Category: New Reporters

6 Common Misperceptions About Christopher Day / Stenonymous Corrected for the Record

It came to my attention that someone was saying that my Court Reporter Rates Discussion group is illegal. I gave a blanket public response to this. But in the ensuing conversation I had with that someone, it came to light that some people have some deep misconceptions about who I am and what I stand for.

1. Christopher Day is not a communist.

Concerned court reporter asks Christopher Day if he’s a communist.

I haven’t studied economics and economic systems at length. I get that fighting for working people seems pretty communist. But it’s actually a capitalist sentiment. Charging what the market will bear is very capitalist. The laws of the United States allow for us to create conditions where many workers can charge much more for the same labor. These laws also allow employers to purchase media coverage that steers workers away from charging what the market will bear. The median wage of the United States is $30,000. Guess who’s winning. Hint: Not the sellers of labor. By the way, chances are good that you are a seller of labor even if you hire people every now and again.

Just as an aside, a planned economy is a stupid thing. It works in video games like Suzerain. But look at all the things that create the GDP of the United States. Does anyone truly believe that such a thing could ever be planned? It’s much simpler to reconfigure the markets of today to be more pro-people,

2. Christopher Day does not believe in aliens.

Concerned reporter expresses a belief that Christopher Day believes in aliens.

Is it possible that Earth is not the only place with life? Sure. But I don’t spend very much time seriously entertaining the existence of aliens. I do spend a lot of time playing sci-fi games like No Man’s Sky, Starbound, Factorio, or StarCraft. Who needs the real thing? I can march across hundreds of worlds from the safety of my home.

3. Christopher Day’s publications do not harm students.

Concerned reporter urges Christopher Day to reconsider publications on the grounds that they harm students.

Thousands of court reporters are using my rates discussion page. This creates an environment where established players cannot game their ignorance and eagerness. It also creates an environment where the rampant misinformation campaign committed against consumers by the STTI Bloc is made impotent. Some students have even been kind enough to write to me and let me know that my work strengthened their resolve to become a court reporter. The students of today will be infinitely more informed than I was 16 years ago. In my view, this maximizes their chance of success.

4. Christopher Day’s publications do not hurt small businesses.

Concerned reporter writes to Christopher Day about the impact of his publications on small businesses.

The small businesses were being demolished because of the schemes that go on in the modern court reporting business. I fail to see how media that makes plain the malfeasance of large corporations in the space hurts small businesses. If anything, it should drive more consumers toward small businesses that don’t have the capacity to lie to them on an industrial scale.

5. Christopher Day’s publications will not accelerate the adoption of stenotype alternatives.

Concerned reporter lets Christopher Day know that talking about rates will increase the speed at which alternatives are adopted, which is false.

Veritext has been advertising for digital reporters every day for over 2 or 3 years. The larger corporations have made it clear to all but the most indoctrinated / trusting that they are shifting direction. There is literally nothing they could do to adopt digital faster than they are today, so discussing rates doesn’t hurt us. And in fact, it can only help us as digital court reporters realize that they’re being massively underpaid and begin pushing back against that.

As the pay disparity narrows, so too does the incentive to use digital. Once that incentive is gone, and once the corporate executives have been fired for blowing so much money on advertising for digital, the stage is set for the field to be whatever it’s going to be, rather than what big money wants.

6. Christopher Day’s publications have an impact.

Concerned Reporter lets Christopher Day know what Christopher Day does doesn’t matter.

I’ve heard this one a lot about what I do doesn’t matter, won’t do anything, won’t change anything, or whatever the flavor of the day is. I slew the Speech-to-Text Institute and created the largest court reporting blog in the United States, capable of outing multimillion dollar operations for fraud. Hell yeah, I had help, and I’m grateful for it. But it must be getting really uncomfortable for the people in the “this changes nothing” crowd.

———-

Hey students, if you’re reading, all through your life people are going to put you down like they put me down. Your idea won’t work. You won’t do XYZ. You can’t do XYZ. Take constructive criticism as best you can. But realize that sometimes put downs are put on you just because someone wants you to do what they want you to do, and they’ll say anything to get you there. In this case, it’s pretty easy to see that there are some folks out there that want me to shut up. They’ll say anything about me to obtain that result.

You’ve now seen it with your own eyes. Does someone really believe I am a communist that believes in aliens while I hurt small businesses and students, while also believing I can do what I want because it won’t matter? The more likely truth is that they do not understand my ideas, so my ideas are uncomfortable, so they do not like my ideas. And the easiest way to get me to stop spreading those ideas that they don’t like is to inspire doubt within me that makes me silent.

Understanding that social dynamic is key to your success. You will meet many clients and agencies that will do anything, say anything, to get you to work for less, or to do whatever it is they want you to do, because that’s what’s in their best interest. You must have the strength to identify when that is occurring and act in your own best interest.

And court reporters are not an anomaly. This is also done to journalists. I became aware of a young journalist that would receive high praises whenever submitting work for the exposure. When it came to paid articles, those same people singing the high praises would suddenly be nitpicking. The difference wasn’t the journalist’s work, but that the journalist was seeking payment for their work. It benefits publications when journalists feel insecure about the value of their work because it leads them to accepting less money. The people representing those publications figure out pretty quickly that making journalists feel insecure is the fastest way to fatten their bottom line.

You may one day be engaged with someone trying to manipulate you. It is my sincere hope that on that day you have the strength to identify it, remain resolute, and perhaps even use the experience as a springboard to educate the next person.

It is my sincere hope that the students obtain a level of mastery I could never have imagined.

P.S.

To you, friend, thank you for giving me this material. I meant what I said. If ever you need to talk, reach out. Despite what I’ve done here, it will not end up on Stenonymous.

Bulletin: Black History Month & The Lack of Diversity on Stenonymous

It’s Black History Month! I don’t do much acknowledgement on here of the “recognition months.” There is a part of me that feels it’s malignantly ceremonial. What I mean by that is, more or less, while we take this time to acknowledge and remember the contributions of Black people to the United States, and that’s important; we, as a country and society, all too often then turn a blind eye to the racial and systemic injustices of this day and age, comforted by the “ceremony” of giving those people a month.

(NOTE: Phrased that way to parody the “us versus them” mentality of the chronically bigoted.)

This is very similar to how I view the way court reporters are treated. Companies and courts tell us how important we are and what a good job we do, turn around and cut our jobs, and then blame us for shortage. The respect we have is mostly ceremonial. When it comes down to actually improving our lives and working conditions through a simple gesture like speaking slower and clearer there are very, very few that make active efforts to help. The primary difference? Most of us can, if we so choose, give up the game and go do something else. Not so with the color of skin. Imagine if someone spent a whole month telling you how important you were only for you to live in a reality where you are more likely to experience excessive use of force by police. “Stop resisting!” “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

(NOTE: It is pretty funny/sad/interesting to see how systems react to court reporters standing up for equality. That is to say, we are placated and nothing is done to further equality. Seems malignantly ceremonial.)

I have to grapple with the fact that most do not view “the ceremony” my way. It is viewed as a positive thing. I appreciate that very much. I would gladly host submissions related to Black History Month (or Pride, etc). I’m not trying to blackout or cancel the celebration or stifle discussion about what we have learned from history. But I would need people to come forward and submit things. Otherwise, it’s just me, Whitey McWhiteface, writing what I think should be written. Sharing what I think should be shared. And occasionally being called names for it.

Comment from a video posted by Christopher Day.

But in the end it’s not about me. I acknowledge the power of diverse teams. I acknowledge that I can only bring one perspective out of the billions on this Earth. It is one mission of this blog to attract more viewpoints, opinions, facts, ideas. And I will stand resolute and spotlight anyone that’ll take the time to share with me what they’re doing or what they think should be posted. Because I know stuff is happening just like Margary Rogers’ 2022 project, or Kim Xavier’s video from 4 years ago. I just don’t have omniscience. The community’s help is required to keep tabs on and publicize stuff, at least until the day someone can be employed full time to investigate and write about these things.

Help bring an end to the lack of diversity on Stenonymous. Please reach out with any submissions or projects you want featured. Contact@stenonymous.com. We don’t have the same institutional and organizational bars as the Journal of Court Reporting. Let’s press that advantage and make some magic happen!

P.S.

If you’ve ever wondered why I’m such a hellraiser on issues related to our field, simply put I’ve spent enough time reading up on private equity and documenting the behavior of various people and entities related to our field. I see pretty clearly that they’re looking to push the median wage of our field, about $60,000, toward the median wage of the United States, $30,000, and pocket the difference, multiplied by thousands of court reporters. What would you do to make $3 million a year? Even if you wouldn’t do a damn thing, keep in mind we live in a world where people occasionally stab each other over stolen lunch. Pretty safe to say the big box brigade will do whatever is within its power to take that money from you, especially when it can be given a sham veneer of shortage and legality. The more resistance that is put in the way, the slower this happens, with the possibility of it never occurring. So that’s the “altruistic” bit. I’d do almost anything except illegal things to keep your money in your wallet.

But I get the sense many of you are wary of that. Perhaps it would comfort you to know I am also self-serving. I have a disability wherein 50% to 80% of those with it cannot hold a full-time job. I have another disability right on top of that. I not only hold a full-time job, but I am in the 10% or 20% able to pass a stenographic training course. Then I’m in one of the best stenographic jobs in the whole country, which only maybe 1% of us can hold at any one time. So imagine being in the 1% of the 20% of the 20% (0.04%?). Now imagine that you know, almost factually, that there are forces that are systematically plotting to take that away (example) and that your future hinges on the actions of professionals all across your field.

You’d be Stenonymous too.

Brief Hiatus September 2023

Hey, everybody. There are some great articles and ideas in the works. I’ve had an uptick of information from sources across the country and am doing my best to stay on top of things. I also have several articles/ideas in the works for corporations that have opened up to me about their plans and capabilities.

Unfortunately, due to family stuff, this is taking a lot longer than usual, so please bear with me. Low Stenonymous funding means I have to roll without any help. Unfortunately, the blog has to take a backseat to family and work obligations.

I do feel an obligation to my readers and contributors too, but I have to be realistic in prioritizing.

Thank you for your understanding and all the support you’ve given this blog! More regular posting should resume within a month.

For Self-Learners: How To Grade Your Steno Test

I came across this Reddit post by someone teaching themselves steno. They did not understand the grading process. Of course, everyone, including me, pointed them to the NCRA’s PDF about what constitutes an error. But I got deep into the math and I would like to share it here so that people might be able to use it in the future if they get confused:

What constitutes an error: (NCRA Link Again)

So then you take your words per minute, and figure out 5% of that (95% is passing for most places.)

(Words per minute * .05.) * dictation time in minutes.

5 min 225 WPM take.

(225 * . 05) * 5

(11.25) * 5

56.25 errors allowed. Some places allow 57.

I hope this helps.

You can also do total words * the number of errors allowed.

(225 * 5) = total words

(total words) * .05

from the above example:

(1,125) * .05 = 56.25.

If you need accuracy of 96%, use .04 instead.

If you need accuracy of 97%, use .03 instead.

If you need accuracy of 97.5%, use .025 instead.

If you need accuracy of 98%, use .02 instead.

If you need accuracy of 99%, use .01 instead.

As they say in fairytales, the end.

Addendum:

This originally posted with an error where it said 97.5% should use 0.035. This is false. It should have been 0.025 and was corrected.

Finally, Another Song About Stenography

After I was given permission to mirror Andy Bajaña’s song, things dried up for a while on my end. I’m pleased to announce a new stenographer song by Anonymous, commissioned by Stenonymous.com.

The song’s available for download at $1.00. The song’s already free on YouTube and easy to share, but I know there will be those of you that want the wav file or to show support.

It’s thanks to this community that I’m able to do things like this. It’s like I keep saying, more resources give me more power to advance our interests.

Perhaps that makes it a good time to lay out some of my long-term goals. I’d like to grow big enough to begin to centralize our stenographic media, get some of our best influencers on a payroll or contract basis, and really begin extending our reach using several different entertainment styles. It’ll take me a long while to do it alone. Not so with the help of my fellow court reporters.

Regardless of what you think of that plan, enjoy the song, and have a great day!

NCRA Town Hall: A to Z, Public & Government Relations

I attended the National Court Reporters Association Town Hall today with President Jason Meadors, and boy, am I glad I did. It gave me confidence that the association and its leaders are pushing hard to represent the interests of members. The entire session was almost exactly an hour, so there’s a lot to unpack.

Present at the meeting were, as stated, NCRA President Jason Meadors, Executive Director Dave Wenhold, Max Curry, a Past President and Chair of the A to Z committee, Annemarie Roketenetz, Director of Communications & PR, and Jocelynn Moore, Director of Government Relations. The meeting started off with a lengthy discussion from Max Curry about the A to Z program, and he took the time to explain where the program started and how it was completely revamped. According to Mr. Curry, A to Z began with about 50 boots-on-the-ground programs in the states. That fell away when the pandemic happened, and most programs closed. Programs in Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota, and California all went remote, which showed that the program could be done remotely. A new vision has come into place where the program can be done remotely and all of the resources can be centralized behind the program, with fewer boots-on-the-ground programs. Eight programs will be done a year, four asynchronous and four live. This is to capture the different kinds of learners — ones that can learn on their own AND people that need interactivity to succeed.

One of the truly exciting plans was for a landing page that can be centralized that brings people back to A to Z. NCRA is planning to reach out to organizations and associations to have them host a button or link to the landing page, creating a spiderweb or net that helps catch all the people that might be interested in this wonderful career and bring them back to the NCRA’s A to Z to give steno a try. They may ask firms to donate $5 to $10 of their Search Engine Optimization budget to help bring people to the landing page. NCRA President-Elect Kristin Anderson’s Houston President’s Party will act as a fundraiser for SEO dollars to ramp up advertising about court reporting and captioning as careers.

Lisa Dennison also spoke and informed us that 15 A to Z scholarships were given out at $750 per award. NCRA interacted with ASCA, the American School Counselor Association, getting school counselors’ contact information, adding them to a contact list, and getting them information about court reporting. It was mentioned that the communications team has been working on Instagram, QR Codes, and other ways to spread the message. Reliance donated money for student memberships for previous A to Z graduates, which helped grow association membership as well.

It was mentioned that NCRA continues to work with vendors such as Advantage, ProCAT, and Stenograph. The StenoCAT iPad app, iStenoPad, was also described as a way to simplify the logistics of getting stenotypes to participants.

It was explained that last year 295 students were picked up by A to Z. Max Curry clarified that some local programs do not coordinate with headquarters, so numbers from those programs are unavailable. Ms. Dennison asked that participant lists be sent to the NCRA so that better data can be compiled.

A quote by Brianna Coppola was shared. “I have never seen or heard of another ‘career test drive’ course. It really spotlights the encouragement within the community of reporters and their love for their jobs and dedication to the field.”

Dineen Squillante asked about the possibility of reaching out to departments of labor in each state. Lisa Dennison responded that it was something that could be looked into.

2022 Program Leaders and Speakers were thanked. It’s an extensive list, and I feel they deserve the recognition.

Ms. Dennison made it clear that the door was open to anyone that wanted to reach out on A to Z.

Annemarie Roketenetz talked a little bit about plants for Court Reporting & Captioning week, and a lot about the many endeavors of NCRA. She also mentioned that a number of press releases would be made, leading up to a larger press release that will link back to all the smaller ones. This is in line with dispatching our news and events regularly, and a very smart move on NCRA’s part. Several events were mentioned. Review the Town Hall recording at the Learning Center for more, I cannot do it justice in print. Our PR and communications are in good hands.

Mr. Meadors noted that Legislative Bootcamp has been called a “money grab.” He stated NCRA does not make money on bootcamp and reiterated what an important program it really is.

Jocelynn Moore expounded on bootcamp, explaining that it is extremely immersive training on how to be effective grassroots lobbyists. She stated that the training is “going to give you all of the tools necessary to go in front of a legislator, oppose legislation that doesn’t agree with the profession, or advocate for a bill coming through. Some of the topics covered will be “politics 101,” how associations work, and how you can mobilize with other members in your state to move forward on a particular issue.

The Training for Realtime Writers Act was mentioned. It was also mentioned that it will be difficult to reintroduce this under a Congress attempting to cut spending. More information will be provided on that at bootcamp, but also more on the situation from Indiana. Participants will learn how to advocate in front of different parties and teach members to speak to legislators, because legislators do not always have all of the information we have about our field.

Ms. Moore continued on to talk about the Indiana issue. The proposed prohibition of stenographers from Indiana courts was revealed. We learned that NCRA began a grassroots campaign to find out what happened and why the proposed change was introduced. The organization has found difficulty getting information about the change, but finds the language to be discriminatory and mandatory, robbing judges of their discretion and forcing them not to use a stenographer.

It was a packed hour. My only criticism of the event would be that they ran out of time for questions. But you know what? It happens. President Meadors directed that efforts should be made to record questions asked and that efforts would be made to have them answered. Everything wrapped up with Dave Wenhold thanking the participants for coming out on a Saturday. He said that if you get any information on Indiana, you can pass it to him or Ms. Moore. President Meadors noted that just showing up and asking questions meant participants were dedicated to the profession. The meeting subsequently came to a close.

Refinement of the programs we have is going to seize the day here. Leadership is doing something very impressive. My opinion may not count for much, but I’d thank each of them for the hard work that they do and continuing to fight for this profession. It’s inspiring, and I hope reading a little about it has inspired all of you.

The Learning Center can be used to locate and view past Town Halls.

MockWoman: Apprentice Required for Mock Depo Experience

Ana Fatima Costa, AKA MockWoman, is a coach and mentor in our field that has been providing internships for court reporters for over 13 years free of charge. To continue this program, there is now a cost of $197 for the experience, which may be covered by the apprentice, a mentor, or a sponsoring agency/business. I sponsored a student in the past and it was a good experience for them, so I have real faith in Ana’s ability to provide an excellent internship experience.

Do you know anyone that might benefit from this real-world experience of simulated testimony and learning under Ana’s guidance? Please consider letting them know about this opportunity or sponsoring them today. See the social media page or check out the informational PDF below.

MockWoman_Cooley-expert-mock-depos_June-23-24-2022Download

The event is June 23 and June 24 at 3 Embarcadero Center, 20th floor, San Francisco, CA 94111.

For more information, e-mail afccoaching@gmail.com.

Stenonymous Upgrades Payment System and Announces Matching Pledges!

In order to facilitate the exponential growth of the blog and payment for services I plan to provide through it, I have upgraded the payment structure to work through Stripe. Check out the new system below. Please note that to the extent you are able to justify future payments to me as a business expense, you may do so, this is all above board and reported income.

Please know that my general plans remain unchanged. I will be recovering the next few weeks and updates will likely be sparse. This blog, based on its stats, may have achieved the threshold for major systemic change. This means that regardless of what associations do or do not do, I will likely be able to begin doing things that will achieve my original goals of better reporter pay and treatment, as well as larger revenues for existing stenotype services businesses.

Yesterday, about 0.5% of this field came out in open support for me and nearly 3% of you read about my ordeal without a single negative comment. It is the love and support of my loved ones, including all of you, that will make a recovery possible. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to everyone. In the spirit of passing on the love that has been shown to me, I pledge to donate all of today’s donations equally to National Court Reporters Foundation, Paying It Forward (Allison Hall), Protect Your Record Project, Project Steno, and Open Steno. Next year, by or before February 27th, I will also match the donation made to each of the three today up to $1,000 each. If you want to see me lose $5,000 next year, or if you want to see these wonderful organizations be collectively $10,000 richer next year, help me collect $5,000 today for these amazing endeavors. If 3% of the field were to donate $30, each organization would receive over $5,000 today and an additional $1,000 next year. This is the collective power of stenographers.

Can we do it? I think so.

*Please note, I will have to deduct combined Stripe/WP fees of approximately 5%. About $200 was donated before I realized that, so I will eat the fee on $200. It would be too cost prohibitive to eat the fee on the thousands of dollars that may be raised from this post.

Fundraiser Results:

A little under $800 was donated. $160 has been sent to each organization. An additional $160 will be sent to each next year. Lower than I’d hoped, but not bad for an impromptu fundraiser! Thank you to all of you that made this one possible. Looking forward to going bigger.

I Am Alive and Well

This December I have been experiencing an onset of mental illness. I was unaware. I did some terrible things that I can’t take back. I was hospitalized and am now better than ever.

When my thinking finally became clear again, I realized that I had been given a second chance at life. No one was physically hurt, which is great, considering my court family just lost someone this year. I can use this experience to help others.

To anyone I hurt emotionally, lashed out at, or latched onto, I apologize. I did not know I was losing it. Now that I know such a thing is possible, it will never happen again; medical intervention was necessary.

The antitrust conspiracy post will be rewritten to be simple and constructive. Stenonymous will return to its original goal of uplifting the profession. I will take some months off.

A word of caution to those that were rejoicing over my suffering: What does not kill us makes us stronger, and I didn’t die.

A word of advice: If you notice behavioral changes or mood issues, go to the ER. It just might save your life.

For me personally, this is going to be a positive. We now know that even in the event of psychosis I’m nonviolent. Better still, I just created and managed the industry’s largest blog while mentally ill. Now that I am mentally prepared, my life is about to get a lot easier. Years ago, we got NCRA 2.0. Who knew that was possible with people too?

If you’d like a great song for this blog post, check out Poor Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas. It fits incredibly well.