| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | What could make a translator want to work indoors Thread poster: Yolande Haneder (X)
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Irene N
United States
Local time: 18:46
English to Russian
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Yolande Haneder wrote:
please LEAVE THIS THREAD ALONE.
Yolande, we didn't know that you have been looking for cheering and compliments, we thought you have been looking for an advise. We didn't knock on your door. You knocked on our's. No need to be rude.
People here are very giving and helping so should they have seen any angle at which any other reasonable advise could have been given, I bet ya, they would have poured it on you as they do all the time for the colleagues. Yet they have been smarter than a couple of us:-) - they left it alone from the very beginning apparently finding any dialogue useless. Silence is a true answer here.
| | | | Ana Cuesta 
Spain
Local time: 01:46
Member
English to Spanish
| Answering to your question as directly as I can | Mar 30, 2006 |
Yolande Haneder wrote:
My question was: what can make indoor job attractive to translators not liking indoors job.
Why I do it and how I do it is actually out of topic.
There is NOTHING on earth that would make it attractive for me to give up my freedom and all my current clients to work in-house for any serious length of time. I find my freelance position not only a lot more enjoyable (Nobody telling me what to do/translate and when to do it) but also more secure (No one can fire me or go bankrupt overnight, I mean, if a single client does it will just affect a certain percentage of my income while I recover) and for what I've heard in-house translators usually get, also more lucrative. I might have considered it fresh out of translation school, to gain experience, though (which was not my case, I arrived at translation in a different way).
With that knowledge at hand, in your position I would try and make contact with a good translation school nearby so as to have a chance to get to test students as trainees and keep the most promising ones... (but sorry, you don't want to hear this last part
Good luck!
| | | | Yolande Haneder (X)
Local time: 01:46
German to French
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TOPIC STARTER | I want somebody to talk frankly to me, not what I want to hear | Mar 30, 2006 |
I think I will follow your advice and be following in a couple of year the "output" of the translator's school.
And I know of a very good translator who had left his job as a freelancer to get a job as an employee. Maybe because I was the only one (and my clients) seeing his talent (and some of the client were quite used to very prominent people).
I know of another one who had been translating for 30 year and left the freelance world to work in some firma because he ga... See more I think I will follow your advice and be following in a couple of year the "output" of the translator's school.
And I know of a very good translator who had left his job as a freelancer to get a job as an employee. Maybe because I was the only one (and my clients) seeing his talent (and some of the client were quite used to very prominent people).
I know of another one who had been translating for 30 year and left the freelance world to work in some firma because he gave up trying to prospect himself and not being taken seriuously (and I have rarely heard of someone searching around so much to find the "perfect"word).
Freelancers are only good if they can market themselves. I will have to look for the talented one who are not able to market themselves and thus being lost to the translation industry.
As I said, even if nobody listen to me, it is a long road. I am young, i am quite the same age as some translators getting out of the translattion school and I still have more than 35 years of business activity ahead of me.
Lets see if I still exist in 10 years.. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dyran Altenburg (X)
United States
Local time: 19:46
English to Spanish
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| The crux of the matter | Mar 31, 2006 |
Yolande Haneder wrote:
When some companies are calling and saying they are looking for an agency to contract for say 1 or 2 years (it already happened twice to me but I didn't want to take the risk because it was not exacly my own language pair), do you think you can rely your business on something extremly changing like the freelancer world?
Absolutely. Three of my best clients have sent me at some time or another projects lasting at least one year. I'm working on one of them at the moment, actually.
Once the freelancer or the proofer say you bye bye because he found someboby paying more and you have to keep your rates for 2 years, you have a problem.
So what are you planning to do with your in-house translators to assure that they will not leave for a better-paid job? Chain them to their desks?
I am a dreamer, so let me dream my dream. If I can't do it, I will close the office and work as a clerk.
Why not as an in-house translator?
Going back to your original question, if I ever consider working in-house again, the income/perks/benefits package would need to be quite substantial (think top management). My guess is that any experienced freelance translator charging top rates now would probably expect the same.
--
Dyran
(who back in the day worked as an in-house translator for a very $ucce$$ful localization company; weekly, on-site, stress-relieving massage, performed by a physical therapist, included)
[Edited at 2006-03-31 03:12]
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Yolande Haneder (X)
Local time: 01:46
German to French
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TOPIC STARTER | If I were to work as an employee... | Mar 31, 2006 |
1.I have No chance to work inhouse as a translator.
1st because in house is non existant in Austria (2 years ago the representant of translations agencies said the biggest agency in Austria had 15 (!) employees and I noticed that most agencies with in house personnal have in fact a book keeper, the director and some proejct manager).
I have absolutely no chance because I have a language degree and translators without a translations diploma have little chance to get a job as freelance... See more 1.I have No chance to work inhouse as a translator.
1st because in house is non existant in Austria (2 years ago the representant of translations agencies said the biggest agency in Austria had 15 (!) employees and I noticed that most agencies with in house personnal have in fact a book keeper, the director and some proejct manager).
I have absolutely no chance because I have a language degree and translators without a translations diploma have little chance to get a job as freelance with the biggest agencies, let alone as an employee.
I have more chance working in some big french representative company in Vienna.
2 I will not tie down the translators, and I will not be huge agency with 100's translators. I hope to have 5-6 of them that I can keep with my conviction and dedication and because of the fact that there are no inhouse post around me. Money is not everything, at least not to me. I hope I will find others enjoying being with me.
Enjoying working in a good team is something I did like as I had been a practice worker and I really enjoyed the time, although I was not paid much.
My parents are both bankers, their lives has been and is still turning aroung money, money. What did they have from life now?
There is more to life than money. Once you have enough to have a good living (and by no means is the life here as expensive as in France), enjoy your life and the time you have with it.
At least having a fullfilled life is something you can look back when you are old. To start when you are old because your life had been turned in how much you could fill your account is too late.
If I can't get people for my dedication to life and dedication in trying to find the best balance for the best result, I will not work as project manager. I will not want to be shouted at again (although since german is not my mother tongue, I have difficulties to differenciate between a small critic and an offence and sometimes take the smallest critic as an offence), I don't want to be pressed by both sided for another agency.
I will take a job where life is easy,in a group that I feel myself well and that will allow me to see my children grow.
I don't need money as it is. My husband had a very very well paid job and he is the one who is taking in account to be shouted at (whatever has been done) as a cyclic seaonnal thing because the one who are coping with it have a life nearly as secure as the ones of a civil servant.
My first aim would be to enjoy life and the time remaining. You can only cope with the life as a company if you have ideals. Otherwise it is not worth.
Don't push everything to the pension. One colleage of my father died of a heart attack 2 weeks before the pension. You can't take your money to heaven. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ana Cuesta
Spain
Local time: 01:46
Member
English to Spanish
| I'm afraid I'm gonna disgress again but... | Mar 31, 2006 |
Yolande Haneder wrote:
I will not tie down the translators, and I will not be huge agency with 100's translators. I hope to have 5-6 of them that I can keep with my conviction and dedication and because of the fact that there are no inhouse post around me. Money is not everything, at least not to me. I hope I will find others enjoying being with me.
Enjoying working in a good team is something I did like as I had been a practice worker and I really enjoyed the time, although I was not paid much.
I honestly think that you are too focused in getting translators to work in-house, as if that were the quintesential solution, while you would have a much better bet in using the same conviction and dedication to try and build a virtual team with freelancers.
I have been working for some of my agency clients since last millenium and, as you say, money is not everything to it. If I have understanding clients that don't immediately push deadlines for yesterday, provide an open channel of communication to solve queries, let me know when to expect large chunks of work coming so I can plan ahead, pay promptly and provide regular, interesting work at my going rates, why on earth would I be wanting to dump them to see if I can get an extra cent or two at the price of extra hassles? Of course, they know I won't be always available when they call (even in-house translators get sick and take holidays once in a while) and have backups in place, but they know I will do my best to accommodate them because I want them to keep coming for more... seems to work fine for both parts.
| | | | | What's your point? | Mar 31, 2006 |
Yolande Haneder wrote:
1.I have No chance to work inhouse as a translator.
1st because in house is non existant in Austria
That there are no inhouse posts in Austria?
I will take a job where life is easy,in a group that I feel myself well and that will allow me to see my children grow.
That this is not possible as a freelancer?
I don't need money as it is. My husband had a very very well paid job...
That you will pay your staff for sitting around and socializing as you don't need money?
One colleage of my father died of a heart attack 2 weeks before the pension. You can't take your money to heaven.
That only freelancers get heart attacks?
I have absolutely no chance because I have a language degree and translators without a translations diploma have little chance to get a job as freelance with the biggest agencies
Agencies usually select freelancers on the basis of test pieces, if one is not getting jobs, he maybe should optimize the quality of his work...
And in order to reply to your initial question, the first thing I would require if I would like to work again as an inhouse translator - I've enjoyed it for several years - would be a competent management with sustainable business plans...
| | | | Yolande Haneder (X)
Local time: 01:46
German to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Let leave this thread | Mar 31, 2006 |
I think I will never get somebody close to my opinion.
We shall see how it goes. It is possible that I get somebody here for about 4 months at the end of this year (pretty sure, legally I am entitled to, just didn't fill the forms in this purpose yet).
We shall see:
1. If the organisation responsible for to find somebody to assists me finds another Fr-De-En translator living in eastern Austria willing to work with me and assist me.
2. If It i... See more I think I will never get somebody close to my opinion.
We shall see how it goes. It is possible that I get somebody here for about 4 months at the end of this year (pretty sure, legally I am entitled to, just didn't fill the forms in this purpose yet).
We shall see:
1. If the organisation responsible for to find somebody to assists me finds another Fr-De-En translator living in eastern Austria willing to work with me and assist me.
2. If It is better with freelancer or indoor.
Of course, If I get the person and he/she accepts, I can make an announcement here and you can ask him/her how it is to be with me.
For now we are turning in circle. I find it a good idea, you said I would do it better with freelancer.
Oh, by the way, I just send one a prospecting client wanting a translation for the pair I feel having been betrayed to another agency of my list (offering the reverse pair but I am pretty sure they will be able to check the text) - I want to make a fully new database for this pair now. ▲ Collapse
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