After hours fee Thread poster: Srini Venkataraman
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For interpreting jobs, how much extra % is appropriate if the call is
a. During week ends
b. Before/after normal working hours?
For doing transcontinental jobs, which are mostly early morning hours ( like 4 am etc)
Or late evening ( say 10 pm)
Thanks in advance.
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 17:16
Greek to English
+ ...
| There is no such thing as an "appropriate rate" | Jun 21, 2021 |
Whatever your client is willing to pay.
Up to 11 years ago, about half of US agencies were paying 30% more for weekend translation work and 50% more for interpreting work on the weekends. These things don't exist anymore because lots of people joined the systems, although the end-client still pays the same amount to the agency. Quality is irrelevant and the end-client doesn't know what to expect really, so they'll just accept anything as "normal".
If they can't repla... See more Whatever your client is willing to pay.
Up to 11 years ago, about half of US agencies were paying 30% more for weekend translation work and 50% more for interpreting work on the weekends. These things don't exist anymore because lots of people joined the systems, although the end-client still pays the same amount to the agency. Quality is irrelevant and the end-client doesn't know what to expect really, so they'll just accept anything as "normal".
If they can't replace you they'll probably give you 25% more, although these systems are so automated and inflexible that they won't bother satisfying any requests, they'll just find someone else for the weekends.
I did some phone interpreting for 3-4 months on the side until 2005 (I had a very short availability time in the system and I was getting paid $80/hour), but when one of them called me Christmas Eve at 11.00 pm (really!) "because it was urgent for the client" (of course I refused the call and then she kept calling, forcing me to turn off the phone), I thought about quitting, and after the rate in the market started going down I immediately quit that part of my work.
Most agencies that get these contracts with clients are NOT managing the system themselves. They subcontract the job to these telephone-remote whatever companies, and they do everything after that.
Agencies *Love* these contracts, because they don't have to do anything at all, nothing whatsoever, they just subcontract the whole thing and receive a handsome check every month. Of course at the end, you are getting paid about 1/5th of what the whole deal is or less.
Most agencies generally view translators and interpreters to be gigantic losers in life, because they know how much money exchanges hands on their side of the deal, and that is also why pricing is such a tightly kept secret in this "industry". ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rie Griggs 
Australia
Local time: 08:16
Member (2011)
English to Japanese
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| In Australia there are some agencies who pay extra for after hours and weekend | Jun 21, 2021 |
I think it is fair to ask to your local agencies to pay around 20% more for after hours,
In Australia, most agencies pay afterhours/weekend rates for interpreting.
but for interpreting coming from overseas there are no such thing as after hours due to time difference, so we may need to accept flat rate.
| | | | Srini Venkataraman
United States
Local time: 17:16
Member (2012)
Tamil to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks. I tried 15% extra for after/before normal working hours. The agency is unable to understand this, as they are in regular working hours (London being about 6 hrs ahead).
Have to keep pushing the idea. Surprisingly, for a 3 am call of 2 hours, for a deponent in India, a US agency agreed immediately- obviously they must have had huge margin!!
[Edited at 2021-06-25 03:59 GMT]
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