Musings from an overworked translator

Being in limbo January 30, 2013

One of the things they don’t tell you about when you start freelancing is the art of staying calm while being in limbo. I finished a job last night. It is currently at my proofreader’s and is due back to the client later today. In the meantime, I have had three different job queries in the last week or so, and they are all pending approval by the client or still haven’t been finalized. So here I sit, trying to fill my time while I have nothing to translate. With my luck they will all be approved (although I have a feeling that one of them won’t) and will all be due on Friday or Monday. Or none of them will materialize. You never know as a freelancer. Because it is impossible to evenly distribute workload when you freelance. There is a lot of feast or famine – or waiting in limbo. November and December were extremely slow months for me. It had me questioning my decisions and toying with the idea of getting a 9-to-5 job or even a part-time job. Not having income coming in can make me panic pretty easily. My office was reorganized, my finances were in order, and I had run out of projects. I had decided to start a marketing campaign after the holidays, but luckily things improved. It still frustrates me waiting for work to be approved, but that’s the business I guess. I’m hoping the return of work will return my zest for blogging. It’s been hard to stay motivated. Anyway, I hope you all had a good holiday season and are busy with work through this new year. May we all stop being in limbo!

We can do magic… January 29, 2013

One of my German colleagues sent out the following e-mail over one of my listservs about the Perfect Agency in New York with close to a million branch offices (okay, I’m exaggerating a little…)

[translation mine]:

At 5:27 p.m. [Perfect Agency] sent out a query for a legal translation with over 4,000 words with a deadline of 7 p.m.!! After all, we’re magicians!

Oh, Perfect Agency, you have quite the reputation with low rates and tight deadlines, but this one really takes the cake!

If I had a dollar for every translator… oh wait January 10, 2013

“Translator Registration – Become a Verified Translator

To start receiving translation projects from Diamond Translation you need to Verify your account. Once you verify your account, our translators support team will review your application and certify you as a translator and a member of the Diamond Translation Community. If you have a Paypal account you will need to make a $1.00 payment (1 USD) using your account, so we can link your Paypal account to your profile and pay you for the translations (We will refund you those 1 USD along with the payment of your first translation).”

I sincerely hope no one who reads this blog falls for this. Better to miss a chance to work with a new client then to get stuck in an unpleasant situation where you don’t know what’s going on with your sensitive data. There are many other clients out there who seem much more trustworthy