| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Shameful rate offered by an Agency - What to do? Thread poster: Melina Carbajales
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Arnaud HERVE 
France
Local time: 16:24
English to French
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Don't listen to rude comments, and don't feel compelled to answer to everything here.
Don't get upset, it seems to be like that for everyone who posts the kind of things you posted. There are many variations in rudeness though.
Melina, you are the one who knows best what to do, for this time, or for the future.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Removed as requested by poster | Aniello Scognamiglio (X)
Germany
Local time: 16:24
English to German
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| Rude comments? Please elaborate! | Feb 25, 2009 |
Arnaud HERVE wrote:
Don't listen to rude comments, and don't feel compelled to answer to everything here.
Melina was given a wealth of very good advices - free of charge! I browsed all comments but I could not find rude comments.
Don't get upset, it seems to be like that for everyone who posts the kind of things you posted. There are many variations in rudeness though.
Nonsense! Can you go into detail, please? I do not have the impression that one or more colleages posted a rude comment.
Melina, you are the one who knows best what to do, for this time, or for the future.
Really? Then why did she ask our advice?
Sounds a bit like a father telling her daughter not to accept the chocolates offered by bad boys.
[Edited at 2009-02-26 13:25 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 16:24
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| A friendly advice | Feb 25, 2009 |
Dear Melina,
I believe you should work on your anger management.
I would advise you not to think / or waste your energy thinking about such agencies, but rather invest that energy and creative thinking in seeking other agencies that are worth working with.
Opening this thread and giving them some space in your mind and in this convo is indeed the act of assigning them a much bigger value than they actually have.
Disregard their existence. Refoc... See more Dear Melina,
I believe you should work on your anger management.
I would advise you not to think / or waste your energy thinking about such agencies, but rather invest that energy and creative thinking in seeking other agencies that are worth working with.
Opening this thread and giving them some space in your mind and in this convo is indeed the act of assigning them a much bigger value than they actually have.
Disregard their existence. Refocus your mind, and turn exclusively toward worthwhile clients who appreciate professional practice and ethical conduct. See, it's very simple ? This business is like running an Olympic marathon - you must save every bit of your energy on the road if you want to get to the finish and win the medal.
Wish you all the best. ▲ Collapse
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Khrystene (X)
Australia
Polish to English
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voyager wrote: you would've used to illustrate your point if the topic starter was a man. Just curious... Samuel Murray wrote:
The rate someone offers is not intended to insult or compliment you. If you were a prostitute or a model, then that may have been the case, but you're a translator...
I wondered the same... and I noticed a theme along the way.
| | | | Aniello Scognamiglio (X)
Germany
Local time: 16:24
English to German
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| Deleted by Aniello | Feb 26, 2009 |
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[Edited at 2009-02-26 10:42 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:24
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| OT: Comments about my comment | Feb 26, 2009 |
Aniello Scognamiglio wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
If you were a prostitute or a model, then that may have been the case... This is worth an excuse, Samuel. Don't you think so? ... Probably, this insulting comparison is what Arnaud would call a rude comment.
An excuse? Do you mean an apology or an explanation perhaps? Well, no apology is forthcoming, but I'll provide a brief explanation if you want one. As for "insulting comparison", well, no, there is no comparison. There is just an analogy.
| | | | Taija Hyvönen
Finland
Local time: 17:24
Member (2008)
English to Finnish
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Samuel Murray wrote: There is just an analogy.
I had the same analogy in my mind when I was reading this and trying to figure out what was going on.
This is BUSINESS, not personal. No one is saying "ha, you are miserable and worth no more that 2 cents, this is all you deserve" if they offer you a rate, which would allow them to do a more profitable business for themselves - it's BUSINESS for them and they set their rates according to that. Topic starter, like anyone else, should do the same. I'm sorry to hear that you did a long and difficult test, which was probably a translation job for which the agency charged their client, and ended up with a lousy offer. Better luck next time and keep this in mind!
By the way, I quite like Anil's suggestion. It would be fun to reply "there must have been a decimal error in your email, I corrected it for you and would be delighted to accept 0,20 €/word"
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| The missed analogy | Feb 26, 2009 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
An excuse? Do you mean an apology or an explanation perhaps? Well, no apology is forthcoming, but I'll provide a brief explanation if you want one. As for "insulting comparison", well, no, there is no comparison. There is just an analogy.
The analogy stems from calling it "the oldest profession in the world". Why is it so?
Evolution has caused several professions to disappear. Electric light made redundant all those people who used to light up gas or kerosene burners for public illumination, right? Several decades later, e-commerce left door-to-door salespeople out of work. And so on. Examples are countless.
But why does the "oldest profession" remain a profession? Because these professionals are selling their TIME. Timewise, nobody is richer - nor poorer - than anybody else. It's absolutely fair: everyone gets the same 24 hours per day, the same 7 days per week; no more, no less. And time must be used as it goes by. Though it is possible to save time by using it better, there is no way to save time for later.
Translators also sell their time. If they give if away for cheap, or even for free, it will be gone forever. Using proper metrics, there is actually no way to recover lost or wasted time. All one can do is to "sell" new time - as it comes - more expensively, in order to recoup the income lost in that - otherwise profitable - lost or wasted time.
The analogy resides in translators and practitioners of the "oldest profession" alike wasting time with low- or non-paying work.
| | | | | Thank you, José | Feb 26, 2009 |
Once again you've enriched my morning with a thoughtful elaboration. As for parallels between translation and prostitution, my partner and I have jokingly - and sometimes quite seriously - seen enough. In fact, I've heard it said that we run "the best little lexical whorehouse in Brandenburg", and we've debated whether the office ought to have a red porch light when we are approached with a particularly "special" marketing translation. One of these was, in fact, for that other old profession....
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 16:24
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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Kevin Lossner wrote:
In fact, I've heard it said that we run "the best little lexical whorehouse in Brandenburg", .
lol
I've been a freelancer for five years now; and I've seen a number of employers calling us " freelance whores", because we have so many different clients.. And they usually start calling us whores when we drop them and find a new client who pays better. Until then, we are just " professionals"
* laughs *
| | | | | Going beyond | Feb 26, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
Once again you've enriched my morning with a thoughtful elaboration.
As a matter of fact, I refrained from taking one step beyond to compare machine translation with some electric contrivances that supposedly replace the services of the oldest profession. If I'm not mistaken, Woody Allen's (or maybe someone else's) films now and then depict such appliances going out of control, and the results are similar to those we know from MT. Maybe they are at different development stages.
In the last few days a colleague pointed out an EN-to-PT machine-translated web site where "back office operations" came very close to "butt activity in the office".
[Edited at 2009-02-26 11:33 GMT]
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Arnaud HERVE wrote:
Don't listen to rude comments, and don't feel compelled to answer to everything here.
Don't get upset, it seems to be like that for everyone who posts the kind of things you posted. There are many variations in rudeness though.
Melina, you are the one who knows best what to do, for this time, or for the future.
????? What do you mean was "rude comments" here? Melina was offered direct, honest, and clear advice. I don't see any rudeness in it.
| | | | | Prostitutes and models... really the same category of services? | Feb 26, 2009 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
I just don't think you should take it personally if someone offers you a low rate. The rate someone offers is not intended to insult or compliment you. If you were a prostitute or a model, then that may have been the case, but you're a translator, and the rate you charge and the rate you are offered is independent from you as a person and also independent of your personal qualities.
I wonder why prostitutes and models can fall in the same category. I think they offer completely different services and their activity is based on completely different abilities. If you mean that they rely on visual appearance as the frontline of their service proposal and appeal, would you add dancers, singers, or even actors (all of them also relying on their appearance as part of their proposal) to the same category as prostitutes?
| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 16:24
English to German
+ ...
| Can we *please* get back to topic? | Feb 26, 2009 |
Good afternoon all,
I can see how the discussion got to where it is - but can those who took it into this direction please take a step back for a moment, and imagine what impression we have probably just left with the poster of this topic?
Do you think it's a coincidence that Melina stopped participating in the discussion?
Thanks for reflecting on what you post - before posting it.
Best regards,
Ralf
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