11/19/2004
2 (a) Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. (b) An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.
No sooner did I upload the blog entry below did my e-mail beep, notifying me of a message conveying, almost 16 months post this whole mess beginning, that effective November 1, 2004, the Texas Supreme Court has returned the language in Section 5.1 of the Uniform Format Manual to read "9 or 10 pitch."
While it certainly doesn't excuse the fact that it happened, and it doesn't explain why it took 18 days for word of this to trickle down, it's good to know that every once in a while the ball bounces our way.
Guess I'll have to scrap the "10 pitch is a bitch" thongs at my online store...
We reporters write stuff all day long in our chosen vocation, so, honestly, the last thing I want to do in my gnat-fart sized helping of downtime at the end of the day is to spend it filling out the seeming endless stream of public comment forms that accompany the overzealous Texas rulemongering that has become a burgeoning pastime for so many in this state. The latest form cluttering my inbox is regarding a rewrite of the toothless anti-contracting bill we broke the budget getting passed some years back.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm completely against reporters crack-whoring themselves out to insurance carriers for two-fiddy a page. The commoditization of the court reporting profession is, in my opinion, the single most heinous peril on our collective horizon, and so long as there's one more reporting agency down the road willing to kneecap the last guy by a dime a page, there really is no basement. In the end we'll all end up in cubicles at {insert insurance company name here} transcribing tapes for a quarter a page.
We all know The Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules... and who's got more gold than the insurance carriers? They've HMO'd the docs, they've beancounted the lawyers to death, and there's no way we're ever gonna get any legislation that'll definitively protect us from the same wrath, so please be wary of broad, sweeping rule changes that promise the impossible.
This new anti-contracting legislation scares me. Were it possible to enjoin reporters and agencies from conducting the business practices enumerated in subparts (a) through (h), the world would absolutely be a better place, but here's the way I see it playing out:
We'll end up with a slew of "new and improved" onerous rules, none of which in their final form will be concrete enough to stop anyone from doing anything; the powers that be will read between the lines to their own detriment (as they always do), espousing that it will now be necessary to disclose what color underpants the reporter is wearing (or some other such silliness); and those that wish to continue engaging in these now pseudo-prohibited activities will be unfettered, as a strict reading of the rules really won't preclude a damn thing.
And even if this legislation were to be passed in its exact desired form, let's not forget the lesson of the Uniform Format Manual. It was enacted with the best of intentions, but once it was on the books, the door was left wide open, allowing a Supreme Court Justice to waltz right in and mandate a 10% paycut with the stroke of a pen.
More rules is never the answer. We've got so many now we can't keep track of them. You can't legislate morailty. Scumbags will do what scumbags will do.
"Hell, there are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something. " - Thomas Edison
11/2/2004
I started to respond under my forum to the question as to whether anyone should go to court reporting school, but realizing it's been some weeks since blogspiration had hit me, figured I'd switch windows and wax sarcastic over here instead.
I love my job, and if you're cut out for this field, I highly recommend signing up. My best piece of advice to anyone thinking about reporting school, who is currently in a program or who is a working reporter but hates their job, is to always be working towards your realtime certification. I've worked on both sides of the fence, driving two hours for a 30-page O&1 car wreck contrasted with jetting off to Paris for a week of multi-hookup work, and trust me, while there was plenty of bull$hit with which to fertilize my past, the grass is definitely greener in my current area code.
It was a simple question of economics when I took my first realtime job in 1995. I saw more requests coming on the scheduling book for hookup jobs, and those notices always seemed to have those lengthy service lists that to this day make me feel all warm and fluffy inside. While starving to death two years out of school, I made the decision to pony up my last 180 bucks to purchase a first-gen SocketIO serial card. That single piece of hardware paired with my ardent desire to not write workers' comp hearings for the rest of my career is all it took for me to embark down the road towards realtime.
The next realtime job to call in was a two-week O&5 daily copy with three hookups. No one else was available, so it fell to the new kid with two serial ports. After puking up my breakfast on the first break after counsel called out my mistaking "physical" for "fiscal" on the record, I calmed down by repeating my patented realtime mantra, "What are they gonna do, take away my birthday?" and proceeded to bill out enough over the next fortnight to dispatch an appreciable percentage of my then gutwrenching credit card debt.
After that job, I never looked back. My computer has gone on every job since, and I treat every depo as though everyone is watching every word. And though that first Cornflake-hurling step remains a top-ten stressful moment to this day, by and large the remainder of my realtime life has been much less ulcer-inducing, since most depositions significant enough to require realtime are usually conducted by attorneys that understand and respect the process of recordmaking. I've found realtime tends to weed out the guys on the back of the phone book looking for a street fight. And as far as income, well, I'm writing cleaner, scoping less and billing extra for the realtime service. There's only two ways to get a raise in court reporting, working harder or working smarter. I've chosen the latter and couldn't be happier.
One last thought, I classify non-realtime reporters into three categories: Those who have absolutely no interest in it, those that are qualified but terrified to write naked, and those that are woefully inept but choose to do realtime simply to collect the fees, regardless of the level of service they provide. To the first group, ignorance is bliss, keep putting in those 20-hour days. To the last, every time I hear an attorney compliment my feed by comparing it to "the last reporter" where "it was all gibberish, you couldn't read a thing," I have the overwhelming urge to get the reporter's name so I can plead with them to go home and get their CRR before they come pee with the big dogs. And for those of you in the middle, suck it up and buy the proverbial SocketIO card, we need you. Besides, what are they gonna do, take away your birthday?
"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it." - Jane Wagner
