Off topic: Do non-personal translation requests bother anyone else?
Jabberwock Poland Local time: 14:44 Member (2004) English to Polish
Different languages?
Sep 15, 2011
I do not get offended with those at all...
In case of my clients, most of those impersonal messages are sent to various translators who cover different target languages. In fact one of the clients ends them with a message to the effect: "we send it out to only one translator per language, so please let us know ASAP if you're available".
It would be silly to expect the PM to try to personalize the messages if they need to get the job done quickly into 12+ languages... Such messages are used only to "ping" the translators to get them to confirm their interest/availability - when I do, it gets nice and personal, "weather is fine here, too".
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Maria Danielson United States Local time: 08:44 Member (2006) Dutch to English + ...
I appreciate efficient business
Sep 15, 2011
I don't mind if they get straight to the point. I don't think it's rude, it's just efficient.
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Natalia Mackevich United Kingdom Local time: 13:44 Member (2009) English to Russian + ...
I wouldn't be happy to _wait_ to see the text, it's not a blind date :)
Sep 16, 2011
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
I work often for an agency which - to make a long story short - we do care for each other. The PM there, out of the blue, asks me via e-mail or Skype, "How´s it going? Will you be available for a 3,705 words job?. When I tell him ´yes´, he´ll usually say, "OK, I´ve got 19 projects to assign here, then I´ll send that one to you." On the other hand, when we are both idle, we´ll chit-chat over Skype.
However there are some agencies that couldn´t care less about me, and conversely I couldn´t care less about them, that come in exactly in the same way. I have no means to find out if that PM is really hassled or just plain lazy.
Bottom line is that it depends on the existing business relationship - if any.
In my case, when I see a reply like the one you mentioned ("I´ve got 19 projects to assign here, then I´ll send that one to you.") without even seeing the text, I give my "managed availability" to the one who sends me the text and all the details in a professional manner. Then again, you are right: "it depends on the existing business relationship".
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Natalia Mackevich wrote:
In my case, when I see a reply like the one you mentioned ("I´ve got 19 projects to assign here, then I´ll send that one to you.") without even seeing the text, I give my "managed availability" to the one who sends me the text and all the details in a professional manner. Then again, you are right: "it depends on the existing business relationship".
In this specific case, we'll have been working together for five years next month, they have a good picture of what I can do and what I can't, and they mention the end-client's name, so I'll know what kind of a job to expect. No surprises. When there might be a surprise, they first take the time to discuss possibilities with me.
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BritNigg Germany Local time: 14:44 English to German + ...
PMs do not actually want to insult you
Sep 16, 2011
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
I find it hard to get worked up over these, though. Just ignore them, and delete if you find it bothersome. No reason to take it personally, or take it out on the PMs for their company's business model or lack of resource provision.
Thanks Rudolf, that's exactly it. The individual PM is in a really awkward position here. They usually do not want to treat translators like that, but they rarely have any real influence on the amount of work on their desk and the deadlines. So they just have to find ways to get things done. And one of those is, in cases when the preferred translators are not available for some reason, to send a mail to several suitable translators and ask who might be able to do the translation.
This can even be a way to get your foot in the door of an interesting projects. Sometimes a new translator or somebody you just not thought about replies and then proves so perfect for the project, that they get a lot of new (and personal!) translation jobs later on.
But if the mails really bother you that much, you can always contact the PMs and ask them to be taken off the mailing list.
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Miranda Drew Italy Local time: 14:44 Member (2009) Italian to English
I usually ignore these
Sep 16, 2011
I usually ignore these emails, but once I did get annoyed, because a large agency sent out one of these and said in the message, in a demanding tone, "respond even if you cannot do the job". I certainly don't have time to answer a mass email to tell them I can't do the job! I'll answer right away even if I can't do the job if the message is sent just to me.
Another agency recently sent out one of these messages without using bcc, basically giving my email address out to a bunch of other people.
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