Trusty Transcriptionists is celebrating six years in business! I looked back at my entry from the fifth anniversary, at the time, I was very uncertain if I would last another year. It's sort of like, um, if you thought there was uncertainty then, wait until you see what's down the turnpike in March 2020! Yikes! I'm happy to report last year turned out to be a good year with steady work and lots of new clients. For the past six months about a third of my time was taken up transcribing interviews for an award-winning documentary maker. Transcribing the countless documentary interviews was one of the most challenging but also exciting and fascinating projects that I've had the privilege to work on. I was also fortunate to work with many other clients, old and new, on an extensive range of projects throughout the year.

The sixth anniversary finds us in extraordinary times indeed. My work life at present is not too different from my everyday working life, in that I work from home. I have not had any radical adjustments to make to my lifestyle. As my work is all done remotely without the need for any social contact, I am in a decent position to keep working through these difficult times. However, my clients' work necessitates social contact for the most part (except for Skype or telephone interviews of course). Social distancing has meant that I have lost the bulk of my regular work, like so many other people across the country.  I  found myself with very little work in April, usually one of my busiest times of the year. There is a silver lining to the cloud, in that I have a large project arriving next week and another starting in May, these will keep me busy. These clients had already recorded their interviews prior to the lockdown. I feel fortunate about that. Being busy with work allows me to escape, feel productive and not overthink things that I have no control over.
    
I was certainly not without a million things I could do around the house, and I started by tackling some of these that have been on my 'to-do' list forever.  But let's face it, they've been our lists forever because they are things that are either boring or difficult. We always use the excuse to ourselves that we don't have the time. But I think many of us are discovering; we actually don't have the inclination. One night several weeks ago, I found myself playing a newly acquired Scrabble app until one o'clock in the morning.  I then continued to play for hours on end the following day.  That was the moment I realised I had to bring some structure back to my day. I am an old hand at this, and I think my years of acquired self-discipline when it comes to a work/life balance will allow me to get through this with relative ease. But even with six years of experience of being self employed and working from home, I was reminded of how quickly one could slip into a malaise. There's a fine line between enjoying a bit of relaxation/distraction time and becoming consumed with something that becomes unproductive.  If you suddenly find your hands have permanently moulded into the form of a claw due to clutching your phone for hours on end staring at little lettered tiles, you are not alone. Just step away from the phone!

If you have stumbled onto this entry during the height of the crisis, I hope that you are well. There is so much uncertainty about the future, but I think the only thing we can do at the moment is to take things one day at a time. 

With my warmest wishes,
Kim 

When transcribing interviews, I highly recommend using decent headphones. These truly make all the difference in the quality of the transcript you can produce and the speed at which you can do it. I prefer the type that goes over the ear and have some noise-cancelling properties. The headphones pictured are the style I have been using for the past three years. While wearing these headphones, I am still able to hear the doorbell. I am also aware if somebody speaks to me from another room. Cheekily, I have been known to conveniently 'not hear' somebody talking to me when I am transcribing. Sometimes I prefer not to interrupt the flow, especially when I'm producing verbatim transcripts. Being able to concentrate on the task at hand is the same reason that 90% of the time, I do not have my mobile phone in my office with me. It is a distraction I do not need. I keep it in another room and allow myself to look at it several times a day. I find this vastly helps with productivity. I recommend it.

When I first started my transcription business, I used the headphones that came with the foot pedal and software I purchased. These were decent, but the sound quality of the headphones I currently use is vastly better. If I have difficulty hearing a recording, I can be confident it is due to the recording quality. The positioning of the speaking person in proximity to the recording device microphone dramatically impacts on recording quality. I often receive recordings with background noise, and these headphones certainly help me produce the best quality transcript possible in those situations. I do, however, prefer recordings without background noise if possible. Many years ago, when I worked for the police, I worked on a surveillance project for three months. These audio recordings had excessive white noise, and it took its toll on my ears. Extreme white noise recordings are something I now try to avoid. Loud background noise, such as those interviews that take place in public places, do not make pleasurable listening. It takes much longer to transcribe as you are perpetually rewinding the recording to pick everything up, even with super-duper headphones it is not a joy. The time factor is the reason professional transcription companies charge more for these types of interviews. Of course, I do accept projects with background noise. If I listen to the recording and the background sound is excessive, I will evaluate whether it is worth it for my client to have the interview transcribed. If I do not think I will produce a suitable transcript from it, I generally give it a miss.

Of course, a decent set of headphones comes at a price. The ones I use cost me £55. They are the second pair I have had to purchase in the past three years. The first ones had an annoyingly long cord that kept getting run over by my office chair. Wheeling over the headphone cable happened so many times that it was a miracle that they lasted as long as they did. One day, they finally had enough of my abuse, and the sound quality dropped dramatically. I immediately found myself ordering the same set of headphones once more. The sound quality was so brilliant that I could not contemplate ever going back to a lesser model. Happily, when they arrived, the cord was much shorter. I guess other transcriptionists had the same issues! It is now not possible for me to run over the cable, which is a massive bonus. With luck, they will last me for years.

I don't suggest that if you are transcribing one or two interviews that you go out and purchase expensive headphones. However, if you are transcribing many recorded interviews, it is certainly something to consider. I would also highly recommend getting a foot pedal. I don't know how anybody produces a timely transcript without one. It must take them such a long time and be extremely frustrating. At a minimum, you would expect a professional transcriptionist to be using a foot pedal to transcribe interviews. Again, if you are doing a one-off project, obviously this is not an investment you would make. Of course, the best bet is to have a professional transcribe your interviews for you. Not exactly a shocking conclusion, considering the author offers a transcription service! Please see my reasonable rates if this is a service you require.

I wish you all the best with your transcribing, whether you decide to go on your own or hire a professional. As a final comment, I am currently taking a proofreading and editing course. I have now completed 40% of the course workload. Proofreading and editing is a service I will be offering in the new year.

Best wishes and happy interviewing,
Kim
 

I was thankful when I turned the calendar this month to reveal May, aside from disliking the cat's hat in the April's picture from my 'Cats in Hats' calendar (an annual Christmas present from my cat Ledley)  I felt a change in month represented a new beginning. I always find May to be a nice month in England, the days are much brighter and people seem much more optimistic as summer is around the corner. There are also two bank holiday weekends to look forward to which makes life seem a whole lot better. 

I feel like I've come through quite a struggle in March and April. My mother-in-law passed away from an aggressive terminal cancer early March after only being diagnosed as terminal a few weeks previous. We are so lucky in England to have hospices that we have, the staff that work there are truly incredible people. But after an experience like this, you really just chug along and move from one day to the next in a bit of a fog, trying to find a little bit of joy in each day to erase some of the bleakness. I have great wisdom points in experiencing the death of somebody close, but have found it very difficult to watch somebody I love so much having to grieve the loss of his mother. 

Perhaps that would have been enough to contend with for the past few months, but you know how it works, if one thing goes wrong...many go wrong. And business was very slow for March and April. I was beginning to worry that maybe I would have to move onto something else. This is the curse of the freelancer, this anxiety, and this train of thought is very common when things go quiet for many of us.  We all know from past experience, things tend to come good again and we ought to just take advantage and get things done we've been putting off when for once, we have the time. But we generally find ourselves obsessing over how much money is or is not going to come in and we end up spending most of our time just freaking out! 

I had to be proactive about things and so decided to spend a big whack of money on advertising. This can be a crap shoot, am I throwing good money after bad? But thankfully it did pay off. One client referred me to three others (Thank you! These were small projects but they gave me something to get up for every day) And then I generated four other clients which took away the worry. A book project I had signed for had been stalled for months, and that suddenly is back on track. It also looks like I will be working on another large book project for a new ghostwriter client which is quite exciting. And happily, many of my academic clients are coming out of the woodwork again this month. I have had seven enquiries in the first two days of the month, I truly don't even think I met this number for the whole of April! I have spoken with other freelancers and they all say it has been quiet for them too. I speculate, Year End, Uncertainty of Brexit, and Easter Holidays...

Aside from worrying about my future and what I was or wasn't doing with my life, I did manage to get a few things done that I never would have had the time for, this is a bonus for sure. I thought my website was looking a bit dated, so I did a total overhaul. Wow, that was a project and a half in the end! I think it ended up taking me ten hours in total, I kept making stupid mistakes. And Google wasn't happy with the way it displayed on some mobile phones, so I ended having to redesign from scratch. But I'm so happy with it now that it's finished. I added some new pages that I'd had on a 'To Do' post-it note for about a year, a page specifically dedicated to podcasts and a page to sign up to the Trusty Transcriptionists newsletter (be still your beating heart, huh?)

I also managed to get some writing done, like properly. I half finished a short story which combines Artificial Intelligence (something I've been obsessively reading about lately) and love (something I try to avoid reading about entirely!) I even entered a couple of poetry competitions, which I'd been meaning to do for ages but just never took the time to do so. And finally, I think I've figured out a direction I'd like my business to branch off into which ties in to the service I provide (or at least provides a service required by many of the clients I already have) The happy news, it is something that 'Will a Robot Take Over my Job' claims is only at a 6% risk. (Have you checked out this website? It is interesting if not very disconcerting!) So I'm looking forward to taking a course in the summer, getting skilled up, hopefully passing and then launching a new branch to the business in the autumn/winter time. 

I'm feeling quite optimistic about things in general, which I think is the crux of this message. Sometimes life can seem quite daunting, scary, lonely and even hopeless but we must try to remember that a new day will eventually come. And sometimes it takes weeks or even months to feel like that 'new day' has dawned, but it eventually does. And it's important to talk to a few people you trust when you're going through the down times, or there are organisations that you can speak to. We all need to feel supported and to feel loved. We are social creatures, we really are not meant to be just existing alone or virtually. Although I am extremely lucky to have a really good network of proper close friends, and a husband who has unwaveringly supported me for close to 25 years now,  I find that when things get rough, it's difficult to reach out. But these are the times when you have to bare your soul a little and seek a bit of emotional support. It's also about learning who can and cannot be present for you emotionally when you're going through a tough time. Some people are overloaded in their own lives and simply don't have the capacity to take anything else on. This is a very painful life lesson and a lot of time can be wasted wondering what you did wrong. There's that classic Seinfeld episode with George Constanza and the 'It's not you, it's me' routine. But do you know what? Sometimes it really isn't you. 

I close with a photo from last week, of a peony flower in my garden. I planted these two years ago (I am very new to this whole gardening lark)and I am astounded each year when something actually blooms, and the beauty of these flowers truly does take my breath away. It really is the little things that bring the greatest joy. 

Trusty Transcriptionists is celebrating 5 years in business! I feel huge gratitude to all of my clients that have accompanied me on this journey. When I started this business (admittedly on a bit of a whim) I really did not expect it to be this successful. Of course, success is defined by the person, for me success is making enough money to live on, having the freedom to travel from time to time, remaining busy and producing a product the client is happy with. Throughout my time running the business, several people were gently nudging me to expand and grow the business. I did so for a short time but found it was not very lucrative from a financial perspective. It is very time consuming and often draining once you start bringing other people into the equation and I wanted people to be paid fairly for their work. I remember when I first started out freelancing, I was being paid by a large well known British company to do their transcribing at 35p per audio minute! This is truly exploitative. This company charges a significantly higher rate per minute than I charge, so what they are paying their subcontractors is shameful.  It also drove me to quickly move away from working for any third parties, and start my own business. I valued myself much more than that. 

Over the past five years, for the most part, times have been good. I initially invested heavily in advertising when I started the business. After a couple of years, I found I rarely had to advertise (thankfully because it is expensive!) I was busy all of the time and never without work. Referrals and repeat business kept me ticking along. I felt very lucky but I knew that it was my hard work and initial marketing that had set things up for me. This is not an easy game, not knowing when your next paycheque is coming from. There is no guarantee that I am going to make any money at all from month to month. This can be stressful and I don't think it's for everybody. In reality, if I'd not had a large chunk of savings, I could have easily been put out of business many times. Often the large companies are the slowest to pay and sometimes the amounts owed are significant. I have been so fortunate, in all of my five years I have only had one person who refused to engage with me on payment. She just ghosted me when I tried to communicate about the overdue invoices. This went on for months and I eventually sent the debt to a collection agency who recouped the loss for me immediately. This sort of confrontation is really not my style and I lost a lot of sleep over this issue. This was of course in my first year of business when I was very green to the whole thing. But I felt justified and completely entitled to claim my money and I've never regretted doing that. One other person who was studying law asked me to do some copy typing for him. Again, I was quite new to the business and agreed to do it (I hate copy typing, it is not a service I offer) I charged him a very minimal amount for the document, it was not even worth my time. He never paid me. I chased a couple of times but just let it go in the end as it was such a small sum it simply was not worth my time or energy (I'm sure he's made a wonderful solicitor ;-) But overall, I've been very lucky on that front. 

Typing for a living is certainly not what I envisaged as my life plan, but I am very happy running my own business and with the lifestyle I've managed to eke out during the process. My only regret is my mother had passed away several years before I started the business. I would have loved for her to have seen what I've accomplished, all of it is really thanks to her. My mother was a very proficient executive secretary/administrator all of her life. She mainly worked for different departments of the government and for law firms (the later, she hated). I recall the home office in my house growing up, it had two desks in it, one for my father (who worked in politics) and one for my mother who acted as secretary for my father evenings and weekends. In my mind, I can still hear the voice of my father dictating letters to my mother, and that clacking sound of the keys on the typewriter as my mother typed away, letter after letter, usually with carbon paper in-between to make those much-coveted copies. 

I recall vividly the summer of 1983, when I was 13 years old, my mother insisted that I do typing lessons at home several times a week. In the summer holidays? You've got to be kidding me. No, no she was not. She had bought me a book which contained introductory lessons. I had to work my way through one lesson a week. She promised me that typing was a skill that I could always fall back on if need be. My mother was fiercely independent and worked full-time for all of her life. These were good values to instil into me of course. And she was wise because life throws one so many curve-balls, little did she know that she would become a widow at the age of 42,  and be solely responsible for me, her 14-year-old daughter and only child. That certainly was not the life plan. And so on those beautiful July and August days, Ottawa summers were fabulously hot and sunny, there I sat in the home office typing away (it was still typewriters in those days folks, I am that old!) I started by learning the home row, FFF space, JJJ space, F space J space, FJF space. You get the picture, anybody who has had touch typing lessons knows the score. 

Now, don't feel too sorry for me, these lessons perhaps took up three hours a week of my holiday time, the rest of the time I was with friends and swimming in our back garden and having endless sleepover parties. These were good times. The sad part of this story is several years later when I was 16 years old and in high school, I took typing as one of my elective classes (at mother's insistence naturally) You would think that I would have passed with flying colours, after all, I had a head start on everybody else, I actually knew the keyboard by touch. But nope, I failed typing miserably, a big fat F (and I'm not talking FFF space) This of course was mainly because I was in the billiards hall playing pool, eating fries, flirting with boys and smoking cigarettes instead of showing up to typing class. Without practice and diligence in touch typing, you will fail, that's guaranteed. The end result is only what I deserved, I had to go to summer school to retake typing and I spent yet another fine summer in front of a typewriter!

With luck, next year I will be celebrating 6 years in business. It has come clear to me that I am going to have to diversify my services a little bit over the next few years if I want to stay in business. My intention is to start offering some virtual services in addition to transcription service over the next six months or so.  It has always perplexed me greatly how many people do not know how to touch type in this country (like why in the world are you not offering this as a class in all schools? Our whole world is based around a computer keyboard now!) But technology, of course, is eventually going to bypass the need for any of this, as artificial intelligence begins to develop further and people can just command with their voices. And these are exciting times ahead, admittedly I'm a little worried but I am willing to embrace it. However, voice recognition is not up to standard yet when it comes to more than one voice, let me assure you (I tested it out several times to put my mind at ease, the results produced by software were dire!) But not before long the machines will be taking over... yes time stops for no one, not even for a transcriptionist who spent several of her hot and sunny summer holidays typing away under mother's orders.

​Photograph- my mother and father 1972- Did they have a premonition to toast Trusty Transcriptionists celebrating 5 years in business? 

When GDPR came in, I read what it entailed to ensure my business practices complied. I have never  sent my data outside of the UK, my business only deals with UK clients, so this was one aspect I did not research or worry about. However, a client of mine has asked me to inform other students of the potential issues with sending data outside of the EU. She was working on her dissertation and this involved approximately 20 different interviews. I transcribed a large proportion of these interviews. The remaining interviews were done in her language with respondents also speaking that language. I was not able to transcribe these interviews for her (I'm good but I'm not that good! ;-)So she sent the interviews to a country in Asia, as she could not find anybody to transcribe these interviews for her in England in her native language. Unfortunately she then got in trouble with the ethics committee of her university as she did not anonymise the data prior to sending them outside of the EU.

Under GDPR data cannot be sent outside of the EU unless it is totally anonymous. If you must send your data outside of the EU there are steps you must take or you are breaching GDPR. GDPR applies to anybody handling data, individuals and companies. It is your responsibility to ensure that breaches do not take place. If you must send data outside of the EU it is my understanding that the following precautions must be taken- anonymise the data. So if the sound file you are sending is the name of the person interviewed, change that file name to Interview X, Interview 1, etcetera, never have the file name match with the name of any person actually interviewed. If the interview contains information within it that can identify that person (their name, where they work, where they live etcetera) edit this out of the recording prior to sending it. If the person is in the public eye and could therefore be identified by their voice or whatever they are talking about in interview, you MUST get the respondent to agree to allow you to send their data outside of the EU (I would get this in writing) This applies only to data you wish to send outside of the EU, and sometimes you may not have a choice but to send your data outside of the EU as with the case I cited, but if there is not a specific reason to send your data outside of the EU then it is more sensible  is to keep your data within the EU. It really is a no-brainer and will save you a lot of stress.

Other sensible precautions to take- how are you sending your files? Is it through a free file sharer? You get what you pay for, be careful with your data. Ensure that the data you are sending is encrypted. I pay for a service which encrypts your sound data and automatically deletes it after 10 ten days. Your university may also have ways to safely send data. Emailing sound files (especially from free email accounts) is not wise nor is it recommended.

Do not send your data to just some random person that does not even have a website just to save a bit of money. The data you have worked so hard to get is important and is confidential.  It is simply unwise to send your data to somebody that you do not know that does not have an internet presence.

I am not an expert on GDPR and sending data outside of Europe. I have gleaned the following by Googling 'sending data outside of the EU' Please Google this and do your own research, I provide the above as a guide only at the request of a previous client. This information obviously applies not only to students but to anybody that deals with recorded data. If any readers have updates on any of the information contained above or there are any inaccuracies please email me and I will update this blog entry.
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Best wishes and happy researching!
Kim 

Photo- Halloween 1980 (I'm the first devil ;-) 

​Happy Halloween from Trusty Transcriptionists! This time of year always makes me a little bit nostalgic as this is a very popular day in Canada where I am originally from. My childhood was full of so many happy Halloweens. My mother absolutely loved Halloween as well. As a child she would always let me have a little Halloween sleepover party. Five or six of my girlfriends and I would dress in our costumes, do the rounds, come home and examine the 'loot' which was candy galore inside of pillow sacks. Let me tell you, we got the good stuff in our neighbourhood! Many people would even take the time to make little bags stuffed full of a myriad of candies and chocolate bars. We would then begin the 'trade negotiations' which would entail ditching our least favourites for the stuff we liked. My mother would then serve us dinner, usually pizza or fried chicken. The table was always set with all kinds of spooky decorations. She would then treat us to one of her amazing homemade cakes, my favourite was always the chocolate mint one. The rest of the evening involved scary movies!

When I was about six years old I got sick with a bad flu and could not go out trick or treating. My father got one of the older local kids to bring an extra bag with her and she trick or treated on my behalf. I remember the delight I felt when my father presented me with a bag full of all sorts of Halloween candy! The most perplexing treat being these red wax lips, I remember them well. The urban legend said that if you ate them they would turn into gum, but really they just tasted like and had the consistency of wax.

When my mother died and I had to clean out her apartment in Vancouver there of course was a box full of Halloween decorations amongst all of her stuff. I had them shipped back to England and have enjoy going through them and putting them out each year. They are a taste of home for me and a nice reminder of my mother and all of the fun times we had. I know that we should not attach too much sentimentality to objects but sometimes 'things' can make you happy if they evoke fond memories of a person now lost to us. I'd like to think that my mom is somehow celebrating Halloween of 2018!

If this is an enjoyable time of year for you, I hope that you have a wonderful Halloween!
Best wishes,
Kim