Nobody ever told me there’d be days like these June 11, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.trackback
I’m having one of those days where you wish you could just crawl back into bed and pull the covers over your head. I delivered my second batch of files for one of my clients today, but unfortunately due to her poor writing/communication skills apparently that batch of files had been canceled but she hadn’t made that clear. I assumed the second batch of files she had sent out had precedence over the first batch and that the due date for the first group of files I received was June 11th. So I translated 1,600 words for nothing – well, not quite nothing. They’ve offered to pay 50%, which I obviously have no choice but to accept. AAARGH!!! I’d rather have the full amount since I had turned down several jobs in order to translate that batch. Don’t bother telling me I should have asked for a PO. With this client usually an e-mail confirming the job (which I have) is sufficient. I have an e-mail stating “You still can do the other documents, I sent you yesterday, but this batch is more important for the client.” Oh well, I’m not giving up yet.
To add insult to injury, I have almost $1000 in overdue invoices at the moment (6 invoices ranging from 6 to 17 days overdue) and when I wrote the PM for the largest outstanding invoice to remind him (because they have been prompt payers in the past) he told me they cannot locate my invoice. I went into my out box and forwarded the e-mail from April 28th in which I sent the invoice to him (with the invoice attached). He promised they would process it right away. I hope it arrives by June 15th when my quarterly tax payment is due, but I highly doubt it. Luckily I have a tiny cushion tucked away.
I don’t know about you, but I really want to call it a day and avoid e-mail and the phone for the rest of the day! Unfortunately I can’t, because I still have to translate 3000 words of a medical report (for Friday) and 3000 words of quality management text (due whenever but I’d like to get it off my desk by Friday).
Ah, the joys of being a freelancer…
Musings from an overworked translator 
I feel like this is a silly question, but as a new freelance translator myself, I’m interested to know what you mean by PO and PM. I’m thinking PM is Project Manager — am I right?
There is no such thing as a silly question. I shouldn’t have assumed that those abbreviations would be known by everyone. You are correct in thinking that PM stands for project manager. PO stands for purchase order, which most clients issue you when they assign you a job. It stipulates all the details of the job, including the price.