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Very quiet day...
Jan. 30th, 2007 09:21 pmNo phone calls, few emails.
One came from an outfit in Minnesota, asking about a 1000-word translation. I could find no negative reports about the company on Proz.com or on the splendiferously named "payment practices" Yahoo! Group, so I went ahead and responded with a time and cost estimate. Another message popped into my inbox a few minutes later, asking me to translate a few paragraphs of the sample that came with the first message.
Cases have been reported where unscrupulous agencies have asked a bunch of "prospective translators" to quote on a job and to translate a "sample" so that the agency could assess the candidate's work, but in such a way that the entire document was divided up and assigned as a "sample" to however many translators as would be necessary to, in fact, complete the translation.
If you're thinking that the result might read funny, you're right, but there are agencies in this industry who don't really care as much about the product as they do about the commerce, and there are customers (end clients) who don't really seem to care much about anything except how much a translation is going to cost.
I don't seriously think there's anything underhanded going on in this case, but I am not pleased to get an email inquiry from an agency I've never worked for where the only thing I have to go on is the domain name in the return email address. (Still, with only that, I was able to track down the company's coordinates, very likely its previous name, and phone number. I love the Internet!)
I finally got down to aligning the source and target files for the job that's supposed to arrive in a few days, and am only about 25% finished. I lay the blame for my slow progress solidly on having nonchalantly picked up Mind Prey, by John Sandford, last night and getting hooked, but good. I read it on and off through the day, between alignment sessions, and finished it shortly ago. I swear, giving me a Sandford book is like handing an alcoholic a bottle of Johnny Walker.
Cheers...
One came from an outfit in Minnesota, asking about a 1000-word translation. I could find no negative reports about the company on Proz.com or on the splendiferously named "payment practices" Yahoo! Group, so I went ahead and responded with a time and cost estimate. Another message popped into my inbox a few minutes later, asking me to translate a few paragraphs of the sample that came with the first message.
Cases have been reported where unscrupulous agencies have asked a bunch of "prospective translators" to quote on a job and to translate a "sample" so that the agency could assess the candidate's work, but in such a way that the entire document was divided up and assigned as a "sample" to however many translators as would be necessary to, in fact, complete the translation.
If you're thinking that the result might read funny, you're right, but there are agencies in this industry who don't really care as much about the product as they do about the commerce, and there are customers (end clients) who don't really seem to care much about anything except how much a translation is going to cost.
I don't seriously think there's anything underhanded going on in this case, but I am not pleased to get an email inquiry from an agency I've never worked for where the only thing I have to go on is the domain name in the return email address. (Still, with only that, I was able to track down the company's coordinates, very likely its previous name, and phone number. I love the Internet!)
I finally got down to aligning the source and target files for the job that's supposed to arrive in a few days, and am only about 25% finished. I lay the blame for my slow progress solidly on having nonchalantly picked up Mind Prey, by John Sandford, last night and getting hooked, but good. I read it on and off through the day, between alignment sessions, and finished it shortly ago. I swear, giving me a Sandford book is like handing an alcoholic a bottle of Johnny Walker.
Cheers...
