners"! I want you on speed dial when I have my first panic attack in the parking garage before my first depo! LOL Thank you for taking the time to document the version they DON'T give us in school!

[Corinne Dupuis]

I'm still only a student, but I'm the one that has almost everything in my bag. "Oh, ask Corinne, she'll probably have it." I'm also a mom and I like to be prepared. Yeah, I'm the bag lady (but only professional looking bags, (smile).) When I worked in a firm, I think we had some of that stuff in the conference rooms (drinks, paper clips, cookies, staplers). We'll see how it is for me once I get out working. I still have a little ways to go.

[Kyung]

I don't carry staplers and only a few paperclips for myself. We're in an office for goodness sake, they can probably scrounge up staplers and paperclips. I do bring exhibits stickers.

[Brenda Rogers]

I mentioned that I carry a little stapler to a friend of mine, and she said, " So YOU'RE the one who's gotten them used to that!" She doesn't carry one and it's *my* fault they expect it. LOL

I never carry tape to tape down the cord. For heaven's sake, if people can't watch where they're going . . .