Musings from an overworked translator

Gut gebrüllt, Löwe! (aka The Masked Translator rocks!) August 4, 2008

FYI, Gut gebrüllt, Löwe basically means “Right on!” (literally: Well roared, lion)…

The Masked Translator has a fantastic post about translation agencies’ communication methods with their translators. Masked Translator then breaks down the various forms of communication, which include mass e-mails, assigning jobs to the fastest responder (so not worth anyone’s time!) and agency newsletters. If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you immediately click on the above link. I would add that agencies need to clearly state at the top of the e-mail or in the subject line that they are sending out a mass e-mail or an e-mail inquiry without a confirmed job attached.

Two months ago one of my best friends received an e-mail from an agency that appeared to be a job request on a Friday afternoon that was due on Monday. Since she had an open P.O. with them for a related job she assumed it was a confirmed request and spent the weekend translating the job and delivered it, only to be told that the job had been assigned to someone else.

I myself fell victim to something similar over the July 4th weekend. A client (agency owner) sent me a job request on July 4th with a Tuesday deadline to my Gmail account (something I had asked him not to do several times). I had an autoresponder on my two main e-mail accounts informing my clients I was out of the office for the holiday weekend. I checked my mail Sunday night and responded (with a CC: to the specified project manager as well) that I would be happy to accept the job. The client never responded on Monday at all (not even to say they had given the job to someone else), so I proofread the job and delivered it that night. The next day I received a terse e-mail stating a PO had never been issued (literally one sentence long), so I had wasted three hours proofreading 12 pages (the translation was terrible!). I responded saying they should have written on Monday when I agreed to take the job and let me know they had assigned it to someone else. I then cut my losses and wrote them off. Needless to say I will never work with that agency again, and I assume they realize that because I haven’t heard from them since.