Newly Emancipated Rev.com Slave...

Not really sweating this one. I’m just venting a bit, because it’s a slight bruise to my ego, but my Rev transcriber account got deactivated this morning. It was due to two hiccups... 1, the very first non-training job I took was a 2 hour audio file with 12, (yes 12) different speakers, all crosstalking. Audio file from hell. I type 75 WPM on a bad day. Still, it took me 5 solid hours to transcribe a lousy 25 minutes of that file. Considering that I’m also brand new to transcription, yeah, that file was from The Satan Corporation, LLC.

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Of course, after my fingers started cramping and my ears were bleeding, I got the genius idea of unclaiming the file and reclaiming my life. After 5 hours. I was willing to sacrifice 5 non-refundable hours off my life, at no pay, to be rid of that file. Obviously, I took a hit on my commitment metrics, and accordingly received an email stating that my commitment ratio was below their standards and they would need to see drastic improvement in my work, or risk deactivation.

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Well, I persisted, since my other metrics were 4.9 in both accuracy and formatting, on time submission was 100%, and I had worked a grand total of 8 jobs. I worked 3 more jobs. Of these, one was graded quite harshly at 2/5 because rev’s Transcription editor has a little glitch in it... when you’ve completed the transcript, and are reviewing it for mistakes, but try to add a new line for a speaker, the editor will add the line, but will also shift all the other speaker labels down one entry. Kind of like this:

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Speaker 1: some words.

Speaker 2: some more words.

Speaker 3: even more words.

Speaker 4: the most words.

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Edited version, after adding a missed line to speaker 2’s dialogue:

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Speaker 1: some words.

Speaker 2: some more words.

Speaker 2: some added words.

Speaker 1: even more words.

Speaker 3: the most words.

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Nice, huh? Anyway, this sweet little glitch cost a nasty hit to my metrics, bringing my (get this) accuracy (not formatting) levels down to 4.3... minimum for a revver is 4.5. Please keep in mind that prior to this, my accuracy metric was 4.9. So, this cost me a whole .6 points off my metric. Wow.

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Well, okay, easy fix, right? I’ll just do a few small, clear jobs, get graded 5/5, and it will replenish my metric, problem solved.

Not with Rev! I did the following two jobs to perfection... one of which even had the grader’s comment of: “Wow, excellent capture of a file with lots of confusing crosstalk!”

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I received 3 consecutive emails. 2 were the grades of my last worked files, both graded 5/5, and the last one was from Rev, stating my account was being deactivated immediately, because my metric was below their standards. Decision is final. They said those two files had only brought my accuracy metric back up to 4.4. What a kick in the teeth! Brand new to transcription, worked a total of 11 jobs, and that was it. Shot blown over .1% of a single metric. I still think the math was wrong on that one, but whatever. Sometimes the best blessings are disguised as teeth kicks. I’m starting to see this as one of those.

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Anyway, after the initial shock, I started doing research. I found that Rev’s got a nice little history of doing this to it’s IC transcribers. In fact, Rev’s transcriptionist slave labor force is governed by a computer. Zero human interaction, whatsoever, from start to finish. A true to life “working for the robot overlord” situation... This thing is like Skynet, and you’re just one of John Connor’s sidekicks. You don’t stand a chance! It logs your information, including your IP, and once you’re out, you’re out. Terminated by the T-1000. There are no rehires, period. It doesn’t matter if you go off for 3 years, become the leading transcriptionist on the planet, and are gifted with a Ph.D in transcription, Rev will not hire you back. So far as they’re concerned, you may be God’s lead transcriber, but you’re still shit to them and that will never change. Where’s Arnold or even Neo when you really need them, huh?

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I’d like to say that a company who looks at and treats their IC workforce like cattle doesn’t have anything viable by way of longevity, but I can’t. So long as there are newbie transcribers, and people desperate for any kind of work in order to keep themselves fed, companies like Rev will never have a shortage of cattle to lead to their slaughterhouses. Guess I should count myself lucky that it happened now, at the beginning of my transcription journey, rather than later on down the line.

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Ok, thanks for wasting your time reading my little rant. I feel better, now. I’m off to go blast some Rage Against the Machine through my old school skullcandies, and see what’s happening on Mturk.

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I hope you all have a great evening, and look forward to reading any responses! :)