Increase Your App’s ROI with Localization
A few months ago I wrote about my exciting experience writing a chapter for the new Mox book (MOX II – What they don’t tell you about translation) by Alejandro Moreno-Ramos (@Mox_Translator).
For the very few of you who haven’t read and thoroughly enjoyed the book yet, here is my contribution.
Pam, the evil PM, is just one example. There are all kinds of not-so-perfect project managers or even agency owners in the translation industry, and the things we read in work emails can be unbelievable sometimes.
We’ve all been there. You open the email and think your eyes must be fooling you. And then, you’re not sure how to react. Laugh or cry? Should you bother writing an email stating all the things wrong in the PM’s email, reply politely with a “thanks, but no”, write an angry email and let off some steam (not recommended) or just delete (if you ignore it, it won’t go away; a follow-up email will come soon)?
The quotes below are all true, things I’ve heard (more accurately, read in emails) in the last 11 years. I’ve changed a few details in some of them, but the gist is there in all its glory. And I’m sure there is still a lot to hear in the future. After the first few, I decided that my standard reaction would be to laugh, politely say no and be permanently unavailable for those agencies (they get the point after a while).
Rates
- Our client decided to hire internal translators for a few languages (not yours), so we’re decreasing your rate by 0.03 to make up for our lost income.
- If you accept a 50% reduction to your rate, we’ll send you heaps of work.
- Why are your prices so high? Don’t you live in Greece?
- We see in our database that you’ve translated 500k words for us in the last 2 years. As a way of you thanking us for sending you so much work, we think it’s time you offered us lower rates. If you don’t, we have many cheaper translators in our database.
- We want a translation quote for these 2 files. Here are the previous source and target files. The client has changed quite a lot, so we need you to align the files first. (I replied that I’ll provide a quote for the translation after the alignment and analysis). No, we want a quote now so we decided to use a cheaper translator.
Productivity
- (While on my honeymoon) Ok, if you accept this job we’ll push back the deadline a few hours. You always deliver on time anyway, so we can do you this small favor.
- We’re splitting this project between 5 different translators and we want you to be the editor. Basically, you have to make sure the terminology is consistent throughout and that the translation looks like it’s been written by one person only.
- I know I’ve sent you 7 different drafts of the same file to translate in the last few days, but my client is in a hurry. If they send more by your deadline tomorrow, you’ll have to start from scratch and still deliver on time.
- Our client complained about the Greek translation projects because you always deliver a few hours before the deadline whereas translators in other languages deliver one day before.
CAT tools
- I know that you own, have trained on and use 10 different CAT tools, but my client has created their own. You have to buy it and learn to use it to complete this 100-word project.
- We heard that using a CAT tool will save us money. Can you pls. tell us how it works?
- We created our own innovative CAT tool. In order for you to use it, you have to pay a monthly subscription, and there’s a charge for each segment you translate.
Social media
- We just created profiles in all the major social media networks. Don’t go and like or follow us though, we don’t want our clients to see who translates their texts.
More gems
- Thank you for being our regular and always available English-Greek translator for the past 5 years. The agency owner’s wife was recently fired so she’ll be the one doing all the Greek translations from now on, and you’ll be her backup when they go on vacation.
- It’s a medical report, but it’s not technical, so you only need a dictionary to do it.
- To add you to our database, you have to translate this 2,000-word sample for free.
- I know you’re not an interpreter, but we’re only talking about medical interpreting by phone. You have the flexibility to answer an interpreting call during your break from translating or while you are doing your home chores.
What about you? What crazy things have you heard from translation project managers? 🙂
About the author
Catherine Christaki has been a full-time English-Greek translator since 2001 and co-owner of Lingua Greca Translations since 2012. She specializes in Information Technology, Medical, and Technical texts and loves writing for the Adventures in Technical Translation blog. She regularly shares her experience and insight on social media and blogging for translators, giving interviews and presenting at conferences. Connect with her on Twitter @LinguaGreca.
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I’m just starting out so I haven’t been (mis)fortunate enough to see anything like this yet, but holy crap… how do you even begin to respond to these things? Is it worth even attempting to meet such demands?
I think it depends on how experienced you are, i.e. the more you’ve heard the more easily you can handle such comments. At the beginning of my career I used to get mad (e.g. that’s when a PM sent me the ‘Why are your prices so high? Don’t you live in Greece?’ comment) but I never replied to them rudely (he would have deserved it…). Nowadays (most of the entries in the post happened fairly recent, within the last 1-2 years) I usually laugh, decline job offers from those agencies politely and then try to stay away from them.
The most important thing to always remember: Keep your cool! 🙂
What a great advice. I should maybe print it and have it in my wall, so maybe it will be easier to remember. Because sometimes, I swear, it can be hard to be professional when some of the people who hire us can be so clueless. I had a “But you live in Brazil…” comment not long time ago; also a: “but you live in Brazil, how come you don’t speak Spanish as well?”. I guess a deep breathe is always a good start 😉
Dear Catherine,
I feel I am reading my own experience! Sometimes profitability comes before quality, so they just underestimate you…
An Indian agency – with whom I decided to stop working – used to send me 2000-word translations to do within the next two hours, but at 5 am… they were up, yes, but in Argentina, at the other part of the globe, I was sleeping!!!
Excellent post 😉
Brilliant article!
It’s really my case. Just received a project with a ridiculously short brief cancelling my previous translation, claiming they will not pay me anymore while they now need to work on a new text. So they want to use the agreement for the second project.
Can’t believe it.
Sara
Oh, I almost forgot. The last one I heard was not long time ago:
AFTER sending and receiving 6 emails negotiating testing phase and deadline, I was sent a short message saying that my rates were not acceptable at all (they were in bold in the very first email I had sent, when I applied for the job) but if I were to hire somebody to help me translate faster, they would pay me the rates I had mentioned (???? + !!!!).
Thank god Mox is among us, because without sense of humor it can be hard to survive as a translator.
Mantra playing in head: stay calm, stay calm, stay calm…
Great additions, thank you all! 🙂
Oh my God, Catherine! This is SOOO sadly ridiculous!! How can they run a translation agency at al??
I’m guessing (would bet on it too) that most of them won’t be in business for much longer if they don’t start learning about the translation industry and respecting their translators…
I’m new to all this, but I was filling some forms in many different translation agencies when I read this: “your fee is too high. Remember that we’re a translation agency. If you offer us a lower rate, we could give you more work [The recommended rate was USD 0.03].” Some days ago, I received an email that said “Can you offer us a top-quality service for USD 0.021/word?” I was really tempted to say “I can offer you a low-quality one, is it ok for you?”
Great examples, Catherine – some of them unfortunately only too familiar 😉
My favourite is the social media one (“Don’t follow us…!”).
I was recently contacted by a UK agency via my profile on the AUSIT website (AUSIT = Australian Institute Interpreters and Translators) looking for native Austrian German translator. I am pretty sure they missed the difference between Australian and Austrian… but I guess that’s a rather harmless slip-up.
You would not believe how many tourists strand in Austria each year because they failed to notice the difference during the whole booking process. Viennese tourist managers have grown quite tired of being asked for the best route to Ayers Rock on the telephone, I heard…
@Christian When I first started contacting agencies abroad, a Russian PM replied to me in the same way “Your rates are too high!”. That’s it, no thank you for your email, nothing else in his reply. I thanked him and forgot about him, but a few weeks later he started sending me jobs and we had a nice cooperation for about 4 years (after which I was too busy with higher-paying clients so I sent him to colleagues with lower rates, win-win). That’s why I’ve said numerous times that we should keep our cool. You never know what might happen…
Dear Catherine,
I fully agree with you. I always try to relax and avoid losing my nerves with my clients. Actually, it is pointless: you’ll only put yourself in an unpleasant position.
It has happened the same to me. I was offered less than 3€cents per source word for a huge and urgent project. I thanked the PM and told her unfortunately that was my editing rate, but I’d be available in case she had a different budget. I even thanked her for her preference!
A couple of months later, I earned in a rush job (several thousand words in a couple of days + court swearing) what I wouldn’t be able to raise in a couple of weeks with them.
They have plenty of Monkeys at hand, seemingly, but no reliable collaborators. Once you must go to Court, you must be sure of what you have in your hands, or you’ll lose your client!
I am considered a very flexible and reliable collaborator, I always meet the agreed standards, but this has a price, my price, not the agency’s supposed one.
Sometimes you can afford sushi a la carte, sometimes just an hotdog at the cart. But once you buy an hotdog, you don’t blame the poor shopman if it doesn’t taste fishy.
Let me say that as long as PMs behave politely and within certain ranges, no request can offend me. Of course each of us perceives oneself as more on the sushi side, or on the hotdog one, and accepts/rejects assignments accordingly. Unfortunately, it seems that many translators underestimate their negotiation power and their skills.
Another example: I am in the database of a really big and renowned agency. They keep on sending me requests for availability at 4€cents/sw. I’ve always been kindly replying that my rates are higher their proposed ones. One day, they’ll either stop mailing me, or offer a well-paid job. Until then, I believe there are more annoying activities than writing a plain “Dear XXX, thanks for contacting me. I can deliver the service for XXX. Unfortunately (for you, I always forget to mention, heeheehee), I can’t accept your proposed rate. Best regards, Orsetta.” It has just taken me far less than 2 minutes.
As communicators say: stay positive and drag the others into your state of mind. Don’t fall in the spiral of bad feelings.
A pleasant w-e to you all!
Orsetta.
On the Rates one:”If you accept a 50% reduction to your rate, we’ll send you heaps of work” then my reply would be ” I will offer to do 50% of the work you request of me for for my normal rate” 🙂 courtesy of Steve Clayton
Here’s the last I received, I post it as-is:
“3500 italian words needs to be translated to english
domain:medical
charges:0.035 USD
TIMELINE: TOMMORROW MORNING INDIAN TIME
pLEASE CONFIRM YOUR AVAILABILITY ASAP”
Not even worth answering!
Ciao!
Hi all,
well, let’s see if you can win my (real life!!!) story:
Prologue:
I am pregnant, 40th week. I have warned my clients I’d be away, or at least only partially available, for a while, soon.
Meanwhile, my 70 years old aunt has somehow turned her mobile phone number in the invisible mode and cannot go back 🙂
I deliver all my pending projects, by chance a couple of days before I enter labour.
My aunt and my mum are in the waiting room, calling me at every 1/2 hour to disseminate info to the family about the progress of labour.
Story:
I answer a phone call, for the caller’s number is hidden. “Hello…?” I say,
“Hi Orsetta, this is [PM name], do you have 5 minutes?”
“Ehm… I am in the DELIVERY ROOM”
“Oh, I see! I’ll be brief, then… ”
“Sorry, you won’t be anything!”
The day after, she called me again, “Could you please dictate the last sentence you translated, for I’ve lost your final file.”
I know you’ll blame me, but while breastfeeding my nth kid, and asking my guests to reduce the noise, I did! Then, I turned my mob.ph. off, and gave out the number of my hopital room to my dearest ones…
Lesson learned: When delivering, use your hubby’s phone 😀
A nice day to everyone,
Orsetta.
Our clients also say stupid things to us, as PMs. But I would not complain about it. Yes, we laugh. But not in public. Its clients… they pay our bread.
@Erwin You’re right, but I wouldn’t count this blog post as public. I tried to change the quotes a bit and I didn’t name names, even though every single one of the quotes mentioned are true.
There are also the requests with amazing deadlines. This inquiry came on March 8 (actually midnight March 7 my time):
We received an enquiry from the client about a translation project for English to French. It is related to an internet system, and the number of word is 90000. The deadline is in the afternoon on March 10.
We are still waiting for the client’s confirmation.
Wow…
Why work for intermediaries in the first place?…
When the circumstances are right, it’s really great working with agencies.
Dear,
I am a PM and Project Director myself. It takes time to organize huge teams, and also skills. Not everyone would be willing or able to do so.
I don’t find it amazing to have a 90k words document required for translation in just 2 days. What is not acceptable, it is to assume that individual collaborators share the pain of splitting-organizing-rearranging-revising-etc. Also, of course, a good PM kindly explains that the prpject will be completed by a team. I mean: a set of papers summing up 90k words is affordable (when relying on great PMs and a huge, reliable team), a single document is not, unless we are testing some kind of new patchwork writing art 🙂
Agencies are useful in certain sectors and jobs.
At least, this is my point… 🙂
Best, Orsetta
Hello!
orsetta, I was a PM and I agree with you. We were giving CAT tools training-1 free training for freelancer. I they didn’t have to prepare or reformat anything. I have to agree with all translators on this site, PM are not always a ”real PM” you have or you don’t have it! My opinion 🙂
Hi Catherine and thanks for your latest ‘Lingua Greca Blog’ — Spot on, as usual! 🙂
“What about you? What crazy things have you heard from translation project managers?”
Let me share my latest experience with you.
Last week, a PM contacted me, asking about my availability and pricing. We have not worked together before. I told the PM that without having seen the actual source document or at least a sample page, I could only provide a rough estimate. It’s been nearly a week and this (probably pointless) conversation is still ongoing, the source file is yet to come… The gist of it:
Day 1
“I have a project (Eng>Hungarian) for the COO of a financial institution and this will also be an ongoing project in 2013. It is not overly technical … High quality translation is very important and I can send the project right away.”
Day 3
“The project will start either tomorrow or Monday, as I am awaiting some feedback from the client. Although this project is financial in nature, it is not technical, just attention to detail when translating.”
Day 4
“I will forward a sample as soon as I have client approval. This project will start either today or Monday.”
Day 5
“This project starts late Monday and I will need a fairly quick turnaround and wanted to make sure that you are available. … Again, I need very high quality and this will ensure that we can work together a lot more in the future.”
—–
I have replied to each email except the last one. Should I even bother repeating myself…
As for the source file? I’m still waiting. Work together a lot more? I highly doubt it!
Have a nice weekend everyone. 🙂
-Ildikó
No, really!! Are you serious? Is it true or just a story? Because if it is, I’m speechless. Unfreakingbelievable!!!!
Again. Who are these “people”. If they can be called by this human terminology. I’m sorry but if they can act according to the reported they are asking for some tough criticisms. In fact, they made themselves completely hateful for everybody out there, I’m quite sure about that. It’ like you’re reading a surreal tale, you know? We, here in Brazil, we have an expression to name this behaviour as “cara-de-pau.” We use to call someone a “cara-de-pau (a face made of wood), a derogatory term to try to explain a “cara-de-pau” to propose something so indecent. It’s the least of good thoughts what pass through my mind right now.
Dear Anaise,
“Surreal” – yes, you could say that! 🙂 But why the strong words, “not human”, “hateful”, “indecent”…? I actually see the benefit in this sort of “project management” just as much as in positive experiences or in coherent and informative, sometimes amusing, posts like those in this blog. The way I see it, we can learn from *all* types of encounters (if we are willing) and by sharing we can save others from potential mistakes and losses. Similarly, I am grateful for said PM’s conduct as well, reminding me of how *not* to conduct business. 🙂
When I started, two decades ago, I was very grateful for these exchanges — especially if I was fortunate enough to learn from others’ mistakes rather than from my own! — and I still am. I got to learn how to detect promising business opportunities and red flags, how to differentiate between worthy projects from those that must be avoided. In the beginning, it was not as easy as today. I can relate to those who are just starting out, gradually figuring it all out. I believe that, good or bad, everything is a learning experience. By sharing, we can all support and protect each other.
Nicely said Ildikó 🙂
@Erwin, and because they “pay our bread” we’re supposed to send them flowers and a box of chocolates each time they send an e-mail with containing unrealistic, even absurd requests? I, for one, see it as a bilateral relation. The client pays for something he needs and he is not able/willing to do by himself. As simple as that! Moreover, Catherine didn’t give out any name or specific data, so I wouldn’t call it “laughing it public”, but “sharing experience”. No reputation was tainted, after all!
As for the things I have heard/read myself, well, there are some that I’ll probably never forget; most of them similar to what was already mentioned, and some from my experience as an interpreter:
– Yes, it’s an 8 hours conference, but you won’t need to translate (sic) much. Only 9-10 people need translation (sic), so you’ll only have to translate from time to time.
– You know, I’ve thought about it. I’ve noticed that, in one hour, you actually work half an hour and your colleague works during the other half. I’m thinking that I should pay the full price for that half and hour and half the price for the other half.
Raluca
Some time ago I accepted quite a long project for this PM to be delivered on the next day, and shortly afterwards she emailed me again in the afternoon to offer me yet another translation, 1,500 words long, also to be submitted on the following day. I replied that it was physically impossible for me to take the new translation. Here is what she had to say: ‘Some of my linguists are insomniacs so I always try just in case.’
I thought she had to be kidding. Unfortunately she was not. I do not think PMs like this are always to blame, though; in this particular case, the big bosses in the agency are forever pushing deadlines and asking for, say, 7,000 new words to be translated in one and a half days. And this happens on a consistent basis. Funnily enough, end clients tend not to be in such a hurry.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is comforting to see we are not alone 🙂 I want to believe that, if we are together and put pressure on the industry, demanding what is right, we will achieve something one day.
I have had a few similar to yours but not that stunning. Just a simply “We need to be competitive so we are asking you to reduce your rates” or “the client (Google) translate the document. Could you just proofread it for €0.02/word?”. But one of the most ashtonishing I had was from a British agency (and people thought in the UK they were well respected) saying that if the translation had 3 or more punctuation mistakes, they will reduce the rate they pay me. I mean, if you do 300 words, well, I understand 3 punctuation mistakes may be something bad, but, how about if there are 30,000 words? Also, aren’t commas, most of the time, something subjective? I may add a comma somewhere and then the proofreader may think that the comma in that place is incorrect. And we will probably be both right.
The list of “rules” continued with more crazy things up to the point of not paying you for your work if the proofreader thought your translation wasn’t good enough. So, you may be lucky enough to have someone proofreading you who hasn’t checked the last grammar rule changes of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language and for sure you will be working for free. 😉
@Curri That agency sounds like the one I mentioned in the post I wrote last year, Penalties galore!. Sometimes they’ve just been badly burned by translators but that still doesn’t justify adding such ridiculous clauses in their agency-translator agreements. When you’re working with professionals, you don’t have to tell them they will be penalized if they do a bad job, they will be the first ones to waive their fee if their work isn’t up to par.
@ Catherine,
thank you ever so much for the whole thing! I have worked in the translation/interpreting industry for more than thirty years, however until recent times I had no need to be searching for work, I worked for the government. Legislation changed, the era of minimum price per bid set in and I lost my clients. I was deeply shocked at first when getting proposals like those you have mentioned. In one of the cases the PM even asked me to point out my experience during all those 30 years I have worked after I handed in 2 test translations, which were accepted. Well, I did my best to satisfy this requirement too, except I did not call the ex-ministers for whom I have worked to provide me with urgent recommendations :). Surprisingly, I am still waiting for the agency to send me the job I was hired for and that is after 1 month from the date I passed the first test translation. I am grateful for the suggestion to remain calm and polite. However, in some cases I still say what has to be said to people like this, even though silence is golden…
Hi Catherine,
Interesting topic, I believe we all get requests for rate reductions and requests for jobs that keep being promised and seem to never come. In my experience, you are right about always being polite. It has happened more than once that people have asked me to lower my rates, I refused and months or years later they came back offering better rates and we developed a good working relationship. As you pointed out, you never know, so no reason to be impolite.
Also, I think that when you choose to have a professional attitude in all your dealings, people can tell that you are serious about what you do and that may be the tipping point for them to accept paying you that bit more.
Furthermore, lashing out is like pulling a face, it only makes you look bad!
Exactly 🙂 It’s all about the right perspective. Why get angry when you can laugh about it?
Having worked as a freelance translator/interpreter, I know what I should NOT do as a PM. Thank you for sharing these stories – they may be fun and make us laugh now, but I am sure they were not fun when they happened.
Let me tell you two as well:
1. I had registered to work as a freelance interpreter for this agency. The contact me one day (very short and abrupt email) saying they have this assignment at Luton (quite far from where I live) and to give them a quote for my travel expenses. No mention of my rates. I send them a quote and said tehy could not possibly pay that. They could only offer me £16/hour (!!!!!!). I declined, obviously and asked them not to contact me anymore until they could offer a decent rate.
2. As a PM, sometimes you are caught in the middle between the client and the translator and you have to make sure they are both happy. So, we had this project for a big client who alwyas has a lot of questions about the translation (why is there no comma/semi-colon etc. like in the English version? and things like that). We naturally passed his queries to the translator, who was extremly rude and her comments, apart from the fact they had been written in CAPITALS, were: “What is this s**t? I f*****g explained it before!” I was shocked.
There are good and bad agencies, good and bad PMs, good and bad translators. Do you agree?
Of course I agree. I’ve heard a few stories about bad-behaving translators too, but not enough to write another post about such cases 🙂 Plus, I don’t have any PM experience to justify it, so you’re more than welcome to write such a post Alina! It would be a huge pleasure to read and publish it in our blog.
Deal! I’ll write about my experience as a PM – with translators on the one hand and clients one the other. I am sure you and the others here will be able to add a few things about dealing with clients.
Brilliant!!! I look forward to reading the article 🙂
The quote: “We’re splitting this project between 5 different translators and we want you to be the editor. Basically, you have to make sure the terminology is consistent throughout and that the translation looks like it’s been written by one person only.” seems reasonable, actually.