A Pragmatic Eye

This post is about a pleasant enough video that was probably at the peak of its popularity a couple of years ago. It’s called the Vendor Client Relationship, featuring with a man in a restaurant, another man in a DVD shop, and lastly a woman at a hairdresser’s, all attempting to make unusual demands on the staff.

It’s here. I was pointed at it again a few days ago, responded by saying it was irrelevant tosh, and said I would expand on my blog. This is the expansion.

The first point to make is that the scenarios shown can be broadly categorised as retail, i.e. B2C, situations.

As such, they are clearly generally beyond the limits of acceptable customer behaviour, at least in the West. I firmly believe that the DVD store clerk and the hairdresser would, in real life, simply send the so-called customer packing which would make for a shorter, if more realistic, video; the restaurant scenario is slightly different since the requests are being made after the meal has been eaten, which is clearly a different and difficult situation.

But let us then re-examine these scenarios as if they were B2B transactions and see if they are quite so outrageous then. After all, freelancer translators are businesses (like the retail outlets in the video) dealing with business clients (but not consumers).
(Procedural note: the video jumps between 3 different scenarios in rotation. I deal with each scenario as a whole, one after the other.)

Restaurant guy
- “We didn’t budget for this”: I imagine it could happen in a restaurant that the final cost when the bill comes is more than expected, and is challenged. Should it happen to a freelance translator? Not if the price and scope are agreed in writing beforehand, and at every stage subsequently if the situation changes. If you don’t do this, then spend more time reviewing your procedures (and perhaps your terms and conditions), and less time on YouTube.

I admit I don’t really see any specific parallels with the next two restaurant scenes, the taco stand vs filet (it’s all “cow”) debate, and the “stuff we could remove” section. Is it an analogy with clients trying to get price reductions for alleged quality issues?

- “show us how you made it so we can do it on our own inhouse”: I can only assume translators are drawing a parallel here with being asked for TMs or unclean versions. The difference being, of course, that those are easy to re-create anyway; it is probably less easy to reverse engineer the dish of the day (it certainly would be for me!).

What all the restaurant scenes do all have in common is some attempt to impose changes after the event, either to the price paid or to the deliverables. I have to acknowledge that anecdotal evidence (the highfalutin term for reading it all over the place on forums and suchlike) suggests it happens to freelancers, and the advice given is always stick to your guns and/or take appropriate action for breach of contract (usually debt collection). This is an option not so readily available in retail (hence presumably the appearance of the muscle at the end) but the overall scenario shown in the video has no close parallel with any situation a translator is likely to find themselves in, except for the underlying issue of attempts to reduce or avoid the final bill.. But in our B2B dealings, there would definitely be either an actual or an implied contract and appropriate steps would surely be the solution. (There is also an implied contract in a restaurant, but enforceability is the tricky bit, whereas legal recourse to enforce our contracts is, at least in theory, available to any of us.)

To sum up, then, if you extrapolate and generalise about the underlying issue (changes after the event) expressed, then yes, the restaurant scenario can in general apply to freelance translators, although the individual scenes very much less so.

DVD store guy
- “I’ve only got 7 dollars set aside for this”, and the following scenes, including the legendary “this is not a challenge it’s an opportunity” line: OK, so retail customers tend not attempt to haggle or otherwise change the T&C in retail transactions in the West. But they certainly do in other countries; indeed in some places I understand it is practically expected. It is also possible to haggle in certain other B2C situations even in the west. I personally know people who have negotiated individual terms for satellite TV, mobile phone and ISP contracts, usually by threatening to take their custom elsewhere. So even taken as a B2C transaction, it’s not THAT outrageous.

- “make it up on the next one”:- once again, the guy is just negotiating, although his tactic has changed to promises of future rewards. Sure, we’ve all heard similar promises – some people believe them and go for it; I believe clients are entitled to ask. More pertinently, I’m worried that the video makers have run out ideas; this is essentially the same ploy as the hairdresser lady tries about making up the shortfall when she next has colour (if her husband likes it).

And as a B2B transaction in general, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the principle of price negotiation, even if the client’s counter-offer is less than half the opening proposal. It seems likely that it is the most price-sensitive clients who will make this kind of request, those who see translation providers as interchangeable (like DVDs). And we know that such clients are best avoided, assuming, that is, that the service you provide is not wholly interchangeable with anyone else’s.

As regards the argument that translators should be comparing their attitude to negotiation with professions such as accountants and lawyers, that would be a fair point if such professions universally kicked the door shut in the face of anyone attempting to negotiate. I checked with a couple of self-employed accountants of my acquaintance before posting, and they said it did happen and while they didn’t like it and usually stuck more or less to their original price, they accepted the client’s right to ask.

In essence then, my overall objection to translators waxing lyrical about this scenario is that there is nothing wrong with people trying to negotiate if they feel the circumstances warrant it. As long as it’s before delivery is made, naturally. One can hypothesise that there may be more willingness to attempt negotiations if substitute goods or services are readily available; so as ever, the key is to make yourself less easy to replace.

Hairdresser lady
“I’d like highlights but can only pay for a trim”: As an opening gambit, I can’t really see any parallel with translation. “I’d like you to translate all 5 pages but I can only pay for the first page”? Would that be an equivalent? By rights, in this video, the hairdresser would spin the lady round and show her the door. For us, well, it’s an interesting approach, a kind of negotiation, to which I claim to be open, but surely one that would get short shrift. Nonetheless, discussion appears to continue…

“I’ll pay for the highlights next time….throw them in… test… see if my husband likes it”. Interesting combination of tactics, really, but my guess is that all those freelancers clicking “thumbup” or “like” until their fingers bleed have heard the word “test” and little else. As I’ve said before, tests that are effectively performance do not equate to genuine tests. You can call them “test”, and the lady here does, but it doesn’t make them tests. It’s an actual job and we’re merely once again dealing with negotiation for that job. In view of which, in fact her tactic appears to be “yes, we know it’s a €200 job but we’re offering €50. If we like your work and come back to you for more, we’ll pay you the other €150.” (It’s actually a bit worse than that, because she says she’ll pay if she comes back for colour, i.e. something specific, not just any repeat business). As I keep saying, people are quite free to try to negotiate any kind of deal they like. And I reserve the right not to be sympathetic to people who agree to deals of this kind.

“cover your hard costs” : haggling over margins now. The hairdresser seems to be winning the negotiation without saying a word – this video IS indeed inspirational, perhaps I have misjudged it.

In conclusion then, most of the video seems to mirror an unhappy tendency for some freelancers to transpose perfectly normal B2B dealings into some aspect of their lives as consumers, and then pass judgement on those dealings as if they were the same situation. The sort of people who post in forums about how ridiculous it would be if they went into the bakery and announced how much they would pay for their bread, or told the supermarket they would pay them in 30 or 60 days’ time. And indeed they are right, because that is not how consumer transactions typically operate. Transpose them back into business-to-business dealings, and they are, broadly speaking, acceptable. As are two of the three scenarios shown in the video, and the third one (the restaurant) is not acceptable either in business or in consumer transactions, so there seems no point to be made.

The following is a summary to a long article here, from June 2009, when there seemed to be a fair amount of gloom around. It seemed to be inspired at least in part by a drip, drip, drip of news about salary freezes and cuts in the wider economy (e.g. Doncaster Council just yesterday; I’m sure it’s similar in many countries) being used as justification for agencies requesting/imposing rate reductions. In truth all sorts of other reasons are wheeled out (see also Lionbridge in Nov 2010). Did I say reasons? I probably mean excuses.

It is interesting to note how often it seems to be accepted that charging less is somehow the natural corollary to economic recession (I read an article in Translation Directory only today that took it as a given). I can only guess it is because people associate boom times with charging more, so it is seen as the other side of the same coin. I hope to show here (or in the article, really) this ain’t necessarily so for freelance translators (FWIW, although I haven’t analysed the idea properly, I suspect the same factors mean that translation rates do not automatically rise during good years for the economy, either.)

To get the obvious out the way first, it should be pointed out that freelancers are not paid for their labour in the way an employee is, but remunerated for providing a service to a business. So matters are evidently a little more complex.

The complex aspect is the whole supply/demand/prices relationship. So does it make logical sense, in terms of economics, to cut our rates?

Demand and prices.

What drives demand (i.e. end-client demand) for translation? Business activity (mainly at least – and if not directly, then arguably indirectly). If there is less business activity, then to some degree there will be less translation. Furthermore, in many (not all) cases, translation is not an optional extra – if an organisation is doing whatever it may be, it needs translations. If it doesn’t do it, it doesn’t need translations. In other words. while translation may be essential to many projects and situations, it is not typically the reason for a particular project’s existence, and furthermore, is usually a very minor component of total project costs, and unlikely to be of a proportion to influence a decision to proceed or not proceed with a given project (there are exceptions).

In general terms, therefore, my conclusion is that a general drop in “market rates” will not stimulate demand for translation volume per se.

Which is therefore a factor against individuals contributing to such a general drop by deciding on an individual drop (the market being the sum of its parts).

Supply and prices

Not affected by prices as it should be. There is undoubtedly already an excess of supply (i.e. hours of translators’ time) in the non-specialist market, as demonstrated by a) the overall level of rates in non-specialist work which is generally perceived to be barely acceptable to provide a living and b) the way that agencies are the party that set those rates (see longer explanation here, blog discussion here). By pure economic theory, suppliers should be leaving the market, but non-economic factors mean they are not – 50% not main bread-winners, and “half a loaf better than no bread” and “bird in the hand…” type attitudes, which do nothing to act against downward pressure.

Conclusion: general rates affect overall supply little if at all.

Agencies

Affect the market because for them, unlike for end-clients, the cost of freelance translators is a substantial proportion of their total costs as a business. In truth, if they suffer price pressure from end-clients, or are looking to maintain their turnover, they could adopt the above argument against dropping rates to their end-clients. In practice, too many are competing just on price, and as usual, the only long-term advice about competing on price alone is “don’t”.

For individual freelancers

Bluntly, all other things being equal, freelancers working for lower rates merely reduce their income, or work harder for the same income. What they do not do, typically, is stimulate demand, making for an increase in volume and thus more income (albeit also by working harder). I say typically, because there are specific circumstances where dropping a rate for a particular client could potentially work to increase income, but the freelancer would need to be fairly sure of his or her position before doing so.

So while raising rates can be a tactic to choke back demand for your services, this relates to demand for your services that is known to exist. Dropping rates in order to increase demand for your services will not spontaneously increase your volume; you have to know for a fact that there is latent volume waiting to come your way.

Finally….

There are no hard and fast rules. We all have to put food on the table, and it would be foolish to suggest that no-one, ever, should agree to a rate cut. As I say towards the end of the full article, while I don’t believe anything I have written is wrong per se, it could be incomplete, and I may have overlooked a crucial aspect.

If so, I would be delighted to read your comments. Truly. While I confess I sometimes find the (my) work less than stimulating, I do enjoy trying to work out how the economics of this business work, and how freelancers can use that knowledge to their advantage.

A new, yet also old, outrage has come to my attention of late.

It’s new, inasmuch as the penny only really dropped yesterday that the delightful, relatively newly-created private-sector quasi-monopoly on court-related interpreting in the form of Applied Language Solutions’ love-in with our own glorious Ministry of Justice (sic) includes a further affront to my beliefs and sensibilities (apart from my disgust at state-sponsored private monopolies, that is, and the atrocious rates, which can effectively be sub-minimum wage under the wrong circumstances). It’s old, inasmuch as I’ve got some emails gathering cyberdust in the bottom of my inbox on a not dissimilar stunt being pulled by perennial faves Lionbridge.

What both of these fine firms appear to be rolling out is, in essence, a variant on paying to work. About this time last year, Lionbridge started a pilot where grateful freelancers could pay as little as €10 per month for access to projects in its Translation Workspace. ALS, meanwhile, are charging 100 quid a pop for an assessment without which, as I understand it, no work will be allocated. This will be an assessment for interpreters most of whom have already passed one to be on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters. So, basically a fee charged to allow access to work, dressed up to look like a selection process. Cunning.

Now, I appreciate that there are arguments that the Liox/ALS situation is not quite the same, but for the sake of interest, I would point out that it is, broadly speaking, illegal in the UK to charge a fee for finding people work when a fee is also charged to the end client (see Regulations 25 and 26 of the guidance on the conduct of employment agencies and businesses 2003). The rule even applies where the person seeking work is incorporated as a limited company, in other words, arrangements which are nominally B2B are covered by the same rules.

I confess that my initial reaction was to draw a parallel with slotting fees (when supermarkets charge producers a fee for stocking their stuff on their shelves), but on reflection, I think slotting fees are closer to one of the exceptions allowed by the legislation, when an intermediary can charge a fee for inclusion in a publication or directory from which the client makes the choice. Not unlike Proz or Translators Café or indeed the CIoL Find-a-Linguist service. It now seems to me that the kind of practices these two upstanding members of the translation industry are attempting to establish are, in fact, payment to find work for freelancers disguised as fees for services.

I daresay it’s all entirely legal under the letter of the law; after all, we would expect two such august organisations to have thoroughly checked the legality of any schemes they operate, would we not? That said, the regulations are intended to cover “contracts for services” and while watertight definitions are surprisingly hard to find (HMRC explicitly say they don’t have one for tax purposes; meanwhile translation is definitely defined as a service for VAT purposes in VAT notice 741), the information I have found implies strongly that “contracts for service” apply to the arrangements by which the self-employed are contracted to perform a service.

No doubt Liox and ALS would argue that the fee is not a matter of charging freelancers for finding projects for them, but is to cover the costs of the additional “services” provided to freelancers (who I suspect could manage just as well without them). There may well be such costs, but even if these fees are entirely legitimate, one could argue that the companies have chosen to implement such services presumably for the ultimate benefit of a) themselves and b) their own clients, so it seems a bit rich to make the suppliers bear the cost. Usual story of who has the balance of power, I guess, especially at the grubby, price-sensitive, bulk end of the market.

Whether or not there is a technical loophole here, I certainly have doubts that these fees are in keeping with the spirit of the law. We should be grateful, I suppose, that even if these two honourable and forward-thinking companies continue with this business model, the fragmented nature of the industry means there is, at the moment, plenty of work available elsewhere that we do not have to pay to gain access to.

(This was originally an article I posted in my Articles section in April 2009. I recently got involved in another discussion about tests and I haven’t posted since my holiday – yes, thanks, it was splendid – so here it is, tweaked just a tad.)

Ah, indeed, tests, and the payment or otherwise thereof. An old issue, scarcely a week goes by without some translator somewhere passing comment thereupon. Translators being the largely discontented bunch they appear to be, the comment is rarely along the lines of “How topping! I was asked to do a free test and you can imagine the pleasure I took in agreeing to this perfectly reasonable request.”

Actually, it seems to me to be a fairly straightforward issue, regardless of its age. An issue comprising two key points, namely a) why do tests and b) should they be paid for? Plus a third, subsidiary point which irritates yours truly beyond all reasonable measure, so we’ll come to that last.

So, a) “why do tests?”

I confess, I think “why do tests” is probably a little simplistic – it should be “what need drives clients to ask for tests and do tests meet that need?” – but I was looking for a short sub-heading.

Three reasons justifying requests for tests

The obvious first point is that clients ask for tests in order to test (naturally enough) that translators can deliver what they say can deliver. If you claim to be a legal translator, that you can translate a paragraph or two from a contract. If you claim engineering knowledge, that you can translate the description of a cable stay for a bridge, say. And so on. Unfortunately, the translation business is full of people with a misplaced confidence in their abilities, or who deliberately mislead clients, and anything in between. Your exams and credentials may be perceived as not having examined the specific subject area to the depth that a client may need. Or maybe the information about you in the public domain doesn’t really indicate much one way or the other. So they ask for a quick couple of paragraphs to prove capability to deliver.

The second point is that clients may ask for a test to check translators can follow simple instructions. I have limited outsourcing experience, and even I can tell you that some translators will get the document, and just jump into translating that document, before they have read the accompanying email all the way down to the inevitable “Regards….” bit. So asking people to start at the third paragraph (say), can just be used to test how much attention the translator pays.

Third, they may ask for test to see if you are actually able to meet technical or ancillary requirements. Can you handle XML? Provide a TM in TMX format for the client? Giving the translator a handful of HTML pages and receiving a nice Word document back, even if translated perfectly, may not be what is required.

Counter-arguments – valid

A common counter-argument to that first point is that samples demonstrate the same thing. True to an extent, and more so for a specialist. As a counter-counter-argument, I would say that I would expect a sample made available to be as near to perfect as a translation ever gets, and all it demonstrates is the ability to hone that particular text to the nth degree. It does not necessarily demonstrate the ability to deliver the specific type of text the client requires. And it in no way demonstrates the important additional ability to follow instructions. And neither do credentials, certificates, diplomas, membership of professional organisations, or indeed paid membership of popular translation websites. Some of these can indeed be easily forged, faked or presented in a misleading way, and also be a bit of a bugger to check, particularly from another country.

A more reasonable but conversely less universally-applicable counter-argument is that if you are being asked for a test, you probably don’t know the potential client from Adam, and the potential client also does not know you from any other character from the religious text of your choice. So we should be careful. It is certainly safer to acquire new clients by personal recommendation and referral, and the same is partly true of agencies using new translators. I have also heard the viewpoint that a client who is testing several people (not that we usually know how many are being tested at once) is likely to view each of them as interchangeable or disposable, initially at least, until they prove otherwise. Once again, a spot of (demonstrable) specialisation is your friend.

Counter-arguments – invalid

“I have done several tests and have never subsequently received any work. So tests are pointless.” Or you might be incompetent, or out of your depth in the tests you have done. In any event, if you genuinely believe that your personal experience represents a universal truth, there is something amiss with your logic ciruits.

An inconclusive conclusion

In a nutshell, then, if the work is likely to just be general blurb requiring no particular specialist skill or knowledge, then I would agree that testing seems a little excessive when the client ought to be able to meet that need with little effort. The more obscure, specialised and technical the work, the more reasonable it seems to me to check, with a test, unless the translator has a relevant sample or samples or has been recommended. And yet, tests do typically tend to be fairly straightforward, as if testing for adequacy rather than specialisation. But there are vast numbers of self-proclaimed translators out there who struggle even to be adequate. And let us not forget, self-proclamation is all it takes (in most countries, anyway). So for many clients, unfortunately, even adequacy is a step in a welcome direction. They can’t believe a word half of us say, and so they feel the need to test us.

And b) “should tests be paid?”

Exploitation…?

If you do a free test, does that mean that client gains the impression you have nothing better to do? Some say it does. It is hard to construct a convincing counter-argument to assumptions that other people might hypothetically make. But that risk can be minimised. Do not immediately jump to it. Take a few days, perhaps (unless there is a deadline, of course). Email it at 10 p.m. or midnight. Give the impression (whether true or not) that you had to squeeze it into a busy schedule – although obviously make sure it is well done. Or ask for payment, of course. Ultimately, though, when there is no duress or compulsion or threat of sanction, when the whole process is entirely optional in every conceivable way, I have trouble accepting that anyone is being “exploited”.

… or marketing?

Some argue that a free test is merely marketing (a sprat to catch a mackerel, perhaps). The time spent is merely time spent on marketing. Not only that, it is marketing time spent on a potential client with at least a passing interest in the service you offer. Otherwise why test that service?

Yes, that could be slightly idealistic or even naïve of me. My own experience indeed mirrors the common observation that the more hoops a potential client wants you to jump through, the less likely you are to ever get actual paid work out of them. So if the test comes combined with a questionnaire and application form and bank details form and non-disclosure agreement and a request for a copy of your grandparents’ birth certificates, you can probably just hit the Delete button and move merrily on (without in any way wishing to fall into the trap of equating my experience with universal truth, of course).

Personally, on balance, I can see more merits to the “free tests = marketing” point of view than drawbacks.

Working for nothing

Some say that they just don’t want to do “work” for nothing. Fair enough. I have put “work” in quotes because it can mean many things to many people, yet it is so often the word used by those rejecting the idea of free testing. It is clearly “work” in the sense of taking time and effort for the testee, even if viewed as a marketing task. Whether it is “work” for the tester, in the sense of being of saleable value to them, is debatable. Ideally perhaps it should not be – a test should have a standard (of) translation for the testee to aim for, so the tester can pass/fail testees on a consistent basis, which would imply consistent, if not the self-same, text being used on all testees. But if they are testing you for a particular project…

It must be said that a paid test does tend to demonstrate good faith by the client, if the test is paid promptly. That said, any such relationship is still a new one, and just because they paid your 3 groats for a test within a fortnight, it does not mean they will ever pay your 300 guineas for the entire user guide you subsequently translated.

And a paid test also demonstrates that the potential client recognises that your time is worth something, which is a point in favour of paid tests, without in my view managing to conclusively demonstrate the opposite.

Fraud! Scam!

Others appear not to trust most potential clients as far as they can throw them, and seem to assume that every single person who asks for a free test is somehow going to cobble together a paid-for deliverable for a third party from a disparate collection of 300-word tests. And they are not going to get caught out like that, oh no. Fine. I’ve never actually seen a scintilla of concrete proof that this has ever been done, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Even if we accept that it has happened, that does not mean that the purpose of all tests is this kind of deception. This whole idea that free tests are used in this way seems largely spread by those convinced that Beelzebub himself is pulling the strings behind every agency in the known universe. It’s a kind of reverse engineering – “hmmm, I don’t like the idea of free tests, what nefarious purposes can I devise to justify this dislike…. I know, cobbling together an entire document from free tests”.

Whereas I would contend it is more logical to put yourself in the position of an individual determined not to pay for work, and think how best that would be achieved. I would further suggest that simply refusing to pay (optional extra: challenge the quality) and using geography to lessen the chances of any comeback is the simplest route. Those wiser than me have calculated it would probably cost about as much in time for the tester to coordinate such a stunt as it would cost in money to get the job done properly. That said, it could certainly not be ruled out if the tests are longer. A 3,000 word translation, say, pieced together from “tests” of 600-700 words provided by 4 or 5 people would probably be feasible, and much more feasible than attempting to achieve the same result from 9 or 10 different people providing 300 words. Moral: Tests ought to be short.

Some argue that if a free test comes with a deadline, then that is proof of some fiendishly cunning plan to construct a patchwork translation for free. Not impossible. But note that a deadline could be imposed on a test simply to determine the ability to follow instructions (as mentioned above) or because there is a deadline for the project being tested for, hence a translator needs to be booked from date D and so the tests need to be evaluated by date D minus 5 and so all the tests need to be delivered by D minus 10, say. It definitely helps to know the purported purpose of the test, so if the stated aim is to confirm suitability for being added to an agency’s database for projects as yet unspecified, a deadline would appear unnecessary.

On the subject of length, I would tend to agree that a free test should take about an hour of one’s time (otherwise it could indeed give the impression you have nothing better to do). I guess a paid test can be any length at all. Indeed, one could reasonably suggest that those agencies which make a habit of giving short texts as their first job to a new translator are blurring the distinction between tests and paid work. But while there may not be much consensus on the subject of testing in general, there does seem to be consensus that a test, if tests are permitted to exist, should be no more than 300 words, plus or minus 50.

Another inconclusive conculsion

So, a whole set of pros and cons and conflicting logic. Tests should, logically, test specialist knowledge, but in reality usually don’t, and specialists usually get new clients by word of mouth and recommendation – no testing required. Tests do not logically need to test adequacy, since even a basic qualification should guarantee that… but there are no barriers to entry to this profession. Upshot – some people do tests, and some don’t, and adopting either position, be it permanently or case-by-case, is perfectly valid and logical.

That is, of course, merely my opinion. It would be remisss of me not to point out that while the Chartered Institute of Linguists in the UK has no such restriction at this time (and neither does the ITI), the Code of Conduct for the ATA in the USA in fact says members will not require translators or interpreters to do unpaid work for the prospect of a paid assignment.
(Sept 2011 update: since this was first written in April 2009, that link no longer leads where it once did, and the page it now leads to makes no such explicit demand, although one could argue it is still implied.)

However…

c) The irritating (beyond all reasonable measure) subsidiary point.

Certain translators seem to be constantly comparing the translation industry to plumbers and builders and lawyers and architects and doctors and taxi-drivers in an attempt to justify their position. When it comes to tests, they will reel off a litany of professions, make the bald statement that “they don’t do free tests/work” and then wrap up with “and neither do I”. Or perhaps the would-be opinion-former will endeavour to create an amusing scenario whereby they ask a builder to build some stump of a wall as a test, or a plumber to install one tap as a test, or an architect to sketch out a shed before awarding a contract for a tower block, or a taxi driver to convey the translator a few hundred yards as a test prior to booking a trip to an airport, before asking the reader to compare such a scenario with being asked to do a free translation test and then share hollow laughter with the author of the said opinion.

Now, analogies and comparisons that do not work well really do tend to irritate me more than a thistle-lined jock-strap.

So, perhaps we could stop comparing ourselves to professions with strict entry requirements, such as the law and medicine, where there are equally strict sanctions for charlatans and chicanery and a qualification is generally likely to be both genuine and proof of reasonable competence (or adequacy).

Perhaps we could stop comparing ourselves to professions where testing is indeed highly impractical.

Perhaps we could stop comparing ourselves to professions where asking for a test genuinely is tantamount to (part-)performance of the actual job required, demonstrably and self-evidently so.

And perhaps we could stop pretending that, as consumers or as businesses, if there were hypothetically a way to test builders, plumbers, lawyers, mechanics, and other providers of goods and services we use, we wouldn’t do so. Of course we would. We would test everything, if we could (wouldn’t we? Or am I projecting?). But we can’t. Which is why some critical professions are strictly regulated, and why we have trading standards authorities (and consumer magazines/websites such as “Which?” in the UK or “Que Choisir” in France) for the others. Oh, and contract law… but don’t get me started on translators and contracts here.

And let us not forget, in our enthusiasm to paint translators as the only profession in the world where some practitioners do “free work”, that lawyers (oh yes, them again) often offer free consultation, the actors do auditions, that graphic designers submit designs for competition without payment, that advertising agencies submit ideas ditto, that some software publishers offer a trial period or an evaluation version, car dealers will offer test drives for entire weekends, and so on.

Not all such “free work” takes the form of free testing as such, granted. But I genuinely believe one reason translators are asked to do tests is because it is a service which readily lends itself to the concept of testing. If other services did the same, they too would be tested, and some in fact are.

Now if you, personally, do not wish to “work” for nothing, that is absolutely your prerogative. It is an entirely reasonable stance to adopt.

But there are plenty of sound and economically-rational reasons for doing tests, even free ones, so perhaps those who have opted not to go down that path could treat those who have with a modicum of respect. Argue the case from a perspective related to the business of translation or even language service provision more broadly, and please keep the incessant and irrelevant drivel comparing translation to other occupations out of the discussion.

Review here meaning the process of checking someone’s translation. Were I Samuel Johnson, I might be minded to define a reviewer as “an ideally, but regrettably not always, harmless drudge, that busies himself in comparing with the original, and detailing the shortcomings of others”.

We can also assume that Muphry’s Law will at some point apply in this post.

On to the meat (or lentils) of the issue. I was very recently engaged in a lively discussion about how to charge for reviewing. The basic question usually seems to revolve around charging per word versus charging her hour, but from the flurry of exchanges, it seems that there are perhaps three pairs of factors at play in attitudes to pricing, to wit:
a) charging per word or per hour
b) whether you see the translation before quoting, and
c) whether your relationship with the client allows you to determine the final price on delivery, or whether you are bound by your original estimate.

In terms of a), consensus seems to be that i) a ballpark rate is in the approximate region of 1/3 the rate you’d charge to translate it, and that ii) general texts that are not a complete dog’s dinner should take about one hour per 1,000 words. (Let us assume that either calculation method gives the same total earnings for the job, which it should, after all.)

It strikes me that if you are going to apply a word rate, you probably need to see the source and target text first to decide what your translation rate would have been, unless perhaps you always apply the same rate to everything for that client (but even then you could vary the fraction applied). If you apply ii), you’d need to see the translation, to apply a dog’s dinner test, and see if one hour per 1,000 words is feasible, and adjust the quote accordingly. Put another way, if you see the job before you are asked to quote on it, I contend it matters not a jot whether you quote per word or per hour.

Or at least, it matters not in terms directly related to the specific job itself. The view was expressed that, in general, charging per hour is a mistake in that you are penalised as you get faster and more efficient (since you would charge less today for than you did a year ago, say, for the self-same job), but I feel that the response to that is not necessarily to dismiss hourly charging, but how you apply it. For instance, charge more per hour as you get more efficient or, if the client is resistant to rate rises but was happy enough with the overall total per job in the past, charge as if you were your old, inefficient self.

I was pointed in the direction of the opinion of one Ed Gandia, who has apparently written a book on freelancing (he’s a copywriter, though). Our Ed – and I’m sure he is not alone – has three objections to hourly rates: 1. clients like word rates because they know how much to pay and don’t worry about you “padding” your hours, 2. if you tell them an hourly rate, they will no doubt compare it with their own rate that they earn, and you might not want that, and 3. “when I told clients I work by the hour, some would actually talk faster to me on the phone”.

In terms of reviewing specifically, I would say that 1. can be overcome by seeing the translation to be reviewed before agreeing the price (the implication of the “padding” objection being that the client can more or less tell you what they are expecting to pay when they send the job) 2. I actually don’t care who knows my hourly rate and I’m not sure what the concrete objection is, but plenty of other professions appear to have no such qualms, and 3. surely has to be the response of the price-obsessed client, and we don’t really want to be working too much with people whose only concern is price, to the extent they will talk faster to save 50 cents.

I see points b) and c) as connected, particularly as regards not seeing the job first (i.e. before the quote is given and accepted). If you see the job first and the quote is therefore reasonably viewed as binding, I say use whatever calculation method you like. But if you don’t see the job first, the key issue is then how is the final price determined? Are you permitted to give a non-binding estimate with the final price announced to the client on delivery? Or is your original estimate the price you have to charge?

Personally, having been caught out previously by the combination of not seeing the job first and having to stick with my original estimate, I just don’t do that any more. While I would never dream of telling others how to run their business, I cannot recommend it (unless perhaps you know exactly what quality of translation is coming on the basis of previous experience with that specific translator, or you have utmost confidence in the quality of translators used by your client – as you might if they are not some price-driven document shifter, and actually like to provide a service to end-clients).

So, if you don’t see the job first, you really do need to be in a position where you can announce the final price on delivery. Naturally, as was pointed out in the discussion, this works best if you can sometimes bring yourself to charge less than you originally estimated (however, I have done this myself as a spotty youth (metaphorically) and then got knocked back when I decided to see if this flexibility worked both ways – hence no more sight-unseen jobs for yours t. for the foreseeable f.).

Equally naturally, if only for legibility and ease of understanding (and maths), this price-on-delivery method works more clearly in terms of hourly rate rather than word rate. If you agree to review 5,000 words taking 5 hours at 30.00 per hour, but it only takes 4.5 hours, you can charge 135.00 instead of 150.00 and you look like the good guy. If you had said that you would review the same document for 0.03 (=150.00) and you decide that’s probably over-stating what it should cost (!), you’ll charge them 5,000 x 0.027 instead and look like an anally-retentive weirdo. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you are thinking in terms of words not hours, you are pretty unlikely to bother to recalculate your rate downwards like that, and clients would therefore lose out. I’ll go further and say you’re also unlikely to perform the calculation in the opposite direction if the work takes a bit longer, and you lose out. I’m edging in favour of hourly rates in cases where the final price is determined on delivery.

So, here comes a dashed handy summary on pricing review work, in the form of two Y/N questions:

1. Do you see the job (source & target) before quoting?:
Y (therefore assumption your quote is binding) = charge on whatever basis you and the client both find acceptable
N = go to question 2

2. Is the quote binding?
Y = binding quote on a job unseen = run away, run away…
N = hourly basis for charging seems easier to understand and fairer to both sides.

To summarise another way: hourly rates work well under all circumstances; per word rates work OK if the quote is binding (since the total is the key figure anyway), but my advice would be only give binding quotes if you’ve seen the job before quoting.

(This was originally an article I posted in my Articles section in Feb 2009. That has now been linked to from elsewhere, so I’m replicating it here in case anyone wants to comment.)

And so the question du jour is…

Should beginners work at low(er) rates?

Charging extremely low rates is a fairly common beginners’ mistake. It may seem to be fair enough on the face of it, but a bit later I will explain why it is logically flawed.

Before then, two other points about low rates-per-word in general that are worth bearing in mind in this context.

1) Some clients, especially those who pay towards the low end anyway, are resistant to subsequent increases. If you find this to be the case, then to increase your rates generally, you have to find new clients and charge them your new higher rate while dropping the old clients.

2) I appreciate that some markets are saturated, but I don’t see how anyone in Western Europe could regularly charge less than 50 quid per thousand words (roughly 0.06 EUR per word in Feb. 2009) on an ongoing basis unless they work at the speed of light. A thousand words is typically about 4 hours work, once you include all the admin and re-reading and frigging about with glossaries and suchlike. So £50 per thousand could be thought of as a hundred quid a day, or thereabouts.

But earning twenty quid for 4 hours (1,000 words), as implied by the low-end offers one sees from time to time? You’d be better off with a McJob, wouldn’t you? The news in early 2009 said KFC were going to recruit 3,000 new staff this year (relevant at the time this was first written, but the staff turnover in fast food means jobs are always available).
Your hair will smell of chicken, but at least you’ll get free chips

Having once made a forum posting along those lines, I once received a reply to the effect that:

“Many people make comments like that, but what if you actually prefer translating to working in fast-food and are struggling to get work?”

To which I reply – So, what if you do?

We all have to ultimately earn an optimum living by taking into account factors such as aptitude, supply, demand, comparative advantage, opportunity cost and probably some other stuff besides; that is just what I can think of at the moment.

Preference, if it appears on the list at all, plays a very small part, in truth. Otherwise surely the world would be full of actors, artists, sportsmen and women, and entertainers of all kinds and no bugger would ever actually ‘do’ anything.

If you decide to earn a sub-optimum living by doing what you prefer – fine. But if you are struggling to get work then like anyone else you either need to change your search strategy or change your line of work.

Having expressed that view publicly too, I received a (public) reply along these lines:

“Working at low rates is a necessary evil whilst starting out. Any respectable company would hastily cut a reasonable initial offer of £25000 per year to £18000 on seeing the candidate had not so much experience, why should the translation industry be any different?”

I’m afraid this is where the logic flaw I referred to earlier arises.

Yes, companies employ the inexperienced on lower rates (i.e. wages/salaries). However, the product or service the company itself markets is typically of uniform quality, no matter which employee was responsible for producing it. And the price of a given product from that company is standard no matter who produced it. In order to maintain margins, if the price is standard, then the cost needs to be standard too, including that portion of the cost that is the labour cost.

Depending on the industry, an inexperienced employee will either take longer to produce something of proper quality, which means their hourly rate will need to be lower, or their work will need to be checked by an experienced employee, which is an additional labour cost. Maybe even both. The same applies to piece work.

A self-employed translator is a slightly different kettle of fish. Ultimately, you do your own QA (for the most part, where agency work is concerned), and either your stuff is good enough to sell, or it ain’t.

If you are a beginner, it might take you a day to produce a decent 1,000 word translation – fine. Your earnings (per hour or day) might be less than an experienced person (short-term, that is, bearing in mind my earlier remarks), but it doesn’t mean that the client is entitled to get 1,000 words dirt cheap.

Alternatively, you could do the work in the usual time (i.e. the time it would take a more experienced person to complete) and then get someone to review it – and pay them, of course. Out of your rate. Again, your earnings might be less, but the client pays the same as if he had got an experienced translator to do the work.

Those are the situations which equate novice self-employed translators to starting salaries in other professions.
Not just charging a lower rate per word. Charge the same; potentially earn less while you find your feet.

(FWIW, I think the same applies to those who are ‘beginners’ in the sense of attempting to break into a new segment, no matter how much translating experience one may have in other areas.)

I’m a bit concerned that too many of these posts seem to be having a pop at something, so time to post something a bit more positive, since I’m not actually a full-time misanthropic curmudgeon.

What follows is not exactly the most original of issues, but one that crops up regularly enough. It can hardly have escaped anyone’s attention (well, not anyone likely to be reading this, anyway) that many languages, for reasons that undoubtedly seemed splendid at the time, avail themselves of a grammatical feature known as gender. This feature, in the case of French (your favourite language probably has similar examples) means that for example all victims and persons are referred to as female (la victime, la personne), and that, f’rinstance, a generic customer or user, say, is male (le client, l’utilisateur), regardless of the actual circumstances vis-a-vis possession of the Y-chromosome or otherwise in the event the customer or user is a human being.

And so it is that your humble interlocutor oft-times finds himself translating documents about customers (’tis the way of the world of commerce) or perhaps users of an IT system, written in the third person singular and sprinkled liberally with the relevant pronouns – il, lui or indeed son/sa/ses – and hence, assuming we are talking about people rather than bodies corporate, running into the minor irritation of how to translate these pesky little blighters, the main issue being, of course, that in contemporary English we quite rightly cannot assume that these people are always male, which rules out using the dictionary translation of “he”, etc., and neither can we use the other dictionary translation of “it”, etc. to refer to people.

It’s only a minor irritation, in many ways, and one not without tried-and-tested solutions. Take a fairly banal phrase such as “l’utilisateur doit changer son mot de passe, et ensuite il doit…“. There are, in my experience, three common or garden solutions:

a) my most frequently-used solution (although a thorough statistical analysis is unlikely to be forthcoming, so take my word for it), is probably to pluralise, enabling the English gender-free third person plural to be adopted, thus: “users must change their password, and then they must…”, although this is not without problems – should it be passwords, or does that mean all users have more than one? Left as it is, does it imply one password is shared by several people? Nonetheless, native English documents often adopt the plural in instructions and similar texts (try googling phrases such as “customers should ensure” versus “the customer should ensure”), so it’s a viable option.

b) the rather stilted, but otherwise hard-to-criticise, “the user must change his or her password, and then he or she must…”. Probably OK scattered infrequently in a text, but how often do we see “his or her”, “he or she” and so on in texts written in native English, as it were? But I cannot lie, I have used it.

c) the informal “the user must change their password, and then they must…”. I’m very much a fan of using the third person plural to double up as the third person singular of unknown sex, and have dropped it into several less formal translations, but it may induce apoplexy in the more conservative reader. And possibly loss of future business, and we wouldn’t want that.

Moving away from common or garden solutions, I’ve been known to use two others:

d) “the user’s password must be changed, and then the user must…” – last resort, really, and I’d wager you’d be unlikely to need to, er, resort to it for this sample phrase. It loses the notion of who does the changing, which is sub-optimal to put it mildly, but in a context where it’s obvious the user is the one battering away at the keyboard, you might get away with it. That said, in this case, one could argue that the structure actually implies someone other than the user changes the password.

e) eschew the fiendish pronouns completely. Only really works for seriously turgid old school legal stuff, where pronouns were pretty much banished from contracts, but imagining for an improbable moment our example phrase was a contract stipulation, you’d end up with “the user must change the user’s password, and then the user must…”.

For completeness (he said optimistically, sure that other solutions must be lurking in the linguistic undergrowth), one option I’ve never used would be to use “he”, etc. in the text (or indeed “she”, etc.) and stick a sentence at the start along the lines of “all references to he, etc. should be taken to include she, etc.”. Another I’m not keen on is to default to “she” instead, which avoids the pitfall we’re trying to avoid by not translating “il” as “he” by default, but replaces it with some others, admittedly perhaps less deep.

All of which is fine and dandy, and unlikely to be news to anyone who has been translating for more than about a day. But it got me thinking about how general (i.e. not translator) English speakers themselves usually deal with the issue. In general texts, I suspect we pluralise a lot. But I turned to thinking about contracts and agreements and similarly formal documents.

In these, I don’t see the plural as an option, for obvious reasons – where one party is entering an agreement with one other party, usually specified at the outset, and like as not with a deft “hereinafter (referred to as) the customer” (singular) for good measure, you can’t go slinging plurals around too often, it’s illogical and I daresay a decent lawyer would make mincemeat of careless usage if need be.

I had also initially thought that i) I rarely (not never, admittedly) see the phrase “he or she” these days, and ii) that use of the third person plural was still too controversial to be used in anything legally binding, say, when bugger me if I didn’t see both in one document. Take a bow, the drafters of the London Olympic ticketing T&C, unflinching in their use of “he or she” and then “their” as the corresponding possessive. Not only that, but they have also pluralised, in precisely the way I thought unlikely in the paragraph above. I suspect this kind of solution happens a lot, the whole thing reads formally, but naturally, despite several solutions being used where French, for example, could stick simply to “le client” and il, lui, son/sa/ses. But when I’m not hard at work, I sometimes don’t notice things that it would actually be useful to register upstairs.

At which point I decided to compare two roughly equivalent documents, not dissimilar to the type of stuff I translate fairly often, and demonstrating the issue perfectly. I hauled out the T&C for my Société Générale bank account in France, and the T&C for my HSBC account in the UK. To cut immediately to the chase for once, I find that HSBC uses the second person to refer the account holder, and Soc Gen sticks to the third person. (In fairness, I know this is not a universal distinction – I know of at least one French insurance company that uses the second person in its policies to address the policyholder directly, as it were.)

This was something of a Eureka moment for me. In essence, then, it seems we have a sixth solution for those situations where the third person referred to in a text may naturally be taken to actually be the reader, along the lines of:
f) “As the user, you must change your password, then you must…”
Not the most elegant solution, perhaps, for that particular example, but I wanted to show it could be done, alongside the other options.

As luck would have it, while drafting this post, I had two examples where I was able to use this new, to me, approach. The first was in a brochure, which, while written using the third person, was clearly attempting to appeal to the reader to become a client, hence the third party roles mentioned were ripe for conversion to the second person, which apart from being a neat solution linguistically, surely has the benefit of engaging the reader more?

Hence “le [noun] gère librement son [noun], il peut également…” became “as the [noun], you manage your [noun] as you see fit, and you can also…”.
(Apols for the redaction, but the full phrase makes the end client obvious, and apart from potential confidentiality issues, the bulk of the English translation on the website has nothing to do with me and I’d hate anyone to think it did!)

The second example was an amendment to a contract of employment, full of le salarié doit this and l’employé s’engage à that, plus the accompanying pronouns. Given that the employee was a) the intended reader and b) named at the start of the amendment, it was the work of an instant to add a quick “hereinafter referred to as “you”" and then the work of quite a few more instants to whack in “you are to” and “you undertake to” and so forth, but the overall effect did the trick, I feel.

“Well,” you may be thinking, “I’ve just read 1,500 words for nothing,” in which case I apologise. But while I doubt very much I’m the first person to have thought of it, I don’t recall ever seeing this idea suggested anywhere else before (not that I claim to have completed the internetz, or anything), so I thought I’d shove it out there and see if anyone has any thoughts…

Dear Colleagues

I have a slightly unusual situation with an agency or a fellow translator and I’m not sure how to respond. I’m going to be vague about the details at this stage, but I’d welcome your opinion just as much as I know some of you love to give it, because we all know that agencies are essentially Satan’s representatives here on Earth, intent on driving us to bankruptcy, insanity or a custodial sentence for breach, cackling mercilessly at the thought of our tearful families pleading for just a week-old crust of bread. Well, except this agency perhaps, who are basically nice people who I’ve worked with for ages, although they only pay 3 groats a page 90 days EOM, and I can’t afford to upset them, and they give me tons of work, I’ve no time to look for other clients, or indeed to wipe my own bottom. Hence this forum posting.

And this fellow translator, well, the work I’ve received, looks like the output from a random word generator. Or perhaps unedited MT. I haven’t got time to test that theory by actually running it through an MT website to check, I’ m busy on here. Either that, or some relative or other has trodden on a rusty nail, accidently turning the translator’s mobile phone off and disabling their email in the process (what are the odds, eh?), and is now in intensive care, I assume, because the delivery is now a month late and I’m at my wits’ end.

On the other hand they are all so very passionate about languages and words and whatnot, and are quite obviously the very salt of the earth. In no way would they or I be better employed flipping burgers, or spending more time learning to distinguish the humerus from the gluteus maximus.

So anyway, yes, this situation, well, I’d very much welcome your input. There is, naturally, nothing to be gained by proposing anything by way of plausible explanations or attempting to look at things from the other party’s point of view. I might have been unsure of my position when I started this thread, although I probably wasn’t, but typing out the facts has certainly crystallised matters for me, as writing things down or just explaining things to someone else often does, and I now know exactly where I stand. Obviously the sensible thing to do at this stage would be to not post, but where’s the fun in that? This way, I can drip feed extra information (which may or may not be true, how are you to know?) to support my increasingly entrenched position, and make the rest of the forum look like chumps, albeit quite helpful chumps, or trolls and ignoramuses, and I emerge covered in glory. Absolutely.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

So, what about the legal/contractual side of this alleged trend in the industry to pay nothing whatsoever for 100% matches? (See original post here.)

Not all jurisdictions are the same, of course, but this delightful crew are, happily, based in England so I can indulge in some bar-room level speculation. If you’re not getting paid or receiving any other benefit for the work you are providing, then there is no consideration, and if there is no consideration, then there is no contract. I paraphrase, naturally, you can buy whole books on the subject of consideration and contract. I feel I should point out that I am aware that plenty of jurisdictions have no such concept, including our near neighbours Scotland and France, and that there are those who feel that not all contracts actually need a consideration aspect. There is, therefore, an element of mischief in the following…

Anyway, obviously, ALS would probably argue that the purchase order is an overall price for an overall delivery of documents, and that is what has been offered and accepted and is being paid for: X words for Y money.

However, one of the reasons I rejected the offer I was made (see above) was in fact that it consisted of several documents, at least one of which was entirely 100% matches/repetitions, in other words, I was going to have to take the time to take a copy of the file and rename it, run it through the TM, save it, make sure the formating was OK, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera., for which I would receive the princely sum of diddly-squat. Not only that, but I would be able to demonstrate, using the CAT analysis and email records, that I had received no payment whatsoever for that particular document, and that the agency specifically, deliberately and expressly intended not to pay me for it. (Apart from the basic objection in principle, I knew that this situation would make it extremely hard for me to find the motivation to make any effort on this document whatsoever).

Under those circumstances – where it is possible to physically distinguish meaningful sections of text that are being paid for from sections that are explicitly not being paid for – what exactly is the legal/contractual situation, I wonder? Because one could rephrase the above proposal, from “X words for Y money”, to “A words for Y money and B words for free” (where A + B = X, naturally) – what then?

I have searched my Contract Law book, and wandered around the internet, to no avail. I have found nothing yet about contracts that include a free component.

Is it then possible then to remove the “B words” from the scope of the contract? If so, what does my supplying that document then become? A favour? Does the translator have any contractual obligations? Is there any enforceability? As long as you deliver the “A words” on time and up to snuff, is that sufficient not to be in breach of contract?

Let us assume for a moment that the free stuff, the “B words”, falls inside the scope of the contract (as no doubt ALS want us to) – what then is the translators liability? We are contractually obliged to provide a decent translation, fit for purpose (your jurisdiction’s wording may vary, but the idea is universal – our output has to be useable). And we have here at least 3 possible scenarios relating to the stuff we are, under this hypothesis, contractually obliged to supply up to a certain quality standard:
i) a document that is 100% matched with a TM populated by someone else’s efforts from prior to this project
ii) a document that is 100% matched with a TM populated by my own efforts from prior to this project
iii) a document that has no matches at the start of the project, but, if I translate other documents first, then becomes a document with 100% matches?

In terms of ii) and iii) I would be happy to assume liability for my previous work, assuming it has not been revised to a lower quality. But what about i) ? We are now in a position where, not only does the “free work” component include the time taken just to ‘deal with’ (so-called ‘ignore’) the text, we really should check it. We are liable for it, are we not?. Unless you reply with a counter-offer declining to be held liable for any of the 100% matches… but if we’re getting into the realms of counter offers…. the world’s your oyster.

And what about liability insurance? Given the propensity of insurance companies to wriggle out of paying indemnities whenever they can, we are surely pushing the boundaries a little here, if those of us with insurance expect to be covered for work we do for nothing?

If, conversely, we assume that, contrary to ALS’ intentions, there is no contractual obligation attached to the free stuff, the “B words”, what then? I wonder here whether the normal concept of the “duty of care” we all owe our fellow citizens as we go about our daily business might apply? In which case, surely, once again, I cannot simply skip over the 100% matches (especially if they are result of someone else’s work) without leaving myself potentially liable?

I don’t really know the answers to these questions. ALS may do. Or may think they do (the joy of the law is that there are two sides to every story and one can usually find some kind of legal justifcation for almost any position one chooses to adopt!). And while this section started as a bit of mischief, and kind of “what if…?” piece, it appears to have reached a potentially serious conclusion.

Well, it has in my view. I like to think I know where I stand when I do pro-bono work or anything else for free (duty of care, and all that). I like to think I know where I stand when I’m doing paid work (contractual obligations, liability limited to cost of the job and/or covered by professional insurance). I’m really not sure where I stand, in any sense, when a purchase order includes both paid and unpaid work. And when I’m not sure where I stand, I prefer to stand elsewhere. Pragmatically, as it were, I prefer not getting involved.

You may or may not agree with the idea of doing work for free (in this case, I don’t; in others, I do), that is your prerogative, of course. And when everything is going swimmingly, there is probably no issue, if you don’t object on principle. But when an agency tries to make some kind of claim against some text you supplied them with as part of a larger job, text that you did not actually translate and did not get paid for… well, rather you than me, that’s all.

(Note: as you can probably tell, I’m not a lawyer. My studies have included legal elements, but no legal qualifications. I am aware that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The above is not intended as legal advice.)

Another LSP is causing a minor stir with a unilateral change to its T&C, or so it would appear (I don’t work for them). Applied Language Solutions (ALS), who claim to “Respect everyone like a friend”, which seems a clumsy turn of phrase as well as an odd thing to say, have emailed the world and his wife (but not me):

High quality translation is an ever-evolving skill and the research and development into technology tools to assist in the process means that customers want to see these advancements reflected in our charging model.

I dunno so much – are end-customers that aware of the technology used? I suspect many are not. Customers may “want to see” lower costs, which is what ALS mean here, they may even ask for them, but are they basing such requests on knowledge of how our CAT tools and suchlike work? I doubt it, and reading between the lines of my own experience, such as when the volume of TM matches is not as it first appeared when a job was first offered, those agencies that operate systems involving reductions for TM matches do in fact charge most end-customers for every word, pay us lot a reduced rate for those matches, and pocket the difference.

In recent months, a zero charge for exact matches and repetitions has become a trend within the industry. As a result, we can no longer pay linguists in the same way, as we cannot pass these costs on to our customers.

Interesting turn of phrase. A trend on which side? The agency/end-customer side, or the agency/freelancer side. I suspect only the latter, if indeed there is such a trend, although ALS try to make it sound like the former (I refer my honourable friend to my earlier statement on how much end-customers know). Such an arrangement was offered to me once, last year. It’s not something I have heard a great deal of discussion about. Maybe I hang out in the wrong places.

Anyway, the money shot following this clumsy and dissembling foreplay, is:

ALS will no longer pay linguists for exact matches and repetitions for any new projects.

And just in case you feel cheap and dirty:

We value the large number of linguists registered to work on our customer translation projects and we understand from feedback with many of you that other language companies are communicating similar changes in their payment models.

I am sceptical that freelancers are running off to ALS moaning that other agencies are adopting a 100% matches = no money policy, and that ALS are just following suit. I’ve never discussed one agency’s practices with another (unless perhaps, rarely, to make the opposite kind of point, that something that agency is doing is not up to the standard I would like to see, and do see in others).

So, back to the highlight – no money at all for repetitions and 100% matches. Although this has not caused the cacophony of weeping and wailing and gnashing of keyboards that followed other similar announcements (Lionbridge a few months ago, thebigword in 2009-ish), there has been some response, including at least one freelancer announcing that he actually voluntarily charges zero if the project is over a certain size.

That’s fine, we are all free to set our own charging parameters (this same fellow charges the full whack for partial matches, for instance, not a reduction). And for me, the main point for this post is not about whether freelancers should or should not accept unilateral changes “requested” by agencies (or anyone) – it’s been covered before, it’ll be covered again (e.g. here with a partner blog post here)

Personally, I object to this notion (hence I am unlikely to add it to my T&C on my own initiative or anyone else’s) purely because it seems the thin end of a wedge that, although I’m not sure precisely how it will end, I am sure I would not enjoy experiencing.

So, first, let us be clear that zero pay for reps/100% matches (we need a single word for this concept) really is working for free. If you ignore them, that requires mental effort and takes a few seconds of your time, every time. If you just skip through the 100% matched segments, that takes time (regardless of whether we are able to resist the temptation to a)read and b)correct them, unpaid). If you hit the auto-translate button, you still have to monitor it. Whatever you do, you will be working in some way or another, it’s inevitable.

I am, as I’ve said before, very much a “fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” man. You could argue (and some do), that if you do some work unpaid, and some work for pay, it will balance out, as long as the paid work is paid high enough to compensate for the unpaid. Do one hour for nothing; do another hour for twice your target earnings, and all is hunky-dory. That’s great in theory, and I agree it would be fine if that were how it worked.

In practice though, it must be said that the kind of agencies who apply these kind of policies are going to be the price-centred, pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap segment. The chances that you will be able to compensate by asking for more for the non-matched bits are slim to nil. They’re competing for end-customers solely on price (effectively, no matter what corporate effluent their marketing department might manage to spew out about quality or service) and they are trying to pay you a bit less, not to pay you the same or more, but under a different model or worked out in a different way.

Remember I said I was offered an arrangement of this sort last year? It was a 30k word job, and 20k was reps/100% matches, for which they wanted to offer me payment for just the 10k “new” words, as it were. So, at least this arrangement is not new to me, as it seems to be to some who have commented elsewhere. In response, I ran through the arguments above, and apart from the odd hopelessly optimistic query when they are presumably in fairly dire straits (“get your matches for nothing and your reps for free” perhaps?), I hear nothing. But their rates are low, and getting lower, and I’m trying to get away from that kind of price-focused agency.

And, having taken the view that it is indeed asking people to work for free, on the flimsiest of grounds to boot, I also just think it’s the thin end of a nasty pricing wedge. If they think 100% matches don’t deserve remuneration, what about the 95% matches (in truth, they can be very often left untouched in the target language, in my experience*). What about names and addresses and numbers and…. who knows? Once you accept the principle of working for free, which is bad enough, in combination (and this next bit is important, in my view) with the likelihood that this will not be compensated for elsewhere, who knows where it will end?

* On the subject of the linguistic effect of this policy, it should not be overlooked that, in contrast, some 100% matches need to be changed, for the sake of providing the best possible translation, even within one document. We all know that. ALS probably know that, but don’t care. However, I had overlooked the possibility of a 100% match that needs to be changed to actually be grammatically consistent with the text preceeding it, let alone to actually provide an optimum translation.

I wonder too, about the legal/contractual side – but I think this post is long enough, and it’s a slightly different topic, so another post on that issue follows…