Pipe dreams January 30, 2012
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.trackback
I received the following request in my e-mail this morning:
Hallo liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,
bitte prüfen Sie sehr kritisch, ob die angehängten Text (nur Beispieldateien zur Ansicht) in Ihrem Fachgebiet liegen und ob Sie die Übersetzung (oder Teile) bis zum genannten Termin übernehmen könnten.
Sprache: GB (UK)
Umfang: ca. 49.862 Wörter / ca. 294 Seiten (15 Dateien)
Status: Angebot (nicht mit der Übersetzung beginnen)
Termin: 13.02.12, bis 10.00 Uhr (Teillieferungen vorab)
Wie viel Volumen könnten Sie von dieser Übersetzung übernehmen, sofern Sie Zeit und Interesse haben?
Das Angebot wird für den Kunden bis Dienstag, 31.01.12, bis 15.00 Uhr befristet. Wenn wir den Auftrag vom Kunden erhalten, benötigen wir die Übersetzung zum oben genannten Termin. Bei Beauftragung erhalten Sie alle relevanten Daten für die Bearbeitung.
Bitte behandeln Sie die Daten vertraulich.
For those of you who don’t speak German the agency basically needs translators to work on a 50,000 word translation by tomorrow at 3 p.m. German time. Oh, and they need it in UK English but sent it to me anyway. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess. Desperate cattle calls like this only make me want to NOT work with agencies like this!
Yeah, good luck with that…
Update: Oh, that’s embarrassing. I am not usually up at 7:30 a.m., which is when I read this. I hadn’t had any coffee and actually went back to bed for an hour after posting this. Yes, the deadline is the 13th. I missed it in my sleep-deprived haze. Oops. Thanks to everyone for pointing it out. Guess I am human and make mistakes. 😦
Musings from an overworked translator 
No, I think that’s a misunderstanding. It looks to me like they need your estimate so they can make an offer to their client. The translation is needed February 2nd.
Nope. I believe this mail means that this offer is valid until 31/01/12. The translation is to be delivered by 13/02/12, 10 AM. Still a very short notice, but feasible.
The deadline for the translation is February 13th – they just need confirmation from you if you can take the translation (or part of it) by tomorrow.
Ich glaube, da haben Sie was missverstanden. Soweit ich es verstehen kann, ist der 13/02/2012 Abgabetermin. Der Kunde muss bis Morgen den Auftrag bestätigen, glaube ich.
“Das Angebot wird für den Kunden bis Dienstag, 31.01.12, bis 15.00 Uhr befristet. Wenn wir den Auftrag vom Kunden erhalten.”
M.
I use Google to translate so I may be missing something here. But doesn’t this line “Termin: 13.02.12, bis 10.00 Uhr (Teillieferungen vorab)” mean that 13th February is the deadline for the project?
Oh, that’s embarrassing. I am not usually up at 7:30 a.m., which is when I read this. I hadn’t had any coffee and actually went back to bed for an hour after posting this. Yes, the deadline is the 13th. I missed it in my sleep-deprived haze. Oops. Thanks to everyone for pointing it out.
Well, I don’t like this kind of cattle calls, anyway. It is a bad practice (Unsitte).
“Unsitten werden normal oder gar Standards durch Wiederholungen.” (Bad practices become normal or even standards through repetitions.) Some agencies are used to such bad practices nowadays and believe that they belong to standard procedure of acquiring and retaining translators as well as offering clients their services.
I would not work with any agencies who send me such cattle calls. Either they ask me personally for an assessment of the materials to be translated for an offer to their client or they shall leave this translator alone. However, I would never write a rude reply to any of such agencies with bad practices.
“Bitte behandeln Sie die Daten vertraulich.”
That’s a funny request, seeing as they didn’t do so themselves and sent out a mass mail to hundreds/thousands of translators 🙂
What sort of confidential treatment is that? I’m not sure if they meant “Daten” or “Dateien” but it sounds like the files were attached to the mass mail.
Leon Hunter