'A year ago, feeling hopeless about my work as a freelance writer, I began to look for other ways to bring in money – something steadier to tide me over, with possibly even fair pay. One night, I saw a fiftysomething scientist talking on TV about her job dissatisfaction, how she’d left her position, moved to a coastal town with ocean views, and was loving the freedoms of being a remote court transcriber. I thought: maybe I could do that, and while I didn’t move to a beach, I did go onto the website of Australia’s biggest court transcription company to investigate what such work involved.' (Introduction)