| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Are there inconveniences in accepting huge translations? Thread poster: Marie Hélène AFONSO
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What's inconvenient is that huge translations are typically associated with a request to lower your rates, forget a rush fee if you need to accept, say, 2500 words per business day. Also, you need to trust your client more: a client who is ignorant, fussy or somewhat unscrupulous with complaints and renegotiation, will have much more material to play with. This is especially important when the terms and conditions you accepted stipulate a deduction based on the absolute number of errors rather t... See more What's inconvenient is that huge translations are typically associated with a request to lower your rates, forget a rush fee if you need to accept, say, 2500 words per business day. Also, you need to trust your client more: a client who is ignorant, fussy or somewhat unscrupulous with complaints and renegotiation, will have much more material to play with. This is especially important when the terms and conditions you accepted stipulate a deduction based on the absolute number of errors rather than a proportion or frequency. Also, QA is a pain, but so it is with short files. QA is a pain by design, anyway.
Marie-Helene Dubois wrote:
I've always wondered why people think this.
Being busy does make you more attractive (just like teenage dating, I guess), but turning the client down too many times will harm your relationship in the long run. Especially agencies prefer translators who don't their jobs down much of the time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 18:40
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| What the other people said | Jul 19, 2013 |
Marie Hélène AFONSO wrote:
What is your view on the matter?
1. If you work 8 hours a day, you should not spend more than 5 hours on a single client. Leave the extra 3 hours open in your planning, in case other clients want to send you work as well. Of course, if no other work comes in, by all means spend all 8 hours on that one client's job, but when it comes to planning your availability for a large job, assume that you have 5 hours a day.
2. If a project's duration exceeds two months, insist on being paid monthly for the past month's work.
3. Yes, you can get bored, but you could also get bored with your job if you were employed, with a salary. And yes, there are both advantages and disadvantages in terms of terminology.
4. One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread, and which may not be universally accepted, is the fact that you don't have to see the project through to the end if you don't want to. If what you have delivered is of "final quality", then you deserve to be paid for it, and if you want to stop at any time, then (since you're a freelance translator who is not employed by the client) you can walk away, in mid-job, if you want to.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:40
French to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread, and which may not be universally accepted, is the fact that you don't have to see the project through to the end if you don't want to. If what you have delivered is of "final quality", then you deserve to be paid for it, and if you want to stop at any time, then (since you're a freelance translator who is not employed by the client) you can walk away, in mid-job, if you want to.
If you had done that to me when I was a project manager you would have been struck off the books pronto!
If you accept a job you see it through to the end unless there's a force majeure stopping you.
Or else you warn the PM at least that you may only do part of it, before you accept.
A translator who's not willing to see it through to the end should not be given the job.
If the client has chosen to work with only one translator it's because they want the style to be seamless and they don't want terminology to change half way through. I know that with CAT tools you're supposed to be able to keep track of termino but I've yet to see a translation produced by three different people then stuck together in which there were no termino problems.
| | | | | Dangerous territory | Jul 20, 2013 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
If what you have delivered is of "final quality", then you deserve to be paid for it, and if you want to stop at any time, then (since you're a freelance translator who is not employed by the client) you can walk away, in mid-job, if you want to.
Unless your contract specifies that you can walk away, I can't imagine a client or an agency being very happy about this, to say the least. What happens to the rest of the work? Sure, they can't break down your office door and force you to finish the work, but it's a very unprofessional thing to do.
My 2 cents.
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| In my opinion there are some. | Jul 20, 2013 |
It might be boring and therefore more tiresome -- large volume things other than literature.
You may actually have to give up some smaller jobs, or even endanger your relationship with other clients, if the large volume translation happens to be a rush, or tight deadline translation. I would advice anyone never to take very tight deadline large volume translations -- try negotiating a comfortable deadline, which would allow you to fit a few other smaller translations in between. ... See more It might be boring and therefore more tiresome -- large volume things other than literature.
You may actually have to give up some smaller jobs, or even endanger your relationship with other clients, if the large volume translation happens to be a rush, or tight deadline translation. I would advice anyone never to take very tight deadline large volume translations -- try negotiating a comfortable deadline, which would allow you to fit a few other smaller translations in between.
Some companies expect discounts because it is large volume -- I don't think discounts really apply -- perhaps a really small one, nothing like 10%.
Some companies also think that you will not charge for repetitions -- I would not give discount for any repetitions other than proper names, if they really insist -- these are the only real repetitions, and perhaps some table titles, and a few other thing. Not the definite article repeated 5,000 times.
[Edited at 2013-07-20 08:39 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:40
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| On leaving the agency in the lurch | Jul 20, 2013 |
Texte Style wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread, and which may not be universally accepted, is the fact that you don't have to see the project through to the end if you don't want to. ... any time, then (since you're a freelance translator who is not employed by the client) you can walk away, in mid-job, if you want to. If you had done that to me when I was a project manager you would have been struck off the books pronto!
That is a very real risk, yes. A translator who backs out of a large project should do so elegantly, with diplomacy and tact, and only after weighing all the options, because nobody likes to be left in the lurch.
If you accept a job you see it through to the end unless there's a force majeure stopping you.
Yes, I don't think a translator should go into a large job with the thought in the back of his mind "oh, well, I can always walk away at any time". The fact that you can walk away for any reason is simply a fact, but it should be considered an option (if you follow my meaning).
Or else you warn the PM at least that you may only do part of it, before you accept. ... A translator who's not willing to see it through to the end should not be given the job.
This is not realistic, though. No [good] translator who eventually has to leave a large job will have thought at the beginning of that large job that there might be any chance of him not completing it. When you accept a large job, it is because you have every hope and intention of completing it. But the fact that you had that intention at the start of the project doesn't change your legal rights.
If the client has chosen to work with only one translator it's because they want the style to be seamless and they don't want terminology to change half way through.
I agree completely.
TransAfrique wrote:
Unless your contract specifies that you can walk away...
I suppose there might be legal jurisdictions in the world where a freelancer is not free to walk away from such a job (which would mean that he is even less free than a salaried employee). What is the situation in your country?
I can't imagine a client or an agency being very happy about this, to say the least. What happens to the rest of the work?
I suspect the degree of unhappiness of the agency will depend on aspects like how sudden your decision is, how much you are willing to assist your replacement, and how easy you are to be replaced, as well as your value to the agency as a whole.
...it's a very unprofessional thing to do.
I largely agree with you. Trust is important in our industry, and the translator should try to keep up the appearance of trust and reliability whenever he can.
Texte mentioned "force majeure", and although force majeure (i.e. unavoidable accidents) can absolve you of your duty to complete the project, my point is that it does not require force majeure for a freelancer to legally walk away from a large job. If the translator realises that he hates the job, then he does have the freedom to stop doing it.
I'm not saying there will not be financial consequences for him -- he may struggle to get paid for the work he did up to that point, or there may be penalties couched in legal language somewhere in the contract if he was stupid enough to sign a hold-harmless clause.
The original post in this thread was NOT seeking advice on what to consider when accepting such a job, but about what the situation with such jobs are in general. I repeat that no translator should go into a large job with this legality in the back of his mind, but when a translator does find himself in such a locked-in situation that seems to have hoplessly enslaved him, then he may take comfort in the fact that he is a freelancer who sells something and does not hire out himself.
[Edited at 2013-07-20 08:52 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, I agree. You can walk away if you really start hating the text | Jul 20, 2013 |
and cannot force yourself to translate it any longer, and the company still has to pay you for all the work you have done. It does not apply to literature, though. A book translated by more than one translator would be a total waste. I also agree with the person who said they will not give you work anymore in the future, if you walk out on them.
[Edited at 2013-07-20 09:11 GMT]
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post |
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:40
French to English
Thank you for answering me Samuel.
I think it would be very difficult to walk away elegantly though. You'd have to find another, equally talented translator at a similar rate, hand over all your work along with links to the websites you looked at to choose your terminology and agree to proofread at least the first ten pages or so of their output... and even then I would feel miffed as PM.
As a PM/translator in an agency, we once had to handle a book. It was for a chari... See more Thank you for answering me Samuel.
I think it would be very difficult to walk away elegantly though. You'd have to find another, equally talented translator at a similar rate, hand over all your work along with links to the websites you looked at to choose your terminology and agree to proofread at least the first ten pages or so of their output... and even then I would feel miffed as PM.
As a PM/translator in an agency, we once had to handle a book. It was for a charity so of course they couldn't pay well. I told the boss I wouldn't take responsibility, because the text was tough and would require a lot of work to get it to sound good in English, so only a well-paid translator would be up to the task. He bullied a good translator into doing it for about 70% of his usual rate, with the first chapters to be delivered after the holidays (euh, definition of holiday, anyone?).
Come September, no news. The boss finally got hold of the translator who said that his boyfriend had attempted suicide and he was in no state to work. He told ME that he was angry with himself for having let himself be bullied. Both were true. Thing is, I knew the translator wouldn't deliver or at least wouldn't deliver on time. He had already let us down in a similar case when the boss had browbeaten him into taking something out of his comfort zone.
Finally, the boss decided to hire someone to translate it in-house. He did a great job, but the boss had only signed a three-month contract, even though the job would easily take six. The brilliant translator found a better-paid job elsewhere, so he didn't renew the contract (he was perfectly within his rights to do so) and we then had to hire someone else. She too did a great job but her style was not like the previous guy. They were both good, just different. The client was not happy. They didn't specifically say "the style changed as from chapter 6" but they requested a lot of subjective changes and wasted a huge amount of our time, especially considering how little they were paying.
All in all, just about every possible mistake was made during the project. My boss was really angry with me when I refused to handle the project, but I could see from a mile off that it would be nothing but trouble. Then of course he never forgave me for being right! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:40
French to English
Samuel Murray wrote: Or else you warn the PM at least that you may only do part of it, before you accept. ... A translator who's not willing to see it through to the end should not be given the job. This is not realistic, though. No [good] translator who eventually has to leave a large job will have thought at the beginning of that large job that there might be any chance of him not completing it. When you accept a large job, it is because you have every hope and intention of completing it. But the fact that you had that intention at the start of the project doesn't change your legal rights.
Another big project in the agency I used to work at: I got a brilliant translator to do it. A year later, a similar project came up. We had advance warning so I contacted the same guy. He said he might do it, but that he was waiting for the go-ahead for another, better-paid project. The better-paid project came through three days before ours. Given how brilliant the translator is, and the fact that very few others would tackle the projects he took in his stride, I forgave him and continued to send him work, although he didn't do very much for us any more because he was getting all that well-paid stuff.
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