Slow and fast...
Apr. 11th, 2013 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI'm getting approached by a number of folk who want me to do work for them and who seem to be actually serious about the matter.
Who would not be serious? Well, anyone who wastes my time talking about establishing a long-term relationship, waxing poetic about quality, and then asks for my language combinations and rate. Or anyone who wants me to go to their web site to "register" and provide all sorts of data about myself (where it's almost guaranteed the only piece of data of interest is my rate). Many years ago, my friend Feht observed—and time has shown his observation to be true—that the probability of getting work from a potential client is inversely proportional to the amount of information said client demands to have about you in its database. But I digress...
So in one case, I'm waiting to take a look at the source document, and in another, I'm waiting for responses to a query I posted on the Payment Practices website (had I done this last year with two small jobs, I would not have taken them, as the agency apparently makes a habit of stiffing translators for small jobs).
I still managed to translate about 2,000 target words today, which is not too shabby.
* * * I am again in "serious mode" as far as brushing up French is concerned, as there is a good chance I may be called upon to support a trilingual campaign in Kazakhstan. But I figure even if that does not come to pass, whatever progress I make will not be wasted.
If nothing else, I am gathering yet more material for my for-now-dormant "tyranny of the one true way" essay, wherein I decry the tendency, in our day-to-day lives, not only to be told how to do things, but to have that happen in concert with a clear message that other methods are to be shunned in favor of The One True Way™.
Cheers...
Who would not be serious? Well, anyone who wastes my time talking about establishing a long-term relationship, waxing poetic about quality, and then asks for my language combinations and rate. Or anyone who wants me to go to their web site to "register" and provide all sorts of data about myself (where it's almost guaranteed the only piece of data of interest is my rate). Many years ago, my friend Feht observed—and time has shown his observation to be true—that the probability of getting work from a potential client is inversely proportional to the amount of information said client demands to have about you in its database. But I digress...
So in one case, I'm waiting to take a look at the source document, and in another, I'm waiting for responses to a query I posted on the Payment Practices website (had I done this last year with two small jobs, I would not have taken them, as the agency apparently makes a habit of stiffing translators for small jobs).
I still managed to translate about 2,000 target words today, which is not too shabby.
If nothing else, I am gathering yet more material for my for-now-dormant "tyranny of the one true way" essay, wherein I decry the tendency, in our day-to-day lives, not only to be told how to do things, but to have that happen in concert with a clear message that other methods are to be shunned in favor of The One True Way™.
Cheers...
