Helping out over the weekends...
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| 话题中的页数: < [1 2] | | 用户 | 论题张贴者: ariffo Helping out over the weekends... |
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jacana54 
乌拉圭
Local time: 14:02
  正式会员 (自2007)
English英语译成Spanish西班牙语
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| | I took it literally | Aug 24 |
Andrea,
I took the wording at its face value ("dar una mano") ... maybe another colleague realized that he or she was not going to be able to make a deadline or something like that; and so I thought that the phrase was the job poster's way of acknowledging that the pay offered was low.
I agree with your other comments, of course.
Lucía
| | | | Jill Bishop
美国
Local time: 11:02
 正式会员 (自2006)
English英语译成Spanish西班牙语
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| | From the evil agency itself... | Aug 25 |
Hi all:
I was shocked to find that my plea for help had started a forum topic! But more than that, I was interested to hear what you all had to say. I tried my best in my posting to be as honest and upfront as possible: we needed help on a project that had turned out to be more complicated than expected, the work would not be pleasant, but you'd be paid quickly for it. I hoped that our 31 5/5 LWA entries would be an incentive, as would the opportunity for us to reward your participation with more interesting and less tedious projects down the road. Some people prefer to work on the weekends, and I had to close the job after about 10 minutes, when we had already received 7 responses.
I think it's important to have standards about what kind of work you're willing to do, what rate you're willing to do it for and what days you're willing and unwilling to work. By "help" I wasn't asking for volunteers, and no one had to feel obligated to sacrifice their weekend in this way! Yes, the rate was already set, but again - I wasn't asking anyone to skip their best friend's wedding or their son's soccer game or not take their grandmother out to lunch or just relax on the couch without your hands on the keyboard. I was saying that if you had nothing going on, were looking to make a bit of money and help out your freelancer colleagues who were behind schedule, I'd appreciate it. That's all.
I'm disappointed that my posting caused shivers and bad tastes in peoples' mouths, and while I wish that my pockets were "full of money" from this and other projects, there are many more expenses involved in a project than what we pay our translators, and that directly influences rates. Now that I realize how much more time consuming and complicated this project is, however, I have offered to pay an additional sum to each of my translators in appreciation for their time.
Our business wouldn't be a business without the hard work of our translators, and I wouldn't enjoy it like I do were it not for the relationships that we have created with people around the world. Please take a look for yourselves: http://www.proz.com/blueboard/9255.
And now I'll stop wasting your weekend. Go enjoy - and I'll go back to work.
 
| | | | Luis Arri Cibils
美国
Local time: 11:02
正式会员 (自2003)
English英语译成Spanish西班牙语
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| | What are you worth? | Sep 21 |
Dear Jill,
I am not going to question why you have adopted your business model, that’s your business, and I am well aware that your offered rate is over the “domestic” rate prevailing in South America. If a translator down South were able to keep himself or herself fully occupied at those rates, he or she would be racking over 2,000 dollars per month, 4 or 5 times the minimum salary there, not enough to be rich but sufficient to live relatively well, considering that the minimum salary in countries like Argentina is about one fifth of that value.
I am also going to let aside the concept of “domestic rates”, a concept that I have problems digesting it. I always ask why a contract between YPF, in Argentina, and Exxon, in the US, should be priced as a “domestic” assignment, if requested by YPF, and international, if done so by Exxon, but market “reality” seems to be controlling.
What it really surprised me was seeing colleagues that are lawyers and translators seemingly willing to accept rates as low as 4 cents per word for their work. I am also a lawyer and translator, although I live in the US, but that is my rate for editing that I quote or maintain for "old" clients, who have been my clients for quite a long time, and whose translators' work has been known to me also for quite a long time. I can edit their translators’ work at a rate of about 1,500 to 2,000 words per hour. For new clients, I quote a higher rate and reserve my rights to reject the whole project if the translator’s quality is not professional.
In short, why those qualified translators from the Southern Cone cheapen themselves is beyond me.
In all this, I am assuming that you are acting as a subagency, receiving your 10-15 cents per word from the agency, and not 20-30 from end-clients, And, no, I am not criticizing you even if you do so, you are just making me feel green of envy.
I am in fact talking to translators located down South. If you are a lawyer and translator, or a top legal translator, why are you accepting to get one third or less of what I make, just because you live down there? I know I am good but, am I THAT good?
Why don't you go after the end-client, alone or associated with translators located up North rather than working for subagencies?
Jill, to end this long post, more power to you if you can make a profit doing so. I just hope that translators down South start thinking.
Best,
Luis
| | | | | 话题中的页数: < [1 2] | |
The translation workplace 
