3 Reasons I Fucking Hate Transcription Work
And will never do it again.
I started transcribing a few years ago. The decision to do this type of work came from a need to make money. I had heard from others that I could find potential opportunities in this industry, so I signed up to a few companies. I won't name names, but they're all well known.
The sign-up process is fairly straightforward. You give them your details, they send you their ‘style guide’ and then you complete a practice transcription which they grade and (if it was good enough) accept and allow you to start taking jobs from them or as I call them, little tastes of hell.
Work availability can be super sparse
Sitting at your desk continually pressing refresh is mind-numbingly painful, if I have to do that shit again I am liable to do something terrible. It was literally driving me insane; I felt myself ready to go full-blown psycho at a moment's notice. You left the toilet seat up, did you? Get ready to feel my venom.
In my experience, availability has decreased more and more over time. Sometimes the job pops up and in the nanosecond I take to click on it some other speedy bugger has pinched it. I don't know what sort of trickery these other transcribers are using to do this, but I couldn't replicate it.
It’s stupidly low paid and takes way too long
When I first started I overlooked the fact it was low paid and focused on my ability to work efficiently. I thought as long as I get through each job quickly I could still make enough loot to get by. Oh boy, was I wrong.
I would work through each job as quickly as I could. Sometimes I did actual transcription work and other times I did editing. Editing paid less, but at least I could do it quickly.
You can only transcribe so quickly, it doesn't matter how fast you type (I type super fast, I’m a millennial, what else would you expect?) it still has to be accurate, otherwise, you will get kicked off the platform.
It's not just typing accuracy you have to contend with. Some of the audio files are ridiculously low quality, you can have loud background noise, or sometimes it's like listening to people in an echo chamber. Other times it's strong accents or people who sound like they are whispering. Whilst I smashed my head against my keyboard, I wondered to myself if these people ever intended for this audio to be transcribed. Surely not?
Then theirs tagging you have to do this for all sorts of reasons, if the audio is literally impossible to understand, if there's a silence, crosstalk, or a foreign language. When these sorts of things occur you have to add something like this [crosstalk] or whatever tag is relevant. This adds to the time it takes to do the transcription. Bringing your hourly wage further and further down.
It's mind-numbingly boring
I started transcribing because I wanted to stay in the field of writing, but wanted an easy way to make money. Without having to wait months for editors to get back to me on the work I submitted. I needed money quickly, so I did what I had to do to keep my family fed.
Transcription isn't writing. Sure you're typing and creating letters on a screen, but that's all they are meaningless words. There's no sense of accomplishment, no thrill, nothing. It’s like a damp squib.
You discover nothing about yourself, your writing ability doesn't progress, the evolution of you as a writer is completely stagnant.
Most of my time spent transcribing, I'm fighting myself to stay on task. The positive side of my mind says “Come on Delilah, just a few more hours, you can do it.” While the negativity within me screams “NO! stop this lunacy you're killing your mind, pick up the laptop, chuck it off the balcony so you never have to this again, you can better spend your time watching paint dry.”
If you REALLY need money, then try transcription
I would only recommend transcription to people who have literally no other options. I would much sooner recommend working for a content mill, even Textbroker, you will earn more, grow as a writer and feel more human for it.
If you decide to start transcribing out of desperation, then these are my tips:
- Pick the shorter jobs to start and then once you get on a roll go for the longer ones.
- Don’t leave the laptop once you do, you will never return. Stay on task and get it done while you can.
- Stick to working for just one transcription company. This is because the style guides are all different for every company and it's near impossible to remember the rules for each. You will undoubtedly make mistakes and end up wasting your time.
Delilah Brass
June 2021
