Before I developed bilateral radial tunnel syndrome, which involves compression or entrapment of the radial nerve in the forearm, I worked for 25 years as a court reporter. A lot of people have asked me if I had an opportunity to do it all over again, would I still have been a court reporter? My response is always an emphatic “Yes,” and here’s why.
The first part of that 25-year journey began in New Orleans as I learned the ins and outs of oil & gas and maritime reporting. Because I loved the jobs involving climbing, throwing, and jumping, I had the opportunity to take testimony deep down in the heart of gravel pits, on oil rigs, pushboats, tugboats, and pogey boats. I remember . . .
- an oil rig assignment that ended with our having to be rescued because our boat hit something and began taking on water
- having to evacuate more than once from oil rigs because the blowout preventer was stressed
- climbing rope and vertical ladders with one hand while carrying my steno machine in the other
- tossing my steno machine to deckhands, and then leaping onto docks, rigs and boats.
I didn’t need to take vacations, because my job was so thrilling. In ’86, for personal reasons, I moved to Washington, D.C., where the reporting world was in every way different. Everyone spoke 25 words per minute faster, transcript turnaround time was a week (instead of 30 days), there was more work than reporting firms could handle, and there wasn’t oil & gas or maritime work.
In 1990, I became an Official Reporter in Prince George’s County, where I had the opportunity to report both civil and criminal cases. Criminal court was an awakening, as I learned about that part of life that people don’t talk about.
Eventually I returned to freelance reporting, where I became a realtime meeting, convention and classroom reporter for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Without exception, after each and every meeting and convention that I reported, I would get hugs from the attendees. That was amazing! Ten years later, as it became clear that I could no longer report, my heart hurt more than my arms knowing that I could no longer give the gift of realtime to the community with whom I had bonded.
There is no other career in the world that could have given me the adventure, experiential education and life experience that I had in my 25 years as a reporter, and that is why I’d do it all over again.