| विषय में पृष्ठों की संख्या: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Client wants rebate after rush job विषय पोस्ट करनेवाला व्यक्ति: Arnaud HERVE
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Mervyn Henderson (X) 
स्पेन
Local time: 22:04
स्पेनी से अंग्रेजी
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Hi Arnaud,
If you employ that bird to write out your stuff 24 hours a day, you only have yourself to blame. I've been watching it for some time now, and the poor thing never ever gets a break. Sort out employee rest time, or mistakes are bound to pop up.
And if you decide to talk to a customer in your pyjamas, you should charge a lot extra anyway. If I think the rate is a good half of what I would charge even without pyjamas, it would have to be a lot more with pyjamas.... See more Hi Arnaud,
If you employ that bird to write out your stuff 24 hours a day, you only have yourself to blame. I've been watching it for some time now, and the poor thing never ever gets a break. Sort out employee rest time, or mistakes are bound to pop up.
And if you decide to talk to a customer in your pyjamas, you should charge a lot extra anyway. If I think the rate is a good half of what I would charge even without pyjamas, it would have to be a lot more with pyjamas.
Somewhere along the line, though, terminology apart, I suspect someone wants to make some savings, and you are a convenient and easy target, especially wearing those pyjamas.
For example, a few years ago I was even given references and TMs, the lot, some real fiddly stuff, let me tell you, and despite this the end customer complained about terminology, and asked for a reduction. Since I had used all the terminology they wanted, every single comma, I refused outright, asked for examples of non-concordance. None were provided (did your customer give you any?). I was paid. Two months later, what do you know? - I saw my translations used on the end customer's web site, word for word. ▲ Collapse
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Arnaud HERVE wrote:
Hence, the other way round, the strangeness of the lack of solidarity between translators. .......
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
.......However, I cannot but repeat I am surprised to see so many translators neglecting the need to protect translators.
Looking a gift horse in the mouth:
With all the advice people have been kind enough to give, taking time out of their day to help another translator.....well, these kind of statements are highly suprising, to say the least.
Ever heard of the SFT? ATA? CBTIP? TTIG? ACTI? APETI? AHTI? ATIA? BDUE? CTA? ATR? CCIA? BOTIS? OTTIAQ? etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
Well I'm not sure people on forums are representative, but home-based computer work is doomed in Europe, because there is no reason people with cheaper costs and good education in other countries could not win the markets.
The sky is falling?:
Doomsaying is difficult to refute, due to the fact that when one is convinced the earth is flat...no amount of proof will convince otherwise.
I could show you my French tax returns, but I doubt that will convince.
There are solutions out there (raising your rates being a key) as has been mentionned before.
But, if you've already made your decision to change directions, don't tread on these pearls of wisdom, they can be useful to others.
Ah, but I forgot, my opinion is not representative because I'm writing on a forum!
I really hope things work out for you.
| | | | Arnaud HERVE
फ्रांस
Local time: 22:04
अंग्रेजी से फ्रांसीसी
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विषय आरंभकर्ता | @Mervyn & N.M. | Sep 25, 2008 |
@ Mervyn : How did you know I was wearing pyjamas? Who talked?
@ N.M. : Well there were kind words, but in a generate climate of economic surrealism.
1) Demands for perfect work should begin only when the translator is paid enough to maintain a minimum household and pay his tools. The principle that agencies should expect less reliable work when lowering their rates is sensible. It is even acknowledged on other proz forum threads.
2) Accepting rush j... See more @ Mervyn : How did you know I was wearing pyjamas? Who talked?
@ N.M. : Well there were kind words, but in a generate climate of economic surrealism.
1) Demands for perfect work should begin only when the translator is paid enough to maintain a minimum household and pay his tools. The principle that agencies should expect less reliable work when lowering their rates is sensible. It is even acknowledged on other proz forum threads.
2) Accepting rush jobs and not specialty topics is not the choice of the unwise. It's the economic necessity of the translators who need money immediately, and it is extremely widespread. I suspect the majority of those who answer job quotes on proz are in this situation, since they need new clients.
3) Some translators, like you, can afford to maintain principles because they already have a carreer. But that is not wisdom, it is just enough income i.e. workload and good clients to avoid trouble situations.
4) Other translators don't have a carreer, but they have someone at home who supports the household, and in some cases that person even provides the translator with work from friendly colleagues, and even provides free proofreading and tuition at home for every job. I don't, I'm on the market.
5) Translation jobs, as well as other computer based works, will eventually go to cheaper countries, provided broadband connection and skilled labor are available there. Which is more and more the case. The market always goes to cheaper, and Internet related jobs don't need a particular location.
I understand that the translator towards Latvian can deny that, but I am so surprised translators towards French, English or Spanish deny it as well, since there are Maghreb, India and South America.
I'm sorry if all that sounds wild, but in fact the explanation is that I have been spending 4 years in another profession, where they do have safe income, safe working hours, safe working conditions, etc. AND also trade-unions, lawyers, political lobbying...
[Edited at 2008-09-25 12:27] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
नीदरलैंड
Local time: 22:04
सदस्य (2006)
अंग्रेजी से अफ्रीकान
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| I always use the TM for terms | Sep 25, 2008 |
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
The reproach is that I neglected the TM in my research for vocabulary. Which is TRUE. ... So here it is. Once again I DID neglect looking into the TM. But during that work I believed that if there was any terminology to be consulted anywhere, he would just have told me. So I just used the TM for TagEditor, and assumed there was nothing else interesting in it.
My first point of research for terminology is the TM. With Wordfast (my CAT tool), it is as simple as selecting a word and clicking a button. I often have to do this anyway, when updating someone else's translation, because term usage can differ from translator to translator.
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| Pearls before you know what.... | Sep 25, 2008 |
N.M. Eklund wrote:
I could show you my French tax returns, but I doubt that will convince.
... don't tread on these pearls of wisdom, they can be useful to others.
For several years I carried on an occasional correspondence with a US-based translator I'll call Sad Sack Sam (not his real name). This poor downtrodden fellow had good looking academic qualifications, a specialty for which the demand is excellent and presumably good language skills, but somehow he never quite managed to get his business where it wanted it to go despite the fact he openly advertised how hardworking and inexpensive he is (for his specialty - legal - I think cheap is seldom seen in a positive light).
In any case, after listening to several years of his whining, one day I got a letter that said something to the effect of "people say it's possible to make a good living in this profession, however people also talk about the Loch Ness Monster - but I've never seen it. Show me the Loch Ness Monster." Since I was already irritated that day by a rude reproach that I had never sent any business his way (sorry, but I only recommend people whose work I have actually seen with my own eyes unless I have heard outstanding things about them from the few people whose opinions I trust), I decided to do as he asked... I sent him the Loch Ness Monster - my full business plan, which included two years' financial statements and a rundown of earnings from all my customers, charts of the "top ten" and a bunch of other stuff (it's what I slapped together to talk the bank into a financing various projects, including a house). Perhaps a mean thing to do and certainly a waste of time on my part, but now that he has seen a certified image of Ol' Nessie he can decide for himself what to do about it, which will probably just be to whine about what an irritating, boastful SOB I am. Suits me fine
Business meets human needs in many ways. For some it's a way to make a living and pay bills, and many of these people will learn what they must from where they can to accomplish this and check their egos at the door where necessary. Others need to confirm their personal ideologies and world view and will accordingly arrange their business to succeed or fail as is required to accomplish this.
Ms. Eklund, you and others have given a lot of very useful and appropriate advice which I am sure will benefit a number of those trying to find their way in this profession. At the same time I hope these persons will also benefit from the negative examples found here.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 20:10]
| | | | | Professional associations/boards | Sep 25, 2008 |
Before you start comparing the protection offered by other professional organizations (medical, legal), please bear in mind that they also have the power to punish, as in disbaring lawyers, taking medical licenses away, placing sanctions, etc., so be careful what you wish for.
| | | | | Thanks Kevin | Sep 25, 2008 |
Thanks for the vote of confidence Kevin, it's conforting to know that we're not just throwing crumbs in the wind.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 15:37]
| | | | Arnaud HERVE
फ्रांस
Local time: 22:04
अंग्रेजी से फ्रांसीसी
+ ...
विषय आरंभकर्ता
@Samuel
From what I saw of your contributions in other threads on this forum, I somehow imagined you would say that.
@ Kevin et al
I don't where you read that I ever considered it was impossible to make a good living through translation. You don't have to send me papers I believe you.
I'm just saying it will become impossible, and only for countries with high taxes and high price of live, as skilled labour from cheaper coun... See more @Samuel
From what I saw of your contributions in other threads on this forum, I somehow imagined you would say that.
@ Kevin et al
I don't where you read that I ever considered it was impossible to make a good living through translation. You don't have to send me papers I believe you.
I'm just saying it will become impossible, and only for countries with high taxes and high price of live, as skilled labour from cheaper countries is joining the market. That's all.
Please reply to what other posters write only.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 16:13] ▲ Collapse
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| Protecting translators | Sep 25, 2008 |
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
However, I cannot but repeat I am surprised to see so many translators neglecting the need to protect translators.
I am sorry Arnaud, but I think it's not fair to attack your colleagues just because they disagree with you on how the job at hand was managed. People here are offering their honest opinion, and instead of thanking this honesty and learning for future jobs from the experience of others, you prefer to believe they are attacking you.
The advice you have received here ─if you listen to it, of course─ will help you to be more protected in similar cases in the future and to better calculate your chances of succeeding in a similar job. So WE ARE PROTECTING YOU. You just take it from an incorrect point of view.
Good luck!
| | | | Arnaud HERVE
फ्रांस
Local time: 22:04
अंग्रेजी से फ्रांसीसी
+ ...
विषय आरंभकर्ता
Thank you Tomas.
On most forums, "attacking colleagues" means pointing negatively at the personality of other posters, instead of replying to what was said on the topic. Like depicting traits of disorderly personality, for example a paranoid behaviour, making the person's contribution invalid from the start, and the arguments in the text not worth replying to. Replying to colleagues in suitable language, and attempting by logical and realistic words to demonstrate what you think wa... See more Thank you Tomas.
On most forums, "attacking colleagues" means pointing negatively at the personality of other posters, instead of replying to what was said on the topic. Like depicting traits of disorderly personality, for example a paranoid behaviour, making the person's contribution invalid from the start, and the arguments in the text not worth replying to. Replying to colleagues in suitable language, and attempting by logical and realistic words to demonstrate what you think was wrong, is not often considered attacking, and sometimes is even encouraged. In extreme cases it is even considered the very scope of the forum.
However, it may be true that I ill understood certain contributions. Implying that i "can't" use Trados whereas I made obvious that I could already use matches, and just learned to use the concordance window, seemed to me a bit exaggerated.
And, I will tell you something, as a newcomer in Trados I somehow expected the client to make me use MultiTerm if he wanted me to use a terminology.
It might be stupid but I expected the terminology to be in the terminology tool, and the memory to be used for matches only.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 16:46] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Laura Tridico
संयुक्त राज्य अमरीका
Local time: 16:04
फ्रांसीसी से अंग्रेजी
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| Thanks Kevin and N.M Eklund! | Sep 25, 2008 |
Your posts were very refreshing and appreciated (plus the Loch Ness Monster story made me laugh).
Laura
| | | | | corporation? | Sep 25, 2008 |
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
Ralf, I think you have not observed how well other professions organize.
What you would superficially call independent businesses in medical, law... are in fact efficient compact self-aware lobbies with powerful solidarity.
Hence, the other way round, the strangeness of the lack of solidarity between translators.
You simply neglected to take into consideration the fact that if they are not recognized and member of their own professionnal corporation, they can't do their job. As for translation, any clown can call himself a translator and work without any problem. If you want to change things, try to organize and ask your government to give professional translators with recognized credentials the exclusive right to perform translation. That's the case for lawyers, that's the case for physicians. It is possible to get the same recognition for translators. There is still a long path to go, but it is possible.
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| Think of it this way, Arnaud.... | Sep 25, 2008 |
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
And, I will tell you something, as a newcomer in Trados I somehow expected the client to make me use MultiTerm if he wanted me to use a terminology.
It might be stupid but I expected the terminology to be in the terminology tool, and the memory to be used for matches only.
I don't know that it would be fair to say that's stupid, but it's certainly ignorant. Ignorance is curable, whereas stupidity... I'm of the same opinion as Erich Kästner on that one.
This issue really has nothing to do with Trados per se. A translation memory from any tool will have a record of translations performed and the words used in creating them, matched segment for segment. (Gee, what an incredibly obvious statement... you all have permission to roll your eyes at this point....) These TMs are created for every translation job for a customer in most cases, and sometimes "aligned" content from older translations not created with a TM tool-based translation will also be fed in. In most cases, agencies and customers have neither the time, the interest nor the budget to extract many (or any) of the interesting terms and put them in a termbase (MultiTerm or any other). The dirty little secret of Trados is that MOST translators using the product never use MultiTerm, and as a consequence even when termbases are offered, they are often not used or updated. (I know this - I'm a fanatical termbase compiler, and I've passed on quite a few termbases to clients over the years, some of which are given to me years later (after it has been forgotten who created the damned things), and there have almost never been any additions or improvements made.)
Even where a termbase is created or maintained, most of the termbases will not show you context examples. For unfamiliar terminology it can be very important to see how it is used in a sentence. You know this, of course. If you think about it for a minute, you'll realize that the only place you'll see this context is in the TM. And the TM has a record of ALL terms ever used, not just the ones cherry-picked for the termbase.
I do apologize if you find my statement of such basic, obvious issues a bit insulting. It's not meant that way. I'm just a bit baffled by how you could have cheated yourself of such a straightforward way of helping yourself with the terminology.
I hope you get matters sorted out with the agency and get your full fee. I also hope you get your attitude with respect to work and customer service sorted out. Any job at any rate deserves to be done well. Twenty years ago I spent most of a year starving (total income about $5000 for that year), literally working for food in some cases as I got my very hard start as an independent business person because I couldn't stomach corporate politics any more. I worked a lot that year actually - for free as a volunteer much of the time. But I put as much effort into every unpaid or badly paid job back then as I did into anything a few years later when I lived well only having to work a few days a month for a very nice income. Now I could tell you that this was all part of a strategy for proving my worth and getting referrals, which did in fact happen quite a lot. But I would be lying. It was a very basic matter of self-respect. Without the price of a hamburger in my pocket and few good prospects for the week, I'd still rather be damned than do shoddy work. Think about it.
| | | | Arnaud HERVE
फ्रांस
Local time: 22:04
अंग्रेजी से फ्रांसीसी
+ ...
विषय आरंभकर्ता
Kevin Lossner wrote:
I do apologize if you find my statement of such basic, obvious issues a bit insulting.
Not at all. It was a very positive, experienced and coherent post. I learned from it. Especially the Multiterm part.
The starting year that you describe is very eloquent. There are two differences with my situation:
- You speak of "shoddy work". I didn't do a job that was that bad, after all it was completed and delivered on time, which means something in a rush situation. The aspect that was indeed insufficient, the concordance, was not a lack of "self-respect" because it was not voluntary. There was even genuine terms research.
As far as I understand it, the notion of self-respect applies when there is consciousness. When there is no consciousness the notion of mistake could apply more accurately. When I am conscious, I also tend to preserve self-respect. I don't know, I am under the impression that some posters assume I will from now on refuse to open the concordance window. Like "Hey boss, I learned how to do it but I won't do it, because I want to have payment problems".
There seems to be a shift from characterization of the case to characterization of the person. A bit like seeing an apprentice electrician come with the wrong screwdriver, you tell him which is the right screwdriver, and you assume that because of some deep mysterious personal flaw, he will for the rest of his life come with the wrong screwdriver again...
- You speak of twenty years ago. If I understand well that was a dire situation, but with hope of a career. Today, if and only if I translate as a generalist and towards French in France, I have no hope of a career. Work is bound to move to cheaper Francophone countries and lower the rates, taxes won't sink soon, and inflation rules.
If I specialize and add other abilities, this can change of course.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 21:14]
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Arnaud HERVE wrote:
- You speak of "shoddy work". I didn't do a job that was that bad, after all it was completed and delivered on time, which means something in a rush situation.
I didn't mean to imply that you did shoddy work. It may have been bad or it may have been brilliant. I don't read French very well, so I couldn't judge if I wanted to. I was responding more to your implication that badly paid work (and yes, the rate was shocking to me, but if circumstances drive you to take it, I don't reproach you) deserves bad execution. I completely disagree with that. Self-respect for me with regard to work has a lot to do with knowing that I am doing my best work. Not using the concordance is a mistake, yes - one you'll probably not repeat - but maybe you did your best otherwise. Some of your argument though makes it sound otherwise.
- You speak of twenty years ago. If I understand well that was a dire situation, but with hope of a career.
No, I had ditched a highly successful career with great future promise with no specific plan except never being confined in corporate walls again. The only real ambition I had for a while was to write more poetry, a bit of software too, spend lots of time in the LA County Natural History Museum and donate a lot of blood. Since then I have very pointedly avoided anything resembling a "career" and just pursued what I enjoy and found some way to make pay the bills so I could keep doing it.
Today, if and only if I translate as a generalist and towards French in France, I have no hope of a career. Work is bound to move to cheaper Francophone countries and lower the rates, taxes won't sink soon, and inflation rules.
As you correctly noted, specialization will improve your prospects. That's a generally accepted principle. But I disagree with your prediction that work will move to the Congo or other "cheaper Francophone countries". I've been hearing that same line of crock for English for years - the Indians, Kenyans and others will all do it super-cheap and we'll be out of work. Bullshit. Even for general translations, there are many things which can only be done competently by a local. If a translation is intended for the US market, customers often get very annoyed if it has a British flavor, and they really go berserk if it has the flavor one often finds in the former British colonies. (I'm sure there are exceptions to this in India and Pakistan given the number of people from those countries who have lived in the US for ages, but I think most of these are smart enough to charge a decent rate.)
Even as a generalist, if you deliver top quality and develop a reputation for it I think you can make a decent living. I could be wrong - I don't know the French market very well, except that I often get requests for referrals for good French translators, because some of my customers are under the impression that there aren't very many good ones.
Don't let some of the prophets of doom one finds here occasionally tell you that there is no future in the profession. There is plenty of future if you have the skills needed and you are willing to use your brain to find the right niche for you.
Just one last tip before I sign out of this discussion and move on to other things. I know this is utterly unrelated to the point of this thread, but when I was looking at your profile I took a quick peek at your CV. I think that is an area where time invested would benefit your marketing efforts. I wish you good luck at getting everything sorted out to your satisfaction.
[Edited at 2008-09-25 22:22]
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