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Playing catch-up...
May. 2nd, 2014 10:51 pmOne of the traditionally rotten aspects of the translation business has to do with time pressure. One agency here in Houston has a client who apparently demands that everything be turned around within impossible time frames, because I frequently get emails from them that read, basically, "How much of the attached 15,000-word document can you translate by 9 am tomorrow?"
Invariably, such documents get split up among a dozen or more translators, and I pity the poor editor that tries to do an honest job of making all of the produced material read well, with consistent terminology, etc.
Another way time pressure impacts the process is when parties generating material to translate ramp up efforts to meet a deadline, whereupon the receiving parties expect the translation effort to be ramped up as well. This has both good and bad aspects.
The bad has to do with work flow. Consider the agency I mentioned in the first paragraph, and that 15,000-word document. Assigning the whole job to one translator would keep said translator busy for 5 working days. Demanding a one-day turnaround means that someone who could have done a workmanlike job in a week only gets to work on it for a day, and another such job may not turn up for a while. "Feast or famine" is not the way to survive in this business, especially if by "feast," one really intends to say "light lunch."
The good has to do with getting one's foot in the door. I'd say that 9 out of 10 of my clients are repeat customers, and that in several cases, I started to receive steady streams of work soon after doing a first job that came about because of a "surge" of work that required going out to find new freelancers.
In any event, yesterday, I spent nearly the whole day at the keyboard, and then I got up early this morning (around 6 am) to do the last 3,600 words of that job. Now, I've got 17 more documents to go, and a little breathing room, but not much.
It's going to be an interesting weekend.
Cheers...
Invariably, such documents get split up among a dozen or more translators, and I pity the poor editor that tries to do an honest job of making all of the produced material read well, with consistent terminology, etc.
Another way time pressure impacts the process is when parties generating material to translate ramp up efforts to meet a deadline, whereupon the receiving parties expect the translation effort to be ramped up as well. This has both good and bad aspects.
The bad has to do with work flow. Consider the agency I mentioned in the first paragraph, and that 15,000-word document. Assigning the whole job to one translator would keep said translator busy for 5 working days. Demanding a one-day turnaround means that someone who could have done a workmanlike job in a week only gets to work on it for a day, and another such job may not turn up for a while. "Feast or famine" is not the way to survive in this business, especially if by "feast," one really intends to say "light lunch."
The good has to do with getting one's foot in the door. I'd say that 9 out of 10 of my clients are repeat customers, and that in several cases, I started to receive steady streams of work soon after doing a first job that came about because of a "surge" of work that required going out to find new freelancers.
In any event, yesterday, I spent nearly the whole day at the keyboard, and then I got up early this morning (around 6 am) to do the last 3,600 words of that job. Now, I've got 17 more documents to go, and a little breathing room, but not much.
It's going to be an interesting weekend.
Cheers...
