What I Should Have Said

I've been thinking a lot about my post over at MSN. It has bothered me from the minute I started receiving comments about it. After thinking about it more yesterday and this morning, I realize I probably didn't word it correctly. That just goes to show you that I'm not an aspiring journalist. I wrote that post a few weeks ago. Everything I post, I have to post in a hurry because I have a 22-month-old ball of fire to take care of.

Here is what I should have said:

A few months ago, I had to give my deposition in a discrimination lawsuit I had against my former employer. I was fired due to my pregnancy.

During my six-hour deposition, I was a nervous wreck. I have taken hundreds if not thousands of depositions, but I had never been on the other side of the table. Before starting the depo, I kept reminding myself, Don't interrupt the attorney; think of the court reporter who is trying to get a clean record. Believe me, I was hyper-aware of the court reporter - probably too hyper-aware. I don't know what got into me, but I think I did interrupt the attorney without realizing I was doing so.

When the court reporter asked us to quit talking over each other, I thought to myself, Why does this damn attorney keep interrupting me? At one of the few breaks we took, my attorney told me, You have got to calm down; you need to quit interrupting the attorney; just calm down. To which I replied, What, I'm interrupting him; I think it's the other way around. I told my attorney that all I was focusing on was the court reporter and her getting a clean record. I honestly thought the attorney was interrupting me.

My attorney said, Quit thinking about the court reporter; act like she's not even there; focus on his question. I got a little offended at that comment for some odd reason, but I figured I would take his advice because I didn't know what else to do and my heart rate at this point was about 200. After that break, I felt so much more at ease. The court reporter didn't have to tell us to quit talking over each other (not that I can remember anyway).

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I get my transcript in the mail so that I can review it and sign it in front of a notary. I tried to read the transcript without proofreading it, which is very hard to do if you're a court reporter. I don't know about other reporters, but I find myself proofreading everything. I even told my attorney I was having a hard time reading it. He said to write down everything that bothered me, so I did.

There was only one occasion, that I remember, where I saw -- anywhere in the transcript. I know that -- can be way overused in transcripts. I've seen that done in the past. But if during the depo, people are interrupting each other, how do you punctuate that without using --? You don't use periods. Or I should say, I don't use periods at the end of an interrupted sentence.

Let's go back to the beginning of this post where I said I thought the attorney had been interrupting me, not vice versa. This really bothered me because I really did think the attorney was interrupting me. I would forever feel horrible if I found out otherwise, and I had the proof in my hands. While reading through the transcript, since there were no --'s and no THE REPORTER's, I couldn't determine whether I had been doing the interrupting or not.

Did the transcript suffer as a whole because I will never know whether I was interrupting or not? No, it probably doesn't. Would it ease my mind to find out the truth? Yes, it would.

This reporter, who was writing real time, didn't leave out words that I know of. There was only one instance that I can remember where a wrong date was used - 2000 and I said 2003 and I know I did. At the time I said it though, the attorney could have been interrupting me and all the reporter caught was the two thousand. I don't know because there's a period at the end of my answer.

Did this transcript suffer as a whole because of the lack of punctuation? I don't think so. I mean, all the questions and answers are there. Could the judge of the court read this transcript without a problem? Yes, he could.

In the whole scheme of things, I think this just goes to show you how different each of us court reporters are. Is punctuating transcripts black and white or is there a little gray in there somewhere?

I have scoped for a few reporters, proofed for a few too. No one reporter is the same. We all have our quirks. We all think our own style is the way it should be - no questions asked.

We could go to convention after convention, ask questions on board after board, and we would never get one definite answer.

Court reporting is not black and white. The only thing black and white about it is writing word for word the testimony that's given. And as all experienced court reporters know, that's probably the easiest part of court reporting - if you call that easy.