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Making progress...
Aug. 21st, 2012 08:21 pmOne of the curious bugaboos of the translation industry falls under the general title of "future work."
Some agencies hold out the prospect of lots and lots of work "later," if only the translator's price is in line with what the agency feels is competitive. Now, there's certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with such an approach (if I'm going to buy something from a supplier, I'd like to make sure the price is competitive, too!), but unlike industries where there are economies of scale (you expect to pay less per ream when you buy a box of containing 10 reams of printer paper than you would if you buy just one ream), translating 500 words pretty much takes 5 times the time and effort as translating 100 words.
What this means is that granting any kind of significant discount to get work on such a basis is really counterproductive. And in most cases, the kinds of discounts under discussion are significant, of the order of 25% or more. So if, for example, a translator agrees to to a 33% rate discount, the volume of work would have to go up by 50% for the translator to earn the same amount of money at the original rate!
(The good news—sort of—is that almost all agencies that promise more work on such a basis never follow through on their promise, which acts as a sort of yang to counterbalance the (l)ying.)
Another hazard of "future work" occurs when an established, good client gives you a "heads up" about an upcoming "tidal wave" of work. Most such announcements do not—and are not intended to—create any kind of obligation, along the lines of a fee to remain available (tant pis, as the French might say), and so the translator is placed in a potentially awkward position: decline new work and risk having that "tidal wave" not materialize, or accept new work and then decline work from a "tidal wave" that does materialize (and potentially impact a good client relationship for the worse).
Fortunately, I've been working with my clients long enough to where this is not a big issue, but the prospect of such an awkward position is still unsettling.
* * * I am all-but-two-diagrams finished with the item due tomorrow evening. I've managed to deal with all other diagrams and tables, but these graphics will require me to key each label and scan the pages. The fact that the source document is a PDF that's effectively unsearchable (most of the pages have to be magnified 150% to be able to make out the text) is going to make disambiguation a challenge tomorrow.
I will put in another half hour and then call it a night.
Cheers...
Some agencies hold out the prospect of lots and lots of work "later," if only the translator's price is in line with what the agency feels is competitive. Now, there's certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with such an approach (if I'm going to buy something from a supplier, I'd like to make sure the price is competitive, too!), but unlike industries where there are economies of scale (you expect to pay less per ream when you buy a box of containing 10 reams of printer paper than you would if you buy just one ream), translating 500 words pretty much takes 5 times the time and effort as translating 100 words.
What this means is that granting any kind of significant discount to get work on such a basis is really counterproductive. And in most cases, the kinds of discounts under discussion are significant, of the order of 25% or more. So if, for example, a translator agrees to to a 33% rate discount, the volume of work would have to go up by 50% for the translator to earn the same amount of money at the original rate!
(The good news—sort of—is that almost all agencies that promise more work on such a basis never follow through on their promise, which acts as a sort of yang to counterbalance the (l)ying.)
Another hazard of "future work" occurs when an established, good client gives you a "heads up" about an upcoming "tidal wave" of work. Most such announcements do not—and are not intended to—create any kind of obligation, along the lines of a fee to remain available (tant pis, as the French might say), and so the translator is placed in a potentially awkward position: decline new work and risk having that "tidal wave" not materialize, or accept new work and then decline work from a "tidal wave" that does materialize (and potentially impact a good client relationship for the worse).
Fortunately, I've been working with my clients long enough to where this is not a big issue, but the prospect of such an awkward position is still unsettling.
I will put in another half hour and then call it a night.
Cheers...
