Rudeness when interpreting: what's your experience?
Thread poster: Tammy Creo
Tammy Creo
Tammy Creo  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:40
Spanish to English
+ ...
Mar 2, 2020

I am an Interpreter for the Limited English Proficiency people in the US, and most of them if not all, are extremely rude, demanding, insulting to Clients and Interpreters! This makes my job disgusting and stressful. Some of these people are illegal, but not all and they all get "FREE Interpretation"
They should be charged for our extremely demanding job, and we should be paid a much higher rate.
How can we all work to get them pay and we a better rate?


 
Brian Joyce
Brian Joyce  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
Translation - art & business » Interpreting » Mar 3, 2020

Go on strike!

Patricia Cohan
Jorge Payan
 
Luis Argueta
Luis Argueta
El Salvador
Local time: 03:40
English to Spanish
+ ...
By law, they have access to you the interpreter Oct 9, 2022

I understand that, some people are more difficult to work with than others and this in return, can result into a call becoming something very stressful. Having said that, as a consecutive interpreter over the phone, I make sure to press the mute button if the LEP for example interrupted the client or even myself, at the middle of rendering a segment.
I simply hit mute and let them go on right ahead...and I maintain my protocol when addressing the client and informing that with their perm
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I understand that, some people are more difficult to work with than others and this in return, can result into a call becoming something very stressful. Having said that, as a consecutive interpreter over the phone, I make sure to press the mute button if the LEP for example interrupted the client or even myself, at the middle of rendering a segment.
I simply hit mute and let them go on right ahead...and I maintain my protocol when addressing the client and informing that with their permission I am going to advise LEP to avoid interruptions, or give any other warning in terms of avoiding talking over client or interpreter. Once you master your interpreter protocol, you can always let the client know first, that you are about to ask LEP to move to a less noisy area, or to refrain from using any language considered inapropriate, that you will repeat a question back to them because their response is expected to be Yes or No, and generally that drives my point across where I may need to release the call next, if LEP is not willing to let me deliver my interpretation. And I do not stress over such matters, or let that get in the way of my focus or drive to work with people that really need that interpreter to pick up the phone, because they ran out of their prescription.

Kind regards,
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Liviu-Lee Roth
Liviu-Lee Roth
United States
Local time: 05:40
Romanian to English
+ ...
It is not the people who came here illegally, Oct 12, 2022

Tammy Creo wrote:

I am an Interpreter for the Limited English Proficiency people in the US, and most of them if not all, are extremely rude, demanding, insulting to Clients and Interpreters! This makes my job disgusting and stressful. Some of these people are illegal, but not all and they all get "FREE Interpretation"
They should be charged for our extremely demanding job, and we should be paid a much higher rate.
How can we all work to get them pay and we a better rate?



You must understand that we live in a society where the market principle of offer and demand prevails. As you already know, the Spanish language market is over-saturated, therefore the rates are much lower than for languages of a lesser diffusion. The only Spanish language interpreters who are doing well are the State of Federally Certified court interpreters.

I have been interpreting for illegals for over 25 years and rarely (once every 5 years) one of them would be rude, not toward me, but toward the US official.

Regarding the pay, in my language pair, it is the same like any other interpretation (medical, court, foreign delegation, telephonic, remote, etc.). Only for conference interpreting I charge more (and I don't enjoy interpreting in conferences!)

If you find our job "demanding" than ....
Let me tell you about "demanding": spent 3 months, day-in, day out in a mental health center with a LEP charged for stabbing his sister; spending 4 months, between 8-10 hours/day in a hospital for a LEP patient with a surgically open belly; assist in the OR at a bone-marrow extraction with the LEP half asleep; interpreting at the US Capitol for a group of foreign judges and the US speaker was like a machine-gun, that even the seasoned interpreters from the US State Department could not keep up.

Therefore, you might reconsider the "demanding" part of interpreting for illegals.

Best,
Lee

[Edited at 2022-10-15 16:32 GMT]


Daryo
 


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Rudeness when interpreting: what's your experience?







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