How much would you take?

[Kerry F]

I'm cleaning up a rough draft for a friend who's a great reporter, realtimer.  I have the time and she's paying me to do it because the job was so awful and she's slammed right now.

This witness is one of three maybe that I can remember in my 35 years who talks this fast and slurs and swallows words.  She clocked him at around 300 wpm the whole day.  And it's a video.  I have my audio speed slowed down as slow as it can go to type in the drops.  And they talked on top of each other, which she did warn them throughout the day and they apologized. The witness was educated, pretty good grammar and smart.  But fast!!!!

 

Tell you what, I bet if there was male, long time firm owner there, who was a really good writer, he'd say they witness has to slow down or he's leaving.

 

So unless you're Mark Kislingberry, where does a reporter draw  the line and not report something unless they find some way to make the witness talk slower?  And I bet even Mark K. would have trouble understanding this one.

[Kerry F]

I'd like to find a way to really educate the attorneys as if they were married to a court reporter, they'd know what it can be like sometimes.  Honestly, I think some of them think we are just machines operating a machine, really!

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Amen to that, Kerry!

[Mary Jo Cochran]

When I first started out, we had an all-day Final Hearing (Workers' Comp).  We had a break. An attorney said to me, "Did you have to go to school to learn how to do that?" 

 

My last legal assistant jo was three years ago, and at age 52, I am out of prime.  I started rebuilding my skills two years ago.  Last year, an attorney I have been seeing (for toooo many years - I mean over 20) - said to me, "Well, go back to court reporting.  You have a writer.  Just go back to court reporting."  I looked at him.  I said, "You think we just sit down and start writing?"  He said, yeah.  His look told me he didn't have a clue.  I told him it's more complicated than that.

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Mary Jo,

 

What do they think, we are born with trained steno fingers????  Holy Moly!   

 

Dumfounded!

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Last year, Tom said, "Well, isn't it like typing?" 

 

The look on MY face - he was smiling, trying not to laugh. 

[Tricia McLaughlin]

Unbloody real!

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Good lord.  I'm "on vacation" right now and just hit "send" on the transcript I took on Tuesday.  It fell e-x-a-c-t-l-y into this category in every way:  I'm slammed.  I still have over 700 pages to get out by the end of this "vacation."  My realtime writing is usually 100% and rarely drops below 99.9 nowadays.  The job was awful, to say the least.  Plus, I couldn't understand it, meaning that it was such a high-end patent matter that I was totally lost on "reading for meaning."  I'll just freeform here with a few thoughts, then get my grandson and go outside to play ... something.  ANYTHING!  My world is built on customer service, and I aim to give the customer (court reporting agencies who hire me) what they want, which is no-excuses REAL realtime writing on the first-pass realtime feed, the cleaned-up rough draft (with hang oh she ma fuguey war a turned into Hankoshima Fujiwara, etc.)  No whining, no complaining, and the occasional reason, but still NO EXCUSES.  I like to think that's why agencies hire me.

 

I walk a very thin line here.  I don't accept atty clients of my own, so when I appear before lawyers, I'm appearing as a representative of a real court reporting agency ... one who is trusting me to bend over backwards for their client, deliver as promised, at a quality level as promised.  To my own detriment I do those three things consistently, even to the point of "deliver as promised," even if it means spending hours of my "vacation" time since Tuesday working on this Transcript From Hell.

 

A few years ago, I had one job from hell in a year.  Then the next year it was three.  Last year, five.  This year, seriously knocking on wood, this is the second one, and I hope it's the last.  Going in, I said to Dick, "I'm going on vacation.  We're taking the grandson.  I need time off.  I'm utterly swamped.  I MUST MAINTAIN CONTROL.  I MUST MAKE THEM BEHAVE."  It was like a sing-song mantra of mine, to convince myself to be strong enough to make it happen.  So much for drawing the line.  Because mine is a customer service world and I do not have clients of my own, I do not have the option of threatening to walk off the job.  The closest I came was a few years ago when I flatly refused to return for the second day of a Job From Hell.  But I stuck it out for the first day.

 

Luckily, I have a lot of speed to fall back on and I have never been in a job that's been so out of control that I couldn't stay to make the record ... but I start each day with a full tank of gas, and many days I'm running on Empty by noon and hanging on by the thinnest of threads by the (sometimes tearful) end of the day.

 

There's a reason for this phrase, so I'll say I do not have the balls to treat a client in the seemingly gruff, rough, mean way it would appear coming from a female as opposed to a male.  In a female, it's seen as whining and complaining and not strong enough to do the job.  From male, it's one member of the club to another member of the club, and IT'S BUSINESS.  It's a very sad reflection of our profession, but even though it's dominated by women, court reporting is a man's world because male reporters have a hell of a better chance of maintaining control and issuing an ultimatum and having it needed than a whimpering female.  Are there exceptions?  Yes!  Of course there are some very strong women reporters out there who can dick-slam with the best of them.  I'm not one of them, although (1) age and (2) Anita Paul empowerment workshops have helped tremendously.

 

Young attorneys learn to be assholes somewhere, and it's from their senior associates and partners.  Those senior associates and partners are looking at substance, not form, in "teaching" how to take a deposition.  To help the profession, perhaps NCRA should have been out there in force helping to teach young litigators how to take and behave in a deposition and how to show respect for the record instead of heading off in various other directions with their efforts. Mark Golden spends a lot of time visiting places like InterSteno and other association-related activities where he can preach to the choir.  I would love to have seen some active effort put into educating attorneys on how to TAKE, meaning actually ACT, while taking a deposition.  The pamphlet is nice.  I have several.  But it's not active teaching.

 

Often, the proceedings are out of control.  Sometimes the reporter can control it; sometimes, not.  Many times reporters are afraid to cross the line and do not want to alienate a client for the reporting agency who hired them.  When a reporter calls in to say, "It's out of control - I can't stay!" agencies say, "Well, just do the best you can for us."  All well and good.  But after the fact, there's no additional page rates or recognition on the hip for particularly arduous work, or having to spend three full days to get just one day of testimony done right.  I've heard it said that, well, the easy days make up for it, but sometimes the jobs are just so difficult that I'm not buying it.  

 

As far as cleaning up the rough, on my own personal Day From Hell, I sent out the rough draft as is.  I did not have time nor strength to get spellings, and one reason for rushing through the day was so the witness could get the hell out of Dodge the instant the day was over to catch a plane, so no luxury of asking for spellings.  99% writing is still not perfect, and with spellings required, even less so, but I hit "send" without hesitation at the end of the day to deliver the required immediate rough draft and spent most of the last three days fulfilling my promises.

 

We do what we can do, but I see less and less cooperation from the bar, less and less cooperation from agencies that do not back the reporter and absolutely REFUSE to try to help their clients become better, more effective litigators by helping them to make effective records.

 

End of the rant.  This is the only long post I will make during my vacation!

 

M.A.

[Kerry F]

Well said Mary Ann!

 

I think NCRA's time would be well spent educating new young attorneys.

But there's not much we can do about witnesses.  They talk how they talk, fast, soft, mumbly...........you can stop them, but it only gets better for a brief period, if that.

[Tricia McLaughlin]

You know, I agree with Mary Ann, but I still will stand on my first statement, they have to be educated, and by doing that, if I lose my contact with the agency, oh, well, but unless we stand behind this and put up with their bullshit, we lose.  Amen!