Dear Germany: Eine Amerikanerin in Deutschland September 5, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, German culture, Random musings.10 comments
I am reading the most fantastic book, which I received as a birthday gift from one of my best friends in Germany. Dear Germany: Eine Amerikanerin in Deutschland by Carol Kloeppel could have been written by me! If you are an American who has lived in Germany (or Austria or Switzerland for that matter) for any length of time or are thinking about moving to Germany, you need to order this book right now. She talks about the little things that made me scratch my head and some things that I simply didn’t register but wholeheartedly accepted because that was just the way it was. For example, the German beds and Bettwäsche [bedding] or the practice of riding your bike everywhere even in business attire. I can’t wait to read what she has to say about the small refrigerators.
The chapter this morning entitled Fahrvernügen und Führerscheinhölle [Driving Pleasure and Driver’s License Hell] made me almost fall out of bed because I was laughing so hard and then cry because I could totally relate. It brought back all those memories of getting a ticket for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and having an ungültige Fahrerlaubnis [invalid driver’s license]. I had to jump through a ton of hoops and spend a lot of money to get my German driver’s license, but it was all worth it. I consider passing the written portion of the test – in German no less – with no errors (five are allowed) on the first try to be one of my greatest accomplishments.
Carol Kloeppel is just a few years older than me (born in Minnesota in 1963). She has a degree in communication science and worked as a journalist and producer for various television broadcasters in the U.S. She met German television journalist Peter Kloeppel in New York in 1990 and moved to Germany to be with him. They lived in Cologne and later moved to Bonn. I keep wondering if I saw her on the streets of Bonn or if she was a member of my American Women’s Club of Cologne or the International Women’s Connection in Bonn. The book is really well-written and entertaining, and her translator, Claudia Geng, should be commended for a job well-done!
I can’t wait to read more, and I’m ordering a copy for my friend Jane right now.
Show me the money – Part 2 September 4, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.2 comments
Just in case you missed it, my post entitled “Show me the money” has generated quite a few hits and inspired several good posts on other blogs. Most notable is The Masked Translator’s post today on taxes, “Crappy paperwork and the ideal accounting software for translators.” MT makes a very good point that you “should count the number of hours [you are] putting into tax-related crap, multiply this by [your] hourly [rate], and if the amount was greater than what [you] would pay a CPA and/or bookkeepers to handle the stuff, [you] should switch over,” following it up with the very wise words: “…you should always farm out tasks you do not enjoy as a freelancer to keep your job as fun as possible.” Later on in the comments MT states that “No freelancer should be doing business if not incorporated as an S Corporation or a single-member LLC.”
Yeah, I know. I just haven’t gotten around to incorporating… and if I am doing my job correctly I should not get sued. I think errors and omissions insurance is a waste of money for that very reason. There has only been one documented case of a translator being sued for an error, and a good proofreader would have caught the mistake. I have most of my work proofread by a colleague before delivering it to my client (and I do the same for her). But I digress… I want to focus on taxes. E&O insurance is another post for another day.
I do most of my bookkeeping myself, but hire a CPA to do my taxes. It may sound weird, but I actually enjoy doing the bookkeeping. Being the daughter of an accountant I keep meticulous records, and it only takes me about an hour to prepare my stuff for the CPA. However, it is important that you understand the tax system so that you can check and verify the CPA’s work. My CPA screwed up last year and added $4,000 of capital gains from someone else to my income. Luckily I caught it, and he had to fix it a couple days before Tax Day. It saved me from having to pay several hundred dollars. Instead I got a small refund.
I’m not saying everyone should adopt my system, but for those of you just starting out or looking for a quick system this is how I handle my bookkeeping. I use an Excel spreadsheet for my invoices (one spreadsheet for each tax quarter – 2008-1, 2008-2, etc.) and copy or write the job info with all the pertinent information (PO number, file info, word rate, etc.) on the worksheet as soon as I accept the job. I copy and paste worksheets from previous jobs for the same client so that I can ensure all the information is included and is consistent. Once the job is finished I enter the final word count, copy the worksheet into a new Excel spreadsheet, delete the extra worksheets, save the file (invoice_jsommer_2008-123.xls) and then convert it to a PDF (invoice_jsommer_2008-123.pdf), which I then send to the accounting department’s or project manager’s e-mail address (I have my client’s specified e-mail addresses saved in my e-mail address book with the alias “invoice@clientsname.com”). As soon as I send the invoice I then enter it into MS Money as a new deposit and specify the due date. I also put a little x in the top left-hand corner of my ongoing quarterly Excel spreadsheet indicating I have submitted the invoice. It sounds more confusing than it is.
In addition to an Excel spreadsheet for my invoices, I maintain a separate Excel spreadsheet for my quarterly income (one worksheet per quarter) that I use to track payments as they come in (if they are in euro I convert them according to that day’s exchange rate and enter the total in the dollar column) and automatically add the dollar column up for a quarterly total. I take the grand total for the quarter and multiply it by 20% for my quarterly estimated tax payment [=SUM(C42*0.2)]. I usually don’t owe any taxes this way and have gotten small refunds the past two years (just the way you want it – why give the government a non-interest-bearing loan when you can keep it in the bank for yourself?). In late February/early March I print out the four “quarterly income” Excel worksheets and my Tax Report from MS Money and pop the MS Money back-up file onto a memory stick for my CPA.
I have gotten to the point where I am considering becoming an LLC and hiring a company to do all this for me though. I just need to find the time to actually do it…
And special thanks to Sarah Dillon for her post “Making sure you get paid: part II.” It’s nice to hear my ramblings helped inspire someone to change their system. That made it all worthwhile!
Show me the money September 2, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.11 comments
No, this is not another post about clients who are late payers. This is about my dismay with some of our colleagues who wait weeks to send their invoice. I simply don’t understand that – especially in light of slow-paying agencies. Why wait a couple weeks to send an invoice and then wait another 4-8 weeks to get paid? That makes no sense to me. I send clients my invoice either with the job or no later than the next day. Chances are too great that I will get busy and/or forget to send an invoice entirely.
I forgot to invoice one client for a year until I was writing the invoice for another project manager and noticed I hadn’t been paid – and hadn’t ever written the invoice! One time was enough for me! I’ve been vigilant ever since. Our project managers and agencies are too busy to send reminders, so I can’t even imagine the number of invoices that simply don’t get submitted.
I subcontracted a job a few weeks ago and had to send a reminder this morning to my colleague, who claimed she has been busy with work and family and thanked me for the reminder. I have to regularly remind another colleague to send me invoices. She’s also constantly complaining about money problems.
The following example is drastic, but I swear it is true. I used to work with a guy in Germany who would wait months to invoice our company. His invoices were then quite large, covering practically full-time employment for 4 to 5 months at a time. The company wasn’t happy about it either, because they had to shell out a huge amount all at once instead of spreading it over the regular time frame. I have no idea how he managed to pay his rent and eat in the meantime.
I know many of our colleagues wait until they have a slow day to invoice. This just doesn’t make sense. First of all, the need for translations keeps growing, and we keep getting busier and busier. You may find yourself issuing tons of invoice at the end of the month to cover all the translations you did that month. This doesn’t make much fiscal sense. You want to spread your payments evenly – not all at once – to cover your cash flow. If you wait too long you may find yourself out of needed capital to pay your mortgage/rent, buy groceries, pay for gas, etc.
If your invoicing process takes up so much time that you need to spend more than 5 minutes to generate an invoice and enter it into your accounting system, you need a new system!!
Belated TGIF: Happy Birthday August 30, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.5 comments
Yesterday was my birthday, and I spent it out of the office enjoying myself. The highlight was celebrating with my German Meetup.com group and friends and family at the local Oktoberfest. After starting off the night at the keg tapping (free beer) and enjoying the traditional German style polkas of The Hank Haller Band in the main tent, we spent the night drinking and dancing to a great rock band called Disco Inferno in the Microbrew Bier Garden.
I wanted to share this little birthday clip I received featuring Disney movie clips with characters saying Happy Birthday in various languages. Some of the languages (including the German one) are inaudible, but it is a cute video all the same. I’m off to celebrate my niece’s birthday today and both of our birthdays tomorrow with the immediate family. Why celebrate one day when you can celebrate all weekend? 🙂 Monday is a holiday both here and in Germany, and I’m going kayaking on Lake Erie (weather permitting). [Edit: Robin reminded me that it isn’t a holiday in Germany. I got our Labor Day confused with May Day – hey, it happens 🙂 ] I’ll be back in the office on Tuesday. I hope you all enjoy your weekend!!
Would you willingly point out repetitions? August 28, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation Sites.4 comments
One of my project managers got upset with me last week when a 2,000-word job I translated for him ended up having 900 words of 100% repetitions. Apparently it was the client’s error, and the PM didn’t catch it either. Since it was such a small job I assumed it was a deliberate choice on the client’s part (not every sentence was repeated, so it could have been for something completely different) and didn’t bother to say anything. But you know what they say about assumptions – “If you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.”
It is worth mentioning that this is one of my clients that has never insisted on Trados discounts. I wrote the PM several e-mails explaining why I did what I did and offered to charge 30% on the 900 words, since I had a feeling the client had really screwed up and would be refusing to pay for those 900 words. It was a misunderstanding all around.
I never heard back from him and when I sent my invoice to the company owner and apologized and explained the discounted price, he had no idea what I was talking about. Oops! So it must not have been as bad as I assumed it was, but a little more communication from the PM would have soothed my nerves. Apparently the PM is on vacation. Here I have been worrying about losing the PM’s trust and business because I hadn’t heard from him. Luckily this is one of my oldest and dearest clients with whom I have an excellent relationship, so there’s no harm done. But what if it had been a random client with whom I only work on occasion…
I thought it was definitely worth mentioning here for that very reason. I was curious as to how you all would have handled the situation. If you notice repetitions, would you voluntarily mention it (and voluntarily earn less)? That seems kind of counterintuitive to me, but apparently this PM was disappointed that I didn’t. I’m curious to hear what you all think.
Favorite tools: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats August 27, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Tools.2 comments
If you are anything like me, you are probably still using an older version of Microsoft Office. There could be any number of reasons for this. My reason is that it still works great and I have no desire to try to learn how to work with ribbons instead of menus. I’m holding out in the hope that the next Office version will go back to menus for some of us “old timers” (man, I realize my birthday is Friday, but typing this sentence just made me feel very, very old… It’s similar to the feeling I get during 80’s weekends on the radio when I realize that the music I grew up with and still love is now over twenty years old).
Some of my clients send me files with .docx extensions. Instead of asking them to convert it into a format that I can use (and admitting I’m using an older version of Word), I have downloaded the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. The Compatibility Pack allows you to “open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.” The system requirements are pretty broad. Your operating system should be either Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 1, or Windows XP Service Pack 2. It works with a variety of Microsoft Office programs (click the link to see the list).
What annoys you? August 25, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Translation Sites.8 comments
Today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer features an article entitled “What annoys you? PDQ asks readers to share what gets under their skin.” The article interviewed people in different occupations asking “In the course of your job, what’s the one thing people do that annoys you the most?” in the “not-so-subtle hope is that the people doing these terrible things will read these answers, and, well, um, stop already.” It was a fun little read, and I thought it would be fun to ask you all what annoys you the most. I’ll start…
The thing that annoys me the most is when project managers at large-scale agencies send a job query e-mail to an unspecified number of BCC: recipients asking if you are available to translate X number of words by X date (usually an impossible word count with an equally impossible deadline) – without mentioning the subject matter involved – and then the job has already been assigned once you respond (even if you respond within 10 minutes of receiving the e-mail). This is the main reason why I prefer to work with smaller agencies.
OK, your turn. Whether you are a project manager, freelance translator, in-house translator, or someone not in the translation industry who just stumbled upon this blog during a random Google search, what is the one thing that annoys you the most about your job?
TGIF: Another Eddie Izzard video August 22, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, German culture, Random musings.add a comment
Hi folks,
It’s Friday, and I am taking the afternoon off yet again to go to the dentist and then go on a Happy Hour cruise of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie on the Goodtime III with one of my Meetup.com groups. I could get used to working four days a week… After slogging my way through a really tough text yesterday about philo-Semitism I am really looking forward to some R&R.
Anyway, here is another Eddie Izzard video discussing President John F. Kennedy’s utterance “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which every Intermediate German student laughs about. This is in fact an urban legend, but Izzard is always worth a laugh.
Now onto the educational portion of this post… Here’s President Kennedy’s original speech for those of you who aren’t familiar with it.
According to Wikipedia:
Kennedy came up with the phrase at the last moment, as well as the idea to say it in German. Kennedy asked his interpreter, Robert H. Lochner, to translate “I am a Berliner” as they walked up the stairs of the Rathaus (City Hall). With Lochner’s help, Kennedy practiced the phrase in the office of then-Mayor Willy Brandt and in his own hand made a cue card with the phonetic spelling. [Note: The cue card can be viewed at Haus der Geschichte in Bonn.]
According to an urban legend, Kennedy allegedly made an embarrassing grammatical error by saying “Ich bin ein Berliner,” referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry:
Kennedy should have said “Ich bin Berliner” to mean “I am a person from Berlin.” By adding the indefinite article ein, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus “I am a jelly doughnut”.
The legend seems to stem from a play on words with Berliner, the name of a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin.
In fact, Kennedy’s statement is both grammatically correct and perfectly idiomatic, and cannot be misunderstood in context. The urban legend is not widely known within Germany, where Kennedy’s speech is considered a landmark in the country’s postwar history. The indefinite article ein can be and often is omitted when speaking of an individual’s profession or residence but is necessary when speaking in a figurative sense as Kennedy did. Since the president was not literally from Berlin but only declaring his solidarity with its citizens, “Ich bin Berliner” would not have been correct.
The origins of the legend are obscure. The Len Deighton spy novel Berlin Game, published in 1983, contains the following passage, spoken by narrator Bernard Samson:
‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’ I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts.
The New York Times review of Deighton’s novel added the detail that Kennedy’s audience found his remark funny:
In fact, the opposite is true: The citizens of Berlin do refer to themselves as Berliner; what they do not refer to as Berliner are jelly doughnuts. While these are known as “Berliner” in other areas of Germany, they are simply called Pfannkuchen (pancakes) in and around Berlin. Thus the merely theoretical ambiguity went unnoticed by Kennedy’s audience, as it did in Germany at large. In sum, “Ich bin ein Berliner” was the appropriate way to express in German what Kennedy meant to say.
During the speech Kennedy used the phrase twice, ending his speech on it. However, Kennedy did pronounce the sentence with his Boston accent, reading from his note “ish bin ein Bearleener,” which he had written out in English phonetics.
It’s a shame that a great speech is now the subject of ridicule based on half-truths and an urban legend.
How not to market yourself August 18, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Marketing ideas.2 comments
I just received the following e-mail (the details have been removed to protect the clueless):
Subject: English>Arabic / Italian>Arabic freelance translator
Dear sir or Mm,I am a freelance translator, proofreader and editor based in Egypt. I am very interested to develop long-term cooperation with your esteemed agency. Please find enclosed my cv. All related certificates are available upon your request.
Looking forward to hearing from you.—
B.regards
[Name deleted]
Really? Did you even look at my web site? First of all, I am not an agency, but rather a fellow freelancer. Secondly, I don’t work in Arabic or Italian. I only translate German to English. Thirdly, you couldn’t even take the time to spell out “madam” or “best” in “Best regards,” which is just lazy. On the plus side, there was some grammatical awkwardness, but at least there were no typos (if you don’t count the non-capitalized “cv”). And you attached a PDF of your resume instead of a huge, multi-megabyte file or a Word document that could possibly contain a macro virus. Anyways, thanks for the spam, jack! Better luck next time.
Enjoy Pandora Radio while it lasts August 18, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.2 comments
Pandora Radio may be pulling the plug soon due to Internet radio royalty demands from SoundExchange. SoundExchange is a non-profit performance rights organization that collects royalties on behalf of sound recording copyright owners (sometimes artists but usually the big-time labels) and featured artists for non-interactive digital transmissions, including satellite and Internet radio.
According to arstechnica.com, “Despite being one of the most popular Internet radio services, [Pandora] still isn’t making money, and its founder, Tim Westergren, says it can’t last beyond its first payment of the higher royalties.” That’s sad, because I have been turned on to several new groups and artists through Pandora and even recently attended a concert by “Over The Rhine” because I enjoyed some of their songs through Pandora. I wrote about Pandora back in June in a post about music in the workplace. I for one would pay to make sure they don’t close their site, so hopefully the people at Pandora will reengineer their business model to fee-based accounts.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Pandora Radio, it is part of the Music Genome project. The Music Genome project is “the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken.” The folks at the Music Genome project have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song – melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics … and more – close to 400 attributes. Pandora then plays songs that have similar attributes and interesting musical similarities to your chosen band or artist.
Most of you overseas readers probably don’t understand why this is such a big deal to U.S.-based companies, since foreign radio stations have always paid fees for public performance of music. Let’s just say that no one likes change, and this presents a big change to the status quo in the United States. Unlike European countries and other countries around the world, the United States did not collect payment for public performance of artists’ work prior to 1995. Users of music, the digital music service providers, freely performed these works at will, without paying the owners of those recordings or the featured artists who performed the songs. The Digital Performance in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 changed all that by granting a performance right in sound recordings. As a result, copyright law now requires that users of music pay the copyright owner of the sound recording for the public performance of that music via certain digital transmissions. Conventional radio stations don’t pay these fees yet, but that should change soon.
Most Internet radio stations like Pandora offer their services for free, or they offer accounts with more features at incredibly cheap prices. SoundExchange was able to initiate a massive (and retroactive) royalty hike on Internet radio stations by 2010, imposing per-user fees for each song of an estimated 2.91 cents per hour per listener—far higher than the 1.6 cents that satellite stations would pay. Most Internet radio stations won’t be able to afford these fees, and it smacks of favoritism and back-room negotiations. SoundExchange, on the other hand, argues that Internet radio stations could do a lot more to increase their revenue, become profitable, and pay their fees. It should be interesting to follow the developments over the next year or two.
Edit, 2:30 PM:
For an interesting take on things from musician and streaming radio channel owner David Byrne from the Talking Heads, click here. He is vehemently against the initiative and presents several different interesting arguments.
