Thoughts on a myriad of Things

Ever want to make your worksheet work on your laptop instead of having to fill it on the paper with a pen?

Let me throw out a way to do that here very quickly. 

Make your document the way you want it to look as best you can in your word processor.  You can set some of your colums of from there as best you can. 

Then, save the file in a pdf format and take it over to Adobe Professional and finish it off there by putting in your drop-down fields and other things you want in there that Word or Word Perfect weren’t able to allow for.

Then, you can email this file to your Production/Billing department if you’re away from the office, and, you don’t have to scan the document later if you are using a scanning protocol for your documents in the office.  One less document to worry about.

Once the reporter fills out the file from the Master document, he/she will then Save As and name the job whatever your naming convention is in your office.

Naming conventions can be things like just the simple job number for a job such as 12345 or something with a date like 090107 or a combination like 12345_090107 or 12345090107 or 1234502CR123 or 12345JSmith.  It can vary depending on your needs.

Your scanning protocol should be considered carefully because you want to decide on the best way to retrieve your infomation at a later date should it become necessary.  Personally, I like to break out the exhibits and billing documents in different folders, even though I will use the same job number.   I could have a Billing folder on my network and then have an Exhibits folder on my network, each containing the same job number or job name.  Makes it easier to pull the exhibits up quickly and not have to sort through and cull out the billing/worksheet/etc. and then print them.   Conversely, if a client calls up and has billing questions, I don’t have to cull through the exhibits to find the billing information or worksheet.

Backing up:  Reporters should back up their dictionaries, at a minimum once a month…..AS WELL AS their user settings and stuff pertinent to their page settings.  To not do this is just asking for problems.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a reporter call me with problems and haven’t made copies of anything.  So, when you get through reading this post, get your thumb drive, jump drive, external drive, network drive and make a copy of the important files and workfiles and front pages and dictionaries and user settings of your stuff.  If you work in an office that utilizes a network drive for their backup, it doesn’t hurt to send the file to the network drive at the end of the day to back it up, even though you’re not finished with it.  You can overwrite the file the next day or whenever you finish the job for production.  If you’re not in a network, it takes two or three minutes to copy to a thumb drive at the end of the day.  I’d much rather re-edit a few pages versus have to re-edit the whole job over again.

I’m on a roll here.

Scopists:  Scopists should retain your files for you for at least a couple of weeks after they are finished with your work….just in case.  Once you’re gotten the file billed, delivered and backed up on your end, then let the scopist know that it’s to delete the file on their end so they’re not backlogged storing your stuff for you.  If you don’t have a good place to back up stuff, you can always get an online drive like www.flipdrive.com or www.xdrive.com.   They have huge amounts of storage space for very cheap.  What’s your stuff worth?  You decide on how much you want to gamble with your livelihood.

Are you writing realtime?   Why not????  There’s no time like the present to start.  Don’t tell me, “Oh, my dictionary is not built up.”   Mine isn’t either and I’ve been writing realtime since ‘90.  If you value your profession, get on board and get on board fast.  I have yet to have an attorney actually stand behind be and watch me write for the whole hearing or deposition; so, if you are afraid that’s going to happen or try to use that as an excuse, spare me. 

I love my job.  I love my career.  I love the people I’ve met over the years that I would not have met otherwise.  It’s up to me to protect your career by being the best I can be in my career just as much as it is up to you to protect my career by being the best you can be in your career.  Let’s all work together to keep this profession what it is and protect each other the best we can.  Hold your leaders accountable.  Hold me accountable.  Hold yourself accountable.

Lastly, again, get your thumb drive out or whatever means you use to back up your “stuff” and go do it.  You’ll be glad you did.

(tipping hat)

This entry was posted on 4. July 2008 at 07:40 and is filed under Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.