I have a love/hate relationship with Casting Words. (Follow the link to get some context.) Some transcriptions I submit are almost flawless, but I won't get a top grade (and therefore the best pay) for them because the scrip editors will change subjective things like replacing commas with periods, or periods with commas (many times inappropriately). And because they "had" to change something, they get paid for that, and then you get paid less.
One grader/editor bitched at me today for having too many double hyphens, but in transcripts you need them when people start a sentence, stop, and then start another one that goes in a completely different direction. Some false starts can be ignored without changing the meaning of the statement, and the CW guidelines tell you to get rid of them. But most can't be removed without deleting half a sentence and then just inventing a new beginning or end to the other one, thereby changing the entire meaning of the statement.
Today I did a transcript where five guys where talking in short sentences half the time (3-4 words) without every speaker as close to the mic as they should be. So probably a third of the time I was simply guessing at who was who when labeling the speaker, which I noted when I filed the scrip. I expected a low grade or even a rejection. Instead I got the best paying grade they give. So god damned annoying..












