| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Cancellation of a very big job - any compensation? Thread poster: Milen Bossev
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Cathy Flick 
United States
Local time: 22:33
Member (2003)
Russian to English
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| also avoid being monopolized by one client | Jul 23, 2010 |
One other thought:
I generally tell my clients that I can't work full-time on their project until my desk has been cleared of other jobs, and even then I need to leave some room for recurring projects.
Sometimes I do get booked solidly anyway on a big project, but it really isn't safe to do that with jobs that can be cancelled mid-way. Now you know about government contracts....
On big projec... See more One other thought:
I generally tell my clients that I can't work full-time on their project until my desk has been cleared of other jobs, and even then I need to leave some room for recurring projects.
Sometimes I do get booked solidly anyway on a big project, but it really isn't safe to do that with jobs that can be cancelled mid-way. Now you know about government contracts....
On big projects especially that are being assigned to several translators - I also tell clients that I can tell them how many business days I will spend on the project, but the start date will determine how many words I can actually produce for them by the original deadline (unless they can shift that deadline if there are delays). I assume that I will still be working on other jobs in the meantime, and don't start turning down jobs until their purchase order arrives. When deciding how many words I can do on the project, I try to take all that into consideration and also try to figure out if I can use weekends/evenings for other jobs if needed to avoid losing good clients if I do decide to work full time on a particular big project. I've learned from sad experience that keeping my eggs all in one basket, even for just a few weeks, can be a financial mistake.
I still have been caught in situations like yours, and it is indeed very aggravating. But some other translator pointed out a long time ago that translation jobs (or was it clients?) are like busses - you might miss one, but another one will be along soon.... As many say, our work is "feast or famine". I like to say that we are "binge workers".
It's especially annoying when I've spent a lot of time evaluating a job (often I have to run hardcopy through ocr to get a realistic word count, for instance) and providing a quote and then the client decides to hire someone else (this is usually because the project manager has asked several people at once and somebody else replied more quickly, really annoying - the PM already knows my rate and my credentials, why is he or she wasting my time like this?!?). I waste so much time quoting on jobs that never materialize that I keep a separate time file for such things, so I can see how much time each month is spent on that. I also keep track of time spent on cancelled jobs, and mark them as such. When calculating my real "dollars per hour" for a month, I always include time spent on such things. It can be depressing, of course!
Peace, Cathy Flick
[Edited at 2010-07-23 18:29 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Milen Bossev
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:33
English to Bulgarian
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TOPIC STARTER | further clarifications and comments to my original post | Jul 23, 2010 |
First of all, thank you all for taking the time to read my post and comment on it.
I must admit that what most of you say wasn't what I expected to hear. My thoughts were more in line with what Lawyer-Linguist says - that what one should get in such a situation is the payment for the work already done plus that for one or two days' worth of translation. Because if a job that would take me one day to complete gets cancelled, I can live with it and wouldn’t bother asking for a compe... See more First of all, thank you all for taking the time to read my post and comment on it.
I must admit that what most of you say wasn't what I expected to hear. My thoughts were more in line with what Lawyer-Linguist says - that what one should get in such a situation is the payment for the work already done plus that for one or two days' worth of translation. Because if a job that would take me one day to complete gets cancelled, I can live with it and wouldn’t bother asking for a compensation. That I would consider an acceptable risk to take, but not when the job would take you a couple of weeks working weekends and evenings and then gets cancelled after you have started working on it - that I would not consider an acceptable risk that I should be able to absorb without any compensation. If I wanted to take such risks, I would buy and sell shares on the stock exchange.
Let me clarify some points raised. First of all I have signed an agreement with the agency regarding their government contract. It's only work for their government contract that I get from them by the way. In my agreement there is no mention of a cancellation policy regarding translations. There is a clause regarding the cancellation of interpreting jobs to the effect that the agency undertakes to either find alternative assignment or pay some compensation depending on how long before the date of the assignment it was cancelled. Ideally I would have liked to put a clause in the agreement regarding the cancellation of translation jobs as well, however I don’t think I stand a chance of doing whatever modifications to this agreement because this is a blanket agreement that the agency asks every translator/interpreter working on their government contract to sign.
As far as getting more work from them as a kind of compensation is concerned, it would be welcome but I know it cannot happen because I only get government jobs from them and I suppose they don’t get so many of those in my language pair. When I said that they are a regular client, I meant that I get jobs from them on a regular basis however the volume is very small – something like a page a week, occasionally something in the order of 5-10 pages.
I can accept that I shouldn’t decline other jobs before I get the promised ‘big’ one, although I was trying to be helpful to the agency by committing myself in advance because I knew they would struggle to meet their deadline – I don’t think they have that many translators that can take this job on simply because there are very stringent requirements for a translator to work on their government contract – you have to not only live in the UK but also be in the country when you accept the task and while you are translating it; there are also criminal record checks, security checks, etc. However, I think it would be unreasonable for one to accept any further jobs once you have started to work on a big one, given that you’ve taken an amount of work that is up to your highest capacity..
I also need to clarify the ‘go-ahead’ that I was given in response to Mats Wiman’s comment. Quote:
“From what you told us, you took a 'go-ahead' as an order.
You shouldn't have, you should have asked for a written order.”
This agency doesn’t use e-mail to send you the job. It’s part of their security arrangements. They have their proprietary software on their website where you log on and look at the jobs that they have requested from you to do. Then you have the option to either accept or decline and it is ‘official’ – that serves as a purchase order and you don’t need any further confirmation. There is no PO per se. What happened in this case is that the agency uploaded the whole job on the website for me to have a look at and tell them how much I could take on. So that’s why I phoned them to tell them that I could take a specific part of the text which was about 220 pages and ask them if that would be OK in case they had already allocated it to someone else. They said it would be OK and then I accepted the job on their website. Once you accept the job, it moves to a section called 'current jobs' which happened in this case. So it is definitely not a misunderstanding whether they had given me the go-ahead or not.
Once you have completed a job, you upload it to their website and wait for them to give you an authorisation to invoice them. When they do, the invoice is already generated by their software on their website – the only thing the translator can do is either accept the invoice with the amount set by them (according to pre-agreed rates) or file a query. I’ve always received this authorisation within a day or two of the submission of the job. That’s why I thought there was something wrong/suspicious when it took them a week and several e-mails and a phone call from me before they authorised an invoice for 20+ pounds.
I accept to some extent that we all have to take risks but one cannot compare the risks a big agency can afford to take with the one a freelance contractor could take. Yes, a translator can take the risk of declining work or ending up with too much work because of the volume of an anticipated job, however, I don’t accept that once they’ve officially given you the go-ahead, you’ve started working and then they’ve cancel the job that it is just another risk, the negative consequences of which the translator should fully absorb.
In reply of John Rawlins’ remark, quote:
“Turning away 'real' business in order to wait for 'maybe' business is a little naive”.
When they asked if I was available 3 business days in advance, they were so adamant that the job was coming, they sent me a breakdown of the amount of pages for each type of document (the job consisted of witness statements, exhibits, etc) so that I could tell them how much I could take from each of these documents, so that they are able to find other translators to do the rest.
I so much agree with Cathy Flick – the amount of words translated doesn’t reflect the amount of work or time spent. For example, for this job I had done the first 3 pages but it was only about a 130 words in total when they told me the job was cancelled. But it took me several hours because these first 3 pages had very specific formatting which I tried to reproduce because I thought that for a job of 200 odd pages it would be worth spending 2 or 3 hours formatting the first 3 pages. That is definitely one thing I would never more do – start with the formatting (even though I am required to keep as close to the original as possible). If I had started from the 4th page where the bulk of the text starts without much formatting I could have probably done at least 1K words before they told me to stop. Then they would have had to pay me a bit more than their measly 20 odd pounds.
I think translators should try and fight their corner because the more concessions we give to agencies the more they are likely to try and squeeze out of us. I wonder if some day it would be acceptable for an agency to tell you after you have done the job that the rate is actually half of what you have agreed to. Would that be a risk a translator should take as a matter of course?
Anyway, once again sorry if I have bored you with this lengthy post and I do appreciate everyone’s comments. I will keep following this topic for a while to read any further comments. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 22:33
Greek to English
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| Happens sometimes... | Jul 26, 2010 |
In all businesses.
For example, that dance teacher (a free-lance as well), booked Tuesday for me, but I had to call him on Monday and reschedule.
Of course he lost other opportunities - it happens with free-lancers all the time.
That is why, when you calculate your price per word or per hour, you have to calculate this as a factor as well (cancelations).
And that is why the proz.com calculator is not even close to reality - it does not take into consi... See more In all businesses.
For example, that dance teacher (a free-lance as well), booked Tuesday for me, but I had to call him on Monday and reschedule.
Of course he lost other opportunities - it happens with free-lancers all the time.
That is why, when you calculate your price per word or per hour, you have to calculate this as a factor as well (cancelations).
And that is why the proz.com calculator is not even close to reality - it does not take into consideration "dead days", holidays, cancelations, updaid invoices, administrative cost (the cost of time you need to issue and monitor invoices, to fill in forms, etc).
Good luck with your next project. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | A loyal business partner | Jul 27, 2010 |
M- Bossev wrote:
I think translators should try and fight their corner because the more concessions we give to agencies the more they are likely to try and squeeze out of us. I wonder if some day it would be acceptable for an agency to tell you after you have done the job that the rate is actually half of what you have agreed to. Would that be a risk a translator should take as a matter of course?
I think a change of rate is quite different from a cancellation at the very beginning of the job. Cancellation of a job by the end customer at a very early stage is a quite normal situation that escapes the control of the agency. The agency cannot force the end customer to pay them for a job that was not done, the same way you cannot ask the same from the agency.
The rate is under the control of the agency and the proposal you are made by the agency is based upon a reasonable expectation of the amount the end customer will pay. Should the end customer wish to change the rate when a job is just starting, the agency cannot impose a new rate, but can of course negotiate with you so that they don't lose so much. If you don't accept the new rate, they have two options: either lose money (which they will not like very much) or cancel the job with you and ask someone else.
To me this is a quite clear situation: trying to enforce a compensation in this case beyond the work you have already done will be bad for your business with the agency and for your health. They'd rather expect a positive and flexible attitude from you, as a reassurance that you are their loyal business partner.
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Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
To me this is a quite clear situation: trying to enforce a compensation in this case beyond the work you have already done will be bad for your business with the agency and for your health. They'd rather expect a positive and flexible attitude from you, as a reassurance that you are their loyal business partner.
Tomás said it. It is of course unfortunate if you lose such a large job, but if the agency is willing to pay you for the amount of work already done, I would accept that and move on. That's business, whether we like it or not.
| | | | Tatty
Local time: 05:33
Spanish to English
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Are you getting married Eleftherios?
I agree with the comments above. It's just a bit of bad luck. Bill them for what you did, take the 20 pounds and move on. I've never heard of a cancellation policy for translations but they may exist. It's probably because you are immediately free to accept other projects, which will mitigate your loss.
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