| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Off topic: Translation agencies on high horses Thread poster: 564354352 (X)
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| After working for an agency for over five years! | May 12, 2013 |
I received this message:
Hola Helena,
indicarte que, para el pago de las facturas que nos has emitido y para entrar y poder ser seleccionado en el proyecto que estamos a punto de firmar para trabajos superiores a ****€ al mes es necesario nos envíes la documentación que te hemos solicitado.
Which, roughly translated is:
Hello, Helena
Just to let you know that to be able to pay the invoices you have sent us and to enter into ... See more I received this message:
Hola Helena,
indicarte que, para el pago de las facturas que nos has emitido y para entrar y poder ser seleccionado en el proyecto que estamos a punto de firmar para trabajos superiores a ****€ al mes es necesario nos envíes la documentación que te hemos solicitado.
Which, roughly translated is:
Hello, Helena
Just to let you know that to be able to pay the invoices you have sent us and to enter into the selection process for the project we are about to sign for work over €**** per month, you need to send us the documentation we have requested.
My answer:
Ayer mismo se lo envíe. He estado muy ocupada últimamente y algo tan simple como comprar un sobre grande y sellos era todo un reto!!
I sent it off to you yesterday. I have been very busy recently and something as simple as buying an envelope and stamps represented quite a challenge!
I admit that when I received the message I just laughed (really). I've been working for the agency for over five years and I had sent them the same documents they had asked me to send to them when I first started working for the agency. And the bit about not paying me the outstanding invoices, just topped it all. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sad but true | May 12, 2013 |
Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
That's the impression that translators give about themselves to the outside world. Small, passive, obedient.
Why do you think so many LSPs behave this way? Because of "anonymity" and separation among the translators. Nobody sees what they're doing.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Eleftherios. It is obvious that some agencies deceive their clients and translators. Of course, there are still some decent agencies out there. But they are slowly dying off and the problem with many of the largest, fastest-growing LSPs is that they have no respect for translators. They behave exactly the way that Eleftherios described. Their tactics are simply dishonest. They impose their terms. They impose ridiculous deadlines and make deliberate efforts to lower the rates. They accept your rate initially, but then they disregard it completely and keep sending you jobs at less than half your rate. The goal is to create an impression that these low rates are the going rates. And, sadly, it works. Too many professional translators meekly accept these ridiculous rates and deadlines. “Passive and obedient.” Sad but true.
Deliberate pressure on rates. Why do they keep saying “our budget is very tight?” It’s like a broken record. It’s not my problem if the agency's sales people undersell translation jobs, is it? Half the time the tight budget story is not even true. It’s simply a trick to get a lower rate. The PMs get a bonus if they negotiate lower rates. As simple as that. So anything goes. Flat-fee projects are popping up like mushrooms all of a sudden. Why? Because a lump sum sounds more enticing than 50% of your per word rate. Sadly, many translators fall for this. Makes you wonder if they ever took basic math.
Bidding platforms are being used more and more. Translators now bid on projects for some of the largest LSPs and jobs are awarded to the lowest bidder. Rates and experience don’t mean squat to the LSP. The rates you had negotiated before you took their test are irrelevant. What’s worse, the ‘negotiate’ option is often disabled and the rate set by the LSP for such jobs is often less than 25% of the average rate in that particular language pair. I am talking about specialized jobs that are awarded to the lowest bidder, often with little or no experience. Yet the LSP promises its clients top quality. Yeah, right.
Make them think you are their friend. That’s what some PMs are told. If you are the translators’ friend, it will be more difficult for them to say no. They will be more likely to accept a lower rate or a tight deadline. They will want to help you.
MT post-editing disguised as proofreading. I used to proofread a lot for a large LSP. Not anymore. They started sending me MT post-editing jobs and kept saying they did not know it was MT. The interesting thing was that these were always rush weekend jobs due on Monday and it was not possible to contact anyone before the job was due. The quality of ‘normal’ proofreading jobs has deteriorated as well. Most jobs needed to be translated from scratch. These are the results of awarding jobs to the lowest bidders irrespective of their skills. The LSP claims it provides top quality. Yeah, right.
LSPs don’t want translators to discuss rates. Recently I was contacted by another large LSP. I couldn’t help but notice that their NDA specifically prohibits ‘vendors’ from discussing their rates with clients and other ‘vendors’. Why do you think this clause is there? I wouldn’t discuss my rates with the LSP’s clients. But I see no reason why I should not discuss them with my colleagues. Some of you might disagree, but when it comes to rates and such, I happen to think that the more I know the better.
Different word counts for end clients and vendors. A PM at a large LSP sent me insisted on Trados discounts and claimed the client did. Then, by accident, she sent me logs intended for the end client. Guess what? The word counts did not match. The agency prepared one log for the translator (with a lower word count) and another for the client (with a much higher word count). Well, nothing surprises me anymore.
I could go on and on.
So, please, wake up! Don’t let translation agencies trick you, boss you around and impose their terms. Gitte, things like filling out forms, completing tests and submitting references are indeed annoying. Unfortunately they are only the tip of the iceberg. I’m afraid that if we don’t stand up for ourselves things will only get worse.
[Edited at 2013-05-12 19:09 GMT]
| | | | 564354352 (X) 
Denmark
Local time: 09:13
Danish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Here's a funny coincidence | May 12, 2013 |
It just dawned on me that I had never come across all this bad agency behaviour before I signed up at ProZ. This is not to say anything bad about ProZ, it is what it is, it's just that this is where I have started noticing the appalling attitudes from some agencies. I am wondering whether having 'translation sites' like this actually perpetuates the bad behaviour, simply because agencies have access to a lot of translators, some of whom are, sadly, willing to work under appalling terms.
... See more It just dawned on me that I had never come across all this bad agency behaviour before I signed up at ProZ. This is not to say anything bad about ProZ, it is what it is, it's just that this is where I have started noticing the appalling attitudes from some agencies. I am wondering whether having 'translation sites' like this actually perpetuates the bad behaviour, simply because agencies have access to a lot of translators, some of whom are, sadly, willing to work under appalling terms.
I have been 'fortunate', 'sheltered' or 'cushioned' in my pre-self-employed career, because I have worked full-time as a translator for many years, first for a production company where I knew my skills were valued and then for a translation agency that treats translators as business partners. Most of my clients today are end clients, not agencies. The majority of the (very few) jobs I have found via ProZ have been one-offs and typically from agencies who needed a small job done urgently and therefore were willing to accept my rates and other business terms but then later said I was too expensive for them to work with in general. I have come to a point now where I do not expect to find jobs at ProZ at all, simply because the majority of the jobs advertised stipulate terms that I find bordering on the insulting.
But I do find the exchanges with fellow translators useful ... and at times entertaining, too.  ▲ Collapse
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 02:13
Greek to English
+ ...
| "Most of my clients today are end clients, not agencies." | May 13, 2013 |
Aha! You live in a different universe then.
End client (nice behavior) ---> Agency (sales dept., commission, deception) ---> Project Manager (ordered to work with a reduced budget, has to take it out on someone, better take it out on someone who only exist in the computer).
We only exist in the computer from their perspective. How can they be nice to someone they don't see in flesh and blood in front of their eyes? How can they respect their efforts? It's easier... See more Aha! You live in a different universe then.
End client (nice behavior) ---> Agency (sales dept., commission, deception) ---> Project Manager (ordered to work with a reduced budget, has to take it out on someone, better take it out on someone who only exist in the computer).
We only exist in the computer from their perspective. How can they be nice to someone they don't see in flesh and blood in front of their eyes? How can they respect their efforts? It's easier to disrespect someone from a distance, someone you never met in person and they are only an entry in a database, and you will never meet them.
You bypassed the nasty steps, you are eating the fruit directly from the tree. The rest of us pay all the people in the distribution line (and their attitude as well).
Then translators feel "betrayed" sometimes, that's because they haven't seen the system for what it really is - anonymous and random. ▲ Collapse
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Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 02:13
Greek to English
+ ...
| What do they do though... | May 13, 2013 |
Surprising that the vast majority of translation agencies are not established by translators. In most cases, none of the owners, employees etc. were ever translators or even just proofreaders.
They do not know how the product is made. How can they understand your point?
For sure there must be a huge profit margin, that's why new agencies pop-up every week, by people that have nothing to do with this industry, and are only organized to forward emails.
The main reas... See more Surprising that the vast majority of translation agencies are not established by translators. In most cases, none of the owners, employees etc. were ever translators or even just proofreaders.
They do not know how the product is made. How can they understand your point?
For sure there must be a huge profit margin, that's why new agencies pop-up every week, by people that have nothing to do with this industry, and are only organized to forward emails.
The main reason that fees are so vastly misallocated in this industry, is the passive stance of the translators themselves every time they get "desperate" or every time they assume that they can run a personal business with the wage of an entry-level employee.
I have never seen a presentation for translators (on how to organize their business) that includes taxes. Most translators pay 1/3 or more of their income in taxes, and the so-called guides, presentations and rate calculators don't even take that 30% into account! Everyone thinks that the translator is a poor little thing that doesn't pay taxes and is happy typing all day, a little remote robot.
How can you take translators seriously when they are willing to play along with this just fine, every time someone sends them a little work? They think "ah, ok, the system started to work again", and they worship those 4-5 emails that will pay their bills for the day (only if the pm didn't negotiate half their fee again, as she's probably trained to do).
Misconceptions. But do not seek a little professional respect (and loyalty) in an industry where 90% or more is not actively asking any. Other industries enjoy that, because "that's the way things are". Right? Next time you hire a lawyer or a dentist, ask for their resume, see what they'll tell you.
[Edited at 2013-05-13 19:51 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | 564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 09:13
Danish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | So young, and yet so cynical | May 14, 2013 |
Eleftherios - I can't help but get the impression that you loathe the entire translation industry and have given up all hope that this will ever be a good profession in any way. I'm sorry to hear that, but I am also sorry that this thread has taken such a negative turn.
My intention when starting this thread was merely to point out that some translation agencies need to be taken down a peg or two and realize that we, as translators, are not inferior beings whom they can treat with d... See more Eleftherios - I can't help but get the impression that you loathe the entire translation industry and have given up all hope that this will ever be a good profession in any way. I'm sorry to hear that, but I am also sorry that this thread has taken such a negative turn.
My intention when starting this thread was merely to point out that some translation agencies need to be taken down a peg or two and realize that we, as translators, are not inferior beings whom they can treat with disrespect.
I don't think the industry as such is in the terrible state that you make it out to be, even if there are certain (even big) elements that are only in it to make profit at the loss of others. I am convinced that there are thousands of excellent and professional translators about who make a good and content living in this profession and who manage to stand their ground when dealing with agencies and end clients alike. I am also still convinced that there are good agencies around with whom we can enjoy good working relationships.
My point is merely that as translators, we need to know what we want when we enter into new working relationships, and we need to draw a clear line with agencies who are out to abuse translators.
Let's not all sink into depression about the 'awful' business of being a translator in a tough global market. Instead, let's be confident and professional and reject unreasonable demands from unreasonable agencies.
Quite simple, really, not a basis for sinking into professional depression.  ▲ Collapse
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 02:13
Greek to English
+ ...
| "...workers in the cloud" | May 14, 2013 |
" from home crowd of 140000 highly-qualified, pre-screened workers."
Google it. At least they' re honest. I don't work with them, many others do and they think they are "free professionals".
I can say that 9/10 agencies with which I work, are good companies and good people. But I also know of a couple that actually officially train their managers to cut as much as possible, on every single step, the fees of translators that are already on the lower side of prices... See more " from home crowd of 140000 highly-qualified, pre-screened workers."
Google it. At least they' re honest. I don't work with them, many others do and they think they are "free professionals".
I can say that 9/10 agencies with which I work, are good companies and good people. But I also know of a couple that actually officially train their managers to cut as much as possible, on every single step, the fees of translators that are already on the lower side of prices. At the same time, they train them to compete even against each other in the company on commissions. The goal is to maximize the profits for all, especially the owners, at the expense of just one: the translator. Wall Street was much milder than that, but they were called sociopaths.
Why were they called sociopaths? Because people expected, reasonably, a set of ethics. At the same time in the translation industry, nobody even talks about ethics.
These "Walmart" agencies are pulling most of the volume in the market, jeopardizing fair competition (they also lie to their clients) and putting good agencies under stress, well, two words: price dumping.
Actually, we are also very close to "monopoly" status for quite a few language pairs. Henry of "proz.com" never even thought of things like that, the promotion of price-dumping and monopolies by creating a mentality of low bidders through sites such as this one.
These things are illegal, but translators will never blow the whistle to the regulators, because they think they are "free-lance" and they blame themselves for everything. In order to stop feeling guilty, they just lower their rates even more.
The behaviors in the market that may annoy you a bit, are direct consequences of the image that most translators have about themselves (which is also a consequence of their own economic realities). ▲ Collapse
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 02:13
Greek to English
+ ...
| And you can actually see it in the texts | May 14, 2013 |
As an experienced reader and/or professional writer you obviously know how to let yourself follow the mood of the text. This is something I also discussed with two more colleagues with more years in the market than me: yes, a lot more "melancholy", passive and dark mood, even in plain marketing translations lately.
Of course they accepted the assignments, of course most of them do it because they desperately need to do it, but the dark mood finds its way into the text, especially wh... See more As an experienced reader and/or professional writer you obviously know how to let yourself follow the mood of the text. This is something I also discussed with two more colleagues with more years in the market than me: yes, a lot more "melancholy", passive and dark mood, even in plain marketing translations lately.
Of course they accepted the assignments, of course most of them do it because they desperately need to do it, but the dark mood finds its way into the text, especially wherever they have the chance to be more expressive. I'm not kidding. I started noticing it in 2010 while proofreading, I discussed it with others, they noticed that as well, and it's gotten worse. Fake-nice emails from managers are not having any effect. When they stress their translators beyond their economic limits, they make them feel trapped and dependent, not in a good way.
This is a mood-based business, a positive attitude is key, otherwise the product is affected by the writer (except strictly technical and repetitive texts).
In the past I would even enjoy their colorful mistakes. But NOW, I see a lot fewer words (less rich vocabulary, by the same translators who were eloquent in the past), texts that are very dry, and the same sets of words repeated at the same ratios (a flat xy line of word usage ratios, ineffective communication, no focus on points), and everything done "in a hurry" (a result of a much lower wage per hour, which necessitates packing tons of projects in a small time period).
The more dry and impersonal it becomes, the more Google will jump in and say "I can give you the same dry and dumb text for free". Both agencies and translators will lose to Google when it finally comes to that. Google will be "at the same dry level, but for free" and will send everyone home.
[Edited at 2013-05-14 06:36 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| The fault is on both sides | May 15, 2013 |
Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
Surprising that the vast majority of translation agencies are not established by translators. In most cases, none of the owners, employees etc. were ever translators or even just proofreaders.
They do not know how the product is made. How can they understand your point?
For sure there must be a huge profit margin, that's why new agencies pop-up every week, by people that have nothing to do with this industry, and are only organized to forward emails.
[Edited at 2013-05-13 19:51 GMT]
From my experience, I believe the fault is on both sides. I agree to what Eleftherios wrote above, and he makes some good points.
The fault on the translators' side is that there are too many newbies coming in from other sectors (20 years ago, newbies were considered to be people coming from the same language industry, i.e. coordinators, PMs and in-house transators who were working full time and only that particular job), where many people have the misconceptions that if they are bilingual, they can be a translator right away. And these people have not done any research on how the market evolves, plus they are not aware that they are business owners, so even if they are pressed or insisted on taking bad terms and conditions from the agency's side, they do not realize that these conditions are agency-favored.
The newbie thing applies to agencies too. These agencies don't know what language service providers should do, and try to evade their responsibilites by blaming the translator for bad quality translations even though agencies are equally responsible for delivering a finished product to the end-client. They also give lame excuses regarding payment, "our client has not paid us yet, so you will get paid when we get paid", which is totally unacceptable. They don't want to take any risks, and if the client runs off without paying, they would not pay a cent to you with the same lousy excuse. They should be aware that they are having a contract between the translator on one side and their end client on the other side, and non-payment by client does not equal to non-payment to translators. The sad reality is that this basic understanding is lacking among many agencies, and translators somehow accept this non-sensical reasonings by agencies.
| | | | | ProZ.com helps just as much as it causes the problem... | May 15, 2013 |
It just dawned on me that I had never come across all this bad agency behaviour before I signed up at ProZ. This is not to say anything bad about ProZ, it is what it is, it's just that this is where I have started noticing the appalling attitudes from some agencies. I am wondering whether having 'translation sites' like this actually perpetuates the bad behaviour, simply because agencies have access to a lot of translators, some of whom are, sadly, willing to work under appalling ter ... See moreIt just dawned on me that I had never come across all this bad agency behaviour before I signed up at ProZ. This is not to say anything bad about ProZ, it is what it is, it's just that this is where I have started noticing the appalling attitudes from some agencies. I am wondering whether having 'translation sites' like this actually perpetuates the bad behaviour, simply because agencies have access to a lot of translators, some of whom are, sadly, willing to work under appalling terms. Anyone needs to tell me how to quote - I seem to be unable to ever, ever figure it out. The above is from Gitte's post...
I agree that sites which enable bidding for jobs can drive prices down, if too many unexperienced newbies desperately compete for jobs. But a site like ProZ.com has valuable resources available as well (this thread being one of them) that allows people to be better informed and more careful when bidding.
I believe that spreading information and teaching people how to stand up for their rights and to run their own business efficiently is crucial. Whining for any regulation to appear is completely pointless. What if Proz.com defined a minimum word rate? Another portal would jump in and offer a lower minimum, and the cheapo agencies would run to there. Regulation works beautifully in restricted societies like communism - but I wouldn't want to go there. What is needed, are well-informed, self-confident business people, and a site like Proz can definitively help with that.
Best regards,
Anna Sarah Krämer Fazendeiro ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 09:13
French to English
| How to quote ;-) | May 15, 2013 |
Anna Sarah Krämer Fazendeiro wrote:
Anyone needs to tell me how to quote - I seem to be unable to ever, ever figure it out. The above is from Gitte's post...
At the risk of being told I'm off topic, Anna Sarah, you simply need to click on the "Quote" button at the bottom of the message you want to quote, to the right. The message then appears as in this message. You can remove parts of the message that are irrelevant to your point, making sure not to touch the codes before and after.
| | | | | Yeah thanks! | May 15, 2013 |
[Offtopic]Texte Style wrote: Anna Sarah Krämer Fazendeiro wrote:
Anyone needs to tell me how to quote - I seem to be unable to ever, ever figure it out. The above is from Gitte's post...
At the risk of being told I'm off topic, Anna Sarah, you simply need to click on the "Quote" button at the bottom of the message you want to quote, to the right. The message then appears as in this message. You can remove parts of the message that are irrelevant to your point, making sure not to touch the codes before and after.
My fault was to open the editor and trying to add the quote per "blockquote"...[/Offtopic]
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