A 'lousy-mood' kind of a day...

[alexpgp]

A number of factors have come into play to make this an almost lethally miserable day. As much as I would like to walk around with a smile on my face - if for no other reason than I know it's healthier to do that than to walk around muttering under my breath, scowling at the world - it just ain't in me.

First, I really dislike having to work at the store when I have translation work deadlines leering at me from the murk of Tomorrow. The feeling is compounded - and I can't imagine why I feel this way - when the conditions of your work have still not been settled (I need new batteries for my Kreskin hat... no call came about my e-mail; I had to initiate the conversation this morning, and even then, I had to leave a message and the client did not call back until almost 1 pm).

Second, I was a little mad, I suppose, at myself for even accepting the work. Editing is hard work - every bit as hard as translation - but just about everyone in the industry expects to pay diddley for it. The response from the client was no exception. In the ensuing conversation, we struck a compromise: I'd accept less than my going rate for editing, but then chunks of new text in the job would be charged at my translation rate. More about that later.

Last, if seems all members of my family are in some sort of conspiracy to tick each other off. Everyone - myself included, probably - is walking around with a chip on his (or her) shoulder, both locally and long-distance.

Those are my observations... your mileage might vary.

I've got to improve my mood. I think I shall put on CD of Andrea Bocelli as a start.

Cheers...

Comments

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Editing for peanuts is soul destroying. Hear hear. When I hear gasps out outrage from clients who say 'you want HOW much an hour', I usually calmly ask them how much they pay their local garage for an hour's labour. That is usually *way* more than they think they should be paying somebody who's been editing for over 20 years. Agency editing is the worst - they pay me a little more than I used to pay my cleaning lady, and I'm not dishonest enough to cheat on the hours.

Then, of course, there's the temptation to splatter red ink / track changes everywhere just to justify one's existence, which is also hardly sensible. Don't get me on to editors who like to paraphrase for the hell of it. No. I'm irritable enough already today (is it catching?).

Your compromise is the usual one that happens here - raw text at translation rates plus the 'peanut rate' for the editing. A lot of academics here write their papers in a mixture of their own language and bits of English, which is a similar sort of exercise: their English needs tidying up as well as the translation. Ugh. Then the fun is trying to make the invoice - cutting and pasting the translated parts for a line count, then an estimate of the editing time.

The easiest solution, if you can coax them into accepting it, is to get a rough idea of the translation quantity then the hours the editing should take, round it up a little and offer an 'all-in package' with a deadline that you sell as being amazing considering the complexity, plus the general impression that they're getting the deal of the century. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I have to say that the 'selling myself' is the part of this work I hate most, though. I spent years and years apologising to clients about how expensive translation was. Then I grew out of it because of a pressing need to make money and because I was sick of being exploited. Now, I'm a cranky old creature charging a lot, but it also works. Some people still prefer what I offer rather than cheap, sloppy translation. Fortunately.