Today was my first day at the transcription job. I worked in a room with a total of six work stations/computers which they hope to have all filled; they are still hiring and interviewing.

The other gals were very nice and the woman who served as manager did what she could, I think, to make the work environment enjoyable and friendly.

But it was a long and tiring day. The chairs are cheap ones, not very comfortable. Everyone brings in pillows for their backs. There were at times 4 of us in the room.

When one person started randomly talking to another, well, I started having difficulty hearing what was being said in my earphones on the tape I was transcribing. We're all in the same room, and people weren't talking in hushed tones. So you basically had to wait until they were finished talking to get back to work. When someone walked into the room to talk to the manager, it was the same thing. I didn't think it was my place to say anything, it being my first day on the job.

When i interviewed a few weeks back with one of the owners, he told me if you typed at least 60 words per minute, "you should be able to make $17 or $18 an hour." Well, I type north of 80 words per minute and that's not what I made today. Um, yeah, you might make that per hour if you were simply typing.. But they want the text to be pretty much perfect, and I do make little typos here and there, so i was fixing those typos as I went. And then when I was done, I ran spell check, which took some time. Plus I took a few short breaks, plus a half hour lunch, just to stretch. But they aren't paying me for any of that time. They just pay by the total number of words I typed, x a half a penny per word.

So today, i felt I had achieved something, having typed 13,962 words in 7 hours. When i ran that on my calculator at home, it came out to just $69.81, or $9.97 per hour. Which was quite disappointing, given how tired I am.

Paying by the word is cheap and tight-fisted, IMO. And with that pay structure, it's like a disincentive to be very careful because the more care you take with the text, the less you make. But if I try typing any faster, I'll likely just make more errors, which would again require more time to fix. So I don't see how I could really improve much on my speed, or my pay.

If it paid at least what they said it did, or at least $15/hr, which is what I'll be making at the 2nd p/t job, it might be worth it, but given the long drive, the nature of the work and low pay, ....i just think my remaining 2 days a week would be better spent doing my freelance, which pays so much better and continuing the job search.

The freelance won't be enough, even with the other p/t job. And by giving up so soon on this one, i run the risk of again falling short come spring when my benefits finally peter out. (I guess they'll last a little longer, maybe til June, now that I'll be working 3 days a week at the other job.)

The transcription job initially seemed appealing becus, right now at least, there is unlimited work available, and i saw myself going up there weekends, too. But gosh, I'm not a work machine. I question whether I could do it now. I'm not 20. It was very tiring.

Having come to these conclusions, I'm thinking it would be better for me to quit right away, before I go back, rather than wait a few weeks and stick it out. Because I haven't even given them all their paperwork for taxes and stuff. I took it all home with me tonight and had planned on filling it out and bringing it back when i next went back there, which was to be Monday. They don't even have my SSN yet.

I think I should quit right away because if I wait and then quit, I'll have to explain the whole situation to the unemployment office and there's a possibility they might withhold the rest of my benefits becus i quit the job. If I quit now after working just one day, chances are the company won't want to bother processing all my paperwork for a p/t employee (W4, etc) and they'll just want to cut a check and be done with me. I can then just report the income to DOL as a one-time contract job and leave it at that.

So my plan at this point is to wait til Friday, which is my work at home day with the other new job. Then i could call the woman at the transcription job and just be candid with her. I'm sure she'll be disappointed and try to talk me out of it. I will ask to be paid for the one day I worked, and I hope I can get them to agree with me it's not worth it having me fill out all the W4s and other paperwork for a p/t employee just for that 1 day of work. This way, I don't risk complications with DOL.

I'm bummed out, but also feeling what i KNOW will be a short-term feeling of relief. Short-term because the pressure will be right back on to find something better.

My friend did this kind of thing when he took a $9/hr job at Home Depot. I encouraged him to as well. But what in theory sounds like a good idea often is not when you actually try to do it.

In other news, I wrote an email to the IT director whose emails I've been editing, explaining that with these 2 p/t jobs i'd be working full time and would be unable to continue doing his emails, unless i could do them nights or weekends.

he wrote back and said, I don't want to lose you. I'll pay you more! (The 4 words every man, woman and child in America wants to hear, right?). And he asked me to tell him what times I'd be available again and let's try to work it out. So that was nice.

Now I'll probably be able to tell him I quit the one job and can still do his emails most of the time. he should be happy at that.