Interrupted work due to technical difficulties Thread poster: Lucien Rousseau
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Hello.
I had a client today morning that needed subtitles on height videos for tomorrow.
It was quite the work but I decided to accept the job.
Weather is quite bizarre where I live, so temperatures can be vary a lot from day to day.
We had a particularly strong storm today. Trees fell and there was a power outage in my city for a great part of the day. I was panicking as my subtitling application didn't worked without the Internet. I also had others proble... See more Hello.
I had a client today morning that needed subtitles on height videos for tomorrow.
It was quite the work but I decided to accept the job.
Weather is quite bizarre where I live, so temperatures can be vary a lot from day to day.
We had a particularly strong storm today. Trees fell and there was a power outage in my city for a great part of the day. I was panicking as my subtitling application didn't worked without the Internet. I also had others problem related to the weather to take care of.
I knew I wasn't going to make it in time so I tried to cancel the job. I had to wait until electricity came back late in the evening to contact them. I explained the situation and excused myself. However, I am not sure how they will react. I am quite stressed.
Will they leave a bad rating on my ProZ page ? As I am new to the platform, a bad rating will almost guarantee that I won't be contacted by an agency with ProZ ever again.
Should I reimburse them or something ?
I would like to hear your impressions about my situation.
Hearing about your experiences would also be appreciated !
- Lucien. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Force majeure | Aug 30, 2018 |
Sorry to hear about your situation, Lucien. It's my view that clients don't want to hear our excuses, they just want the job delivered, and that we need to do everything we can to overcome any hurdles. That said, there's only so much we can do, and it seems to me that your situation falls under what's known as "force majeure". Do you have a contract with the agency? If you do, you should check to see what it says regarding circumstances such as yours. If you don't, then you can explain to did ev... See more Sorry to hear about your situation, Lucien. It's my view that clients don't want to hear our excuses, they just want the job delivered, and that we need to do everything we can to overcome any hurdles. That said, there's only so much we can do, and it seems to me that your situation falls under what's known as "force majeure". Do you have a contract with the agency? If you do, you should check to see what it says regarding circumstances such as yours. If you don't, then you can explain to did everything in your power to deliver on time, but ultimately the situation was out of your hands.
If your weather has the potential to interrupt your work again in future, you may want to think about solutions to the problem if it ever occurs again.
As for the client giving you a bad rating - the only way they could do that would be via the "WWA" system (willingness to work again), and I doubt they would be so petty as to do that. And it certainly wouldn't ruin your chances of getting work; you could get other people you have worked for to leave you testimonials, which would work in your favour if the agency ever DID leave you a poor rating, but I think you are worrying too much. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson 
Spain
Local time: 04:40
Member (2007)
English
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| Aim for a better response next time | Aug 30, 2018 |
Lucien Rousseau wrote:
my subtitling application didn't worked without the Internet
I tried to cancel the job. I had to wait until electricity came back late in the evening to contact them
I agree with Fiona that, although you did what you could this time, it would pay you to make sure you have some way to continue working (even if more slowly) during the next outage. And you should definitely at least be able to communicate with clients via the mobile network (or perhaps you're saying that went down as well).
Should I reimburse them or something ?
Did they pay in advance? If so, I think they're due a reimbursement as they haven't received anything. If not, you probably don't owe them anything, unless your contract stipulates otherwise, but I imagine it's unlikely that you'll hear from that particular client again.
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 23:40
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
I also experienced that storm, although the outage was shorter. But to deal with such emergencies (which are guaranteed to happen from time to time) you might want to consider a battery backup and using your phone as a wifi hotspot for internet connection.
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| Laptop, always | Aug 30, 2018 |
This is why some years ago we decided to switch completely to laptops (hooked to an external monitor). If the battery is in decent conditions you can go on translating for 4-6 hours, albeit with some practical limitations. Power failures occur often in Japan for one reason or the other, and having laptops saved us several times.
As for the Internet, why not buying a mobile Wi-Fi router? Many models allow several devices to share connection, and at the end of the day it's a rather ch... See more This is why some years ago we decided to switch completely to laptops (hooked to an external monitor). If the battery is in decent conditions you can go on translating for 4-6 hours, albeit with some practical limitations. Power failures occur often in Japan for one reason or the other, and having laptops saved us several times.
As for the Internet, why not buying a mobile Wi-Fi router? Many models allow several devices to share connection, and at the end of the day it's a rather cheap solution if you consider how helpful it can be and what potentially dangerous situation it can save you from.
[Edited at 2018-08-31 02:20 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sources of work | Sep 1, 2018 |
Lucien Rousseau wrote:
Will they leave a bad rating on my ProZ page ? As I am new to the platform, a bad rating will almost guarantee that I won't be contacted by an agency with ProZ ever again.
I agree that you have a strong "force majeure" argument here, one that you can no doubt prove if need be, by extracts from weather reports in the media. If you have professional indemnity insurance, there are usually provisions determining the type of cover you might have in this type of situation. Depending on the type of work you do, there are situations in which failure to deliver or failure to meet the deadline could be absolutely critical. Take steps to avoid being in that situation. In any event, it seems reasonable to expect that you have some form of back up enabling you to contact the client and/or continue working for a certain number of hours, in spite of an outage (laptop charged up and ready-to-go).
As for a bad rating, no doubt you will find out, but I suspect that is unlikely.
Finally, I'd just like to say that I hope you are not wholly dependent on ProZ for finding clients. As freelancers, we are vulnerable and need to protect our source of income as best we can by multiplying sources of work.
I've visited countries where power outages are a regular (daily) event and people are equipped with generators. If the place where you live is prone to mainline outages, although I'm not suggesting you get a generator, you certainly need a back-up solution that enables you to work when you need to. In France, I used to live in the countryside and the electricity was less reliable than elsewhere and the internet connexion poor. It was one of the reasons I ended up renting an office elsewhere.
On big jobs, I always make sure that I have some way of recovering the biggest part of the work done thus far if my main computer dies. Again, these are quite easy things to do these days and can easily be integrated in to regular ways of working at little or no cost.
[Edited at 2018-09-01 11:40 GMT]
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