Some Jobs Just Are Not Perfect

For every 60 minutes of audio, transcription time takes about 3-4 hours. This is an average. Some jobs go faster, others slower. Transcription time depends on many factors. Besides unfamiliarity with words and phrases that might require lookups, the recording itself usually poses the most challenges.

Quality of the recording is affected by:

1. Hums and buzzes – sometimes recorded, sometimes it is the player's mechanism.
2. Background noise – talking, cell phone ringing, music, etc.
3. Speaker’s distance from microphone.
4. Multiple speakers – interviews, focus groups, lectures, podcasts, broadcasts.
5. Number of speakers talking at the same time.
6. Faulty equipment – beeps, blips, fading sound, etc.
7. Speakers’ accents and dialects.
8. Mumbles and jumbles – uncorrected misspoken words, slurring, etc.
9. Speed talkers – their goal to get done as quickly as possible.
10. Transcriptionist’s attitude.

Many dictators ruin the otherwise perfect audio by eating, drinking, yawning, sneezing, and burping, as well as other “natural” bodily sounds while they talk. It often seems like the pause button must be broken.

My all-time least favorite audiofiles to transcribe were given to me regularly by a physician who liked to dictate chart notes while he drove home from the office. He preferred driving with the window open. In addition to the road noise captured on audio, the wind did a great job of drowning out his voice. Then there were the sounds of cars honking (undoubtedly at him) and every so often the sound of screeching tires. Besides the dictation being difficult to hear, I was a nervous wreck listening and imagining the nuisance he must have been on the road. I figured that if he got into a car crash (and I expected that to happen at any moment), I would get to hear it as it happened, and I was on edge waiting for that to happen.

Then there was the radiologist who flapped his films as he talked...

Have you had a transcription job that stands out as “the worst”?