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never accept ridiculous offers!
Thread poster: sabine de vos
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 20:08
Spanish to English
+ ...
Kinda makes ya wanna puke... May 20, 2017

Mervyn Henderson wrote:

I'm in a bar in Bilbao. Never been here before. I gave the barman to understand that today it was only me, but explained that I'd be coming regularly with truckloads of thirsty patrons in the foreseeable future, and that I'd like a few glasses and maybe a pintxo or two in lieu of that at his most bestest price. When he demurred, I mentioned Greece, flipping burgers, cleaners and translators, and he's just told me to get the frig out. Actually, he wasn't even that polite. Voices and baseball bats were raised. What's wrong with these people?

[Edited at 2017-05-19 17:31 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-05-19 17:50 GMT]


A typical approach (in jobs posted here, in mass-e-mails, pseudo-personal e-mails) from an agency is along the lines of, "Well, we are not oblivious to the fact that $0.03 per word for overnight weekend work involving translation of poorly drafted and impenetrable legal text is indeed rather low, but we are hoping that you will consider the fact that, if your work meets the end client's exacting quality standards, we will be able to offer you an abundance of similar work for the foreseeable future as part of our VIP team of valued vendors...."


 
Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:08
Serbian to English
+ ...
not quite May 21, 2017

Michael Newton wrote:

Before considering a job, I usually perform due diligence by filtering out agencies from certain countries. For example, given the economic situation in Greece, would any translator in their right mind do business with an agency in this country? Nevertheless, I increasingly find that many of the agencies in Europe and North America (which I thought to be "safe") are managed by people from these same countries. Proz.com provides names of management of these agencies which I find to be invaluable and which helps me in the filtering process. It turns out that these same North-American and European-based agencies are trying to peddle their translations at the same ridiculous Third-World rates.


Indulging in some due diligence before giving credit to anyone [in the form of yet-to-be-paid work]? Sure, it sounds like a very sound idea - couldn't agree more on that.

But what is relevant is the specific agency, not the whole country.

Although for some countries the correlation between "being from that country" and "not worth arguing about realistic prices and/or risking not being paid" is simply too high, you do get exceptions to the rule - in one direction or the other.

"... Nevertheless, I increasingly find that many of the agencies in Europe and North America (which I thought to be "safe") are managed by people from these same countries"

certainly a factor to take into account, but unfortunately, when you apply the next filter [the most important in my Rule Book] - talking to someone from the agency - you discover from time to time that even agencies run by those who couldn't be more "native" to the country in which they operate are not really "native" to good quality language services - some are overdosing on penny-pinching, for some others language services are foreign territory - they simply can't understand why you should ask so much for "just typing (in another language)" or "just talking"!

[Edited at 2017-05-22 06:40 GMT]


 
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never accept ridiculous offers!







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