When you aren't looking...
Feb. 28th, 2002 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe thing that makes the situation with my phones so acute is that there are a heck of a lot of people out there trying to get in touch with me.
One D.C.-area client has been promising work for several days, and I did get a 19-page fax from them a little while ago, but without any explanation of what the material represents. References? The actual assignment? According to the phone conversations I've had, they should be pages of the former, but they really look like pages of the latter.
Three or four outfits have called looking for my résumé. This is one of the potential "gotchas" of the profession, because in the overwhelming majority of cases, agencies are not obligated to actually give any work to the people whose résumés they used to win the job.
In fact, there is a disconcertingly, um, adequate number of agencies who have no intention of using the experienced and, generally, more expensive talent they enlisted (sometimes even asking people to do short "sample" translations) to convince the end client to award them the work. Once the job is in hand, some agencies will turn around and hire translators who do far poorer work, but at much more attractive - for the agency - prices.
Anyway, just as I was getting ready to put paid to the day, I get a 12-page article from my newest Houston client. By the time I call to discuss the job, the contact person has gone home (oh, that time difference!), but the owner answers the phone and we discuss deadlines, agreeing to talk again tomorrow morning.
Right after dinner, I did about a page and a half in fairly short order and am confident I can do the job within the original deadline (first thing Monday). We'll see what happens tomorrow morning with regard to my instinctive request for one more day, based on my initial assessment of the article (the subject matter is fine; it's the fine print on each page that makes me think it's a 6,000-7,500 word assignment).
Now to go off and check messages on my Houston phone, and then to craft something suitable for a greeting on its voice mail. (I'm still going to have to develop the habit of checking for messages on a regular basis, though.)
Cheers...
One D.C.-area client has been promising work for several days, and I did get a 19-page fax from them a little while ago, but without any explanation of what the material represents. References? The actual assignment? According to the phone conversations I've had, they should be pages of the former, but they really look like pages of the latter.
Three or four outfits have called looking for my résumé. This is one of the potential "gotchas" of the profession, because in the overwhelming majority of cases, agencies are not obligated to actually give any work to the people whose résumés they used to win the job.
In fact, there is a disconcertingly, um, adequate number of agencies who have no intention of using the experienced and, generally, more expensive talent they enlisted (sometimes even asking people to do short "sample" translations) to convince the end client to award them the work. Once the job is in hand, some agencies will turn around and hire translators who do far poorer work, but at much more attractive - for the agency - prices.
Anyway, just as I was getting ready to put paid to the day, I get a 12-page article from my newest Houston client. By the time I call to discuss the job, the contact person has gone home (oh, that time difference!), but the owner answers the phone and we discuss deadlines, agreeing to talk again tomorrow morning.
Right after dinner, I did about a page and a half in fairly short order and am confident I can do the job within the original deadline (first thing Monday). We'll see what happens tomorrow morning with regard to my instinctive request for one more day, based on my initial assessment of the article (the subject matter is fine; it's the fine print on each page that makes me think it's a 6,000-7,500 word assignment).
Now to go off and check messages on my Houston phone, and then to craft something suitable for a greeting on its voice mail. (I'm still going to have to develop the habit of checking for messages on a regular basis, though.)
Cheers...
