Dear Client: July 5, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.9 comments
Thank you so much for your e-mail this morning. Seeing as the invoice you so kindly tell me the accounting departement [sic] has told you will be paid tomorrow is 85 days overdue (when you promised me it would be paid in 30 days – I still have that e-mail), I am sure you can understand why I have absolutely no interest in translating your 811 word translation “from Germany to English.”
On second thought, this e-mail isn’t even worth a reply…
I’m back but I’m not… July 4, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.3 comments
There’s nothing like coming home after a week-long vacation to find your office computer on the fritz. It won’t even boot. All I see is a red flickering checkerboard on the monitor. It appears to be a graphics card problem, but I may have to buy a new computer. Ugh! Thank goodness for Carbonite, since everything of importance is backed up. If any of you geniuses know what might be causing this problem please let me know. I will be calling a repair guy first thing tomorrow…
♪♫ I’m just a girl who can’t say no… ♪♫ June 21, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.5 comments
There is a reason I am overworked. I have a hard time saying no. Even when I go on vacation I usually have my laptop with me and translate the occasional document for my clients. I was translating several books when I was last in Germany a few years ago. I traveled around visiting friends and worked while they were at work. I even had my laptop with me at a garden cafe in Munich – sitting in the sun, drinking coffee, and translating Italian recipes because the deadline was looming. Last February I worked from the Florida Keys. My mother wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go far from where we were staying, so it was a good thing I had my laptop with me. I put in a full week and a half of work that week.
I am going on vacation on Thursday. My cousin is getting married on the beach in Lauderdale by the Sea, so my parents and I are going down there and staying in a condo in Naples for a few days afterward. I’ve even hired a pet sitter to stay at my place with the critters. I made a conscious decision to bring my laptop that does not have Trados installed on it so that I wouldn’t be tempted to work. That said, I turned down a sizable job yesterday from my favorite client that would have arrived on Wednesday and taken up most of the weekend. I said no, and the PM was okay with that (and let everyone else know I was unavailable for the next week). However, I still had a mental debate of whether or not I should take it. I’m still having moments of “oh, I should have accepted it” and then “no, I need a vacation. I haven’t had a proper one in years.” It is really hard for me to say no to clients. But I am resolute that I will be enjoying a week with no work. I just wonder if I can do it…
Words of wisdom from Adam@Home June 13, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.add a comment
As some of you regular readers may know I subscribe to GoComics’ Adam@Home comic strip. This means I get the comic every morning as an e-mail. I (and probably most of you) can relate to Adam because he also works from home as a freelancer and loves his coffee. This Sunday’s comic strip was too good to not share…
Several of my colleagues have confided in me that they are thinking of taking office jobs for the steady paycheck, social interaction, etc. If you consider doing this you should weigh all the pros and cons. It takes a special kind of person to work and succeed as a freelancer. Not everyone has the discipline to make their deadlines and market themselves when things are slow. But I for one love freelancing and all that it offers. I love being able to translate my texts and then take the rest of the day off if I can. In fact, I plan on doing that today. I have some gardening I need to do and my library book (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand) is due in two days. With only about 1,500 words to translate today I should be done by 1 or so… I hope you all enjoy your Whit Monday (or if you’re in the U.S. your Monday…)
Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in June 9, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.5 comments
I have been your typical overworked translator in the last month or so. In May I earned double my target. June doesn’t look to be any slower. My number one client is keeping me very busy – with all 4 or 5 PMs contacting me, luckily not all at once but several a day. Plus, several other clients have been sending me jobs as well. So I was happy that Monday and Tuesday were “kind of slow”. I had hoped to enjoy a slow week and catch up running errands, cleaning the house, etc. Plus, Tuesday was my sister’s 40th birthday and my niece’s graduation from pre-school, so Tuesday night was spent with my family. Today I had all my translations delivered by 11 and was looking forward to taking the rest of the day off to rest for my incredibly busy day tomorrow (I’m tired just thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow!). So you can imagine my dismay when I received an e-mail from #1 client with a 2,000 word job for tomorrow EOB. But I happily accepted the job and am busy translating a survey about car brands. Of course I took an hour or so off to run my errands, because my cupboards were BARE and I was completely out of cat food (only 1 bowl left). Bailey would not have been a happy camper! As for the cleaning, it can wait until the weekend (or I may just use my Groupon and call a cleaning service).
Even with things being “slow” this week I’ve still managed to translate 10,860 words so far this month (and that isn’t counting the 2,000 word survey I’m working on today)… Life is good!
PC World: Google Docs Translations Don’t Make Sense May 18, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation.4 comments
A reporter at PC World is doing a series on Google Docs, and today he took a close look at their claim that they can “easily translate documents into 53 different languages.” He asked his bilingual Twitter followers for help, sending them an English document and its Google Docs translation and asking them what they thought. The results were hit or miss. English and French was passable, but English and Hebrew was “one big disaster.” He also tested Arabic, Spanish and probably several other languages. He summed up the results by saying, “Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t blindly trust any translation done by Google Docs. Obviously, the translations feature in Google Docs needs some work, and Google could start by making it at least as good as the translations done on the translate.google.com site.” Feel free to add your comments to the article 😉
When you assume… May 18, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.7 comments
You all know the saying – and for those of you who don’t… “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” I don’t know what is in the air today, but I have had two clients send me files for translation (needed back as soon as possible – of course) assuming I am available. One particular client in the Czech Republic sent me an e-mail at 2:30 in the morning (8:30 a.m. in Europe) and his colleague in China proceeded to send me the files to work on – and the files again because they had been updated and could I please use them. BTW, this was a client I fired last year… The second one just sent a PDF with the text they needed highlighted in a red box. Lots of single words (I think the context is chemistry but I’m not sure. And I don’t do chemistry.) in a QA form with no other context. And it isn’t even noon yet!
I am waiting on a large job that I was booked for two days ago, so I politely thanked both clients and told them that I was unfortunately booked and unavailable.
The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side… May 16, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.4 comments
I did a really dumb thing last week – I switched Internet service providers. I have been unhappy with my Internet connection through Time-Warner Cable for a while now. It has never been very fast and recently it started kicking me offline 3 to 4 times a day. The connection would be glacial until I was booted offline. I would then have to reboot my cable modem and router. I called a service tech, who came out and told me I was losing the connection somewhere on the line, but he never actually fixed the problem and I never heard from TWC again.
I was ripe for the pickin’ when a U-Verse salesperson came door-to-door in early May. I decided to sign up for Internet and cable through U-Verse. I should have left well enough alone…
After two install no-shows and numerous phone calls to “customer service” in which they told me they could install it in a little over a week I tweeted my frustration and a rep from AT&T contacted me and scheduled an install two days later. The tech showed up on-time and things looked promising. I loved the U-Verse set-up and the DVR that allowed me to watch the shows in the living room or the bedroom. The tech had problems getting one computer online, but Susanne Aldridge III quickly helped me solve that problem. The only problem that remained was my inability to send e-mail from my e-mail program.
Then my landlady came home from work – and had no phone or Internet service. After calling the supervisor and Mike at HQ I had two techs back at the house to fix the problem. They had turned off her service when mine was installed because there was a mix-up with our addresses. When they left everything looked great.
And then everything went to hell. My landlady had her Internet turned off Friday night, and after calling AT&T Saturday morning and them confirming everything with me I woke again an hour later to find I had no cable or Internet – and neither did she. She was on the phone with them for 2 hours and I was on hold for an hour trying to figure this out. Turns out some yahoo turned off our services pending “address verification” and it would take 48-72 hours (business hours – so starting Monday) to get service turned back on. As you all know, we can’t work without Internet so I called Time-Warner Cable in tears begging them to take me back and had a tech out this afternoon (Monday) who reinstalled everything. In the meantime, AT&T also turned off my landlady’s phone service in addition to her DSL. It was a looooong weekend…
Everything is working on my end again, and I am shipping the U-Verse equipment back first thing in the morning. I have a new “drop” (the technical term for the line from the pole to the house), so my Internet connection appears to be faster. I don’t have a DVR, but I can watch cable in my bedroom through my old VCR. I’m not complaining, because TWC’s customer service is a million times better than AT&T’s. I’ll live with it.
My landlady went out and bought a pay-as-you-go cell phone, and I will be hooking her into my Internet tomorrow until AT&T fixes her service. She is considering telling them to go fly a kite too.
So the moral of this story is even though it may seem like it, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side. At least my blood pressure is back down, and I am calmer again.
Update: My landlady now has her phone and Internet working, but it took a week!!! That is simply unacceptable in this day and age.
The beauty of working from home April 29, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.11 comments
I am sitting in my hotel room after the Welcome Reception for the ATA’s TCD conference. Corinne McKay gave me and several others signed second editions of her popular book, How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator (hot-off-the-press – it’s not yet available for sale but it will be very soon). After staying up late last night to finish translating a particularly tricky contract and packing to then wake up early to fly to DC I declined joining several friends for dinner, choosing to crash in the hotel. I started reading the book, and something in her Introduction resonated enough with me that I wanted to immediately blog about it. She talks about work-from-home opportunities and how translation is one of the few legitimate work-from-home careers. The sentence “…working from home, you’ll probably experience greater job satisfaction and less stress, since a relatively minor disruption like a dentist appointment or furnace repair won’t derail your entire work day.” made me say “right on!”
I recently experienced this first-hand. Wednesday night my Internet kept going down and was running at an average of 36 MPbs. Repeated reboots of the cable modem and router – and even my computers – were unable to speed up the connection. Frustrated, I turned the computer off, hoping it was a momentary upgrade problem. Thursday morning things hadn’t improved, so I called my cable Internet provider to complain. The service rep checked the line and agreed that I did have a problem. He offered to send a tech out, but he noted with some trepidation in his voice that he wasn’t sure when the tech could come out and I would need to be home the whole day, possibly as late as 8 PM. I cheerfully informed him that that wasn’t a problem because I worked from home and urged him to put me as high on the list as possible since I depend on the Internet for my job. Luckily I didn’t have to wait all day. The tech was there within a half an hour and even though he didn’t find the cause of the problem and would have to come back later to check the cable on the telephone pole the Internet was somewhat more stable after he left and I was able to work again.
If I worked in an office this scenario could have never been possible. I would have had to take a vacation day to be home to let him in, and he wouldn’t have been able to fit me in so quickly in the day. I was already home, so the tech was able to immediately come by.
As Corinne so aptly states, the beauty of working from home as freelance translators is that we can structure our work day around our peak energy times and family needs, rather than our employer and its policies. I particularly love working from home in the winter, when my commute on snowy days is from the bedroom to the coffeemaker to the office, where I read all kinds of irate tweets and status updates from people complaining about their commutes and the weather. And in the summer I can take some time off at any time to take the dog for a walk. You really can’t beat it… and I wouldn’t exchange it for anything.
The distinction between interpreter and translator April 18, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation.17 comments
An ongoing debate in our industry is whether or not to push the distinction between an interpreter and a translator. We in the industry all know that interpreters talk and translators work with the written word, but people outside the industry automatically assume I am an interpreter when I say I am a translator. I have to explain to almost everyone I meet that I prefer to “sit behind my computer and find the perfect word” instead of rambling on until my point gets across (because, believe me, if I were an interpreter that would be EXACTLY what would happen – I was not blessed with the gift of off-the-cuff speaking like my interpreter colleagues…).
It certainly doesn’t help that those in television, movies and print media don’t even know the difference. We all cringe when we hear “We need a translator in here!” when a police officer on a show like Law & Order: SVU or CSI needs to interview a witness who doesn’t speak English. But it seems only a translator or interpreter even notices the difference. The most recent episode of The Good Wife is a good example of this. An ongoing storyline features America Ferrera’s character as an undocumented worker who had been brought to the States at age 2 and was working as a nanny for the political opponent of the main character’s husband. The husband’s cunning political consultant leaked the story, but has fallen for her character so he was secretly trying to get her naturalization paperwork pushed through and even saved her father from being deported the week before. This past week she was working as an intern for the main character’s law firm. She just happened to notice a mistranslation in a previous translation that gained them a decisive advantage in the deposition between an oil company and a drilling company that was owned $87 million and just happened to be nationalized by Hugo Chavez that day. She then interpreted for the team of lawyers in the deposition – and even for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela via a monitor. Her efforts won them a settlement – all as a lowly intern. What a gal!
In real life, the Jenner twins and Corinne McKay were recently featured on NPR explaining the difference between an interpreter and translator, and NPR got it wrong in a story the very next day…
It’s enough to make anyone throw their hands up in the air and stop bothering. A colleague on one of my German listservs is quite vocal about no longer bothering with clearing up the misconception. She feels it simply isn’t worth the effort. I say we still need to continue fighting the good fight, but we need to know when to inform and educate and when to simply move on and not belabor the point. As Corinne states in the comments of the aforenamed blog post, she adheres to Chris Durban’s advice of “keep it short, upbeat, don’t harass and harangue!”
The need to stress one minor point is still desperately needed though… As one of my colleagues so concisely put it “The skill and training to translate and/or interpret in one direction does not mean you can do it in the other. People unfamiliar with the work involved somehow imagine that anyone who translates German to English, for example, can obviously translate from English to German (or Chinese to English, for that matter — “it’s only a couple of sentences!”)”.
Musings from an overworked translator 