Guest post from Caitlin of Proofread Anywhere
At age 24, I was fired from my job as "marketing manager" at a court reporting agency. It was for good reason, too: I was finishing my work super fast and then doing whatever I wanted the rest of the time. This was the kind of place where you finish your own work, then go get someone else’s.
It wasn't getting fired that shocked me though, it was how upper management handled it.
I was called into a conference room to meet with three managers (I'll call them Randi, Candi, and Mandi). There was a huge stack of paper that had printouts of my Internet activity and screenshots of my activity were displayed on a TV. I definitely deserved to be fired, but they also chose to attack me personally. They told me I was trash, called me horrible names, and they even went so far as to say I shouldn’t have children because I had no morals.
My bachelor's degree certainly had not prepared me for this!
Despite my faith that God would redeem me, I harbored bitterness and resentment. I was depressed for weeks, and could barely get out of bed in the morning. My amazing husband, Ben, never left my side, never spoke an unkind word, and continually encouraged me to pursue my dreams.
This was a terribly ugly situation; but little did I know, something beautiful and unexpected would come out of it.
Way back when I started my job, Randi had given me a transcript to proofread. I had such a knack for it that she moved me from my receptionist position to a position in the transcript production department. I got to know and work with many court reporters and ended up taking on several as personal clients.
After I was fired, I was still making a few hundred dollars a month from two of those personal proofreading clients… but nine months later, I lost those two clients. I took a chance and asked one of them for contact info of the agency my client worked for (that now had its "own" proofreaders). I e-mailed an inquiry, and I've been doing quality assurance proofreading for them ever since – almost three years now!
Another something unexpected stemmed from that one inquiry. One of the largest legal support agencies in the United States had my name… and they started to hand it out. I had new clients left and right!
Just two months after my initial e-mail to that agency, I made $1300 in 30 days. The next month, I read some more, and I made over $2500. A couple months later, I made over $4000 proofreading transcripts. It's continued ever since, and I rarely work over 20 or 25 hours a week. A few times, I've even surpassed the $5000 mark in one month. My average before-tax income the last few years has been $43,000 to $47,000 per year.
I also went on to create ProofreadAnywhere.com, a hub and platform for my online course, Transcript Proofreading: Theory and Practice, where I now share my knowledge and experience as a transcript proofreader to teach other people with "eagle eyes" to make money by proofreading transcripts. The course imparts every bit of my knowledge on the subject – and the best part of my job is seeing my students' lives change because of it.
I find myself feeling grateful toward Randi and the others for firing me from their company — because now I have my own company!
Randi tried to destroy my spirit, but I now realize she actually set me free. I finally forgave myself for the wrongs I committed against her and the company. It held me back for a long time, thinking that I somehow didn't deserve to flourish because of the things I'd done, and that somehow she was right.
I'm human and I made some mistakes. But I am not trash. I am God's child – living proof of His power to redeem.
Caitlin Pyle is a professional transcript proofreader and creator of Proofread Anywhere. She loves traveling, home workouts, and being inspired.
