| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Rude? What else are we expected to accept from agencies? Thread poster: Siegfried Armbruster
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 04:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Charlie Bavington wrote: Lingua 5B wrote: Samuel Murray wrote: Lingua 5B wrote:
I work with clients, not with ghosts. Some might say that having no real name (only a cryptic nickname) is the same as being a ghost.  This is a chit-chat, not a business proposal. A completely informal correspondence. ... Not sure how you can compare the two. Well, it's one point of view. Others might say it's professional business people having a discussion on a website aimed at professionals about a business-related matter, with all that such a situation implies. ... [This is] IMHO, a fairly valid, if not identical, comparison.
Well, the fact that there are marked differences doesn't mean that any similarities are insignificant.
Besides, did anyone see the smiley? Don't take this so seriously...
| | | | | Yes, I would find it rude | Sep 26, 2010 |
Therefore I answered:
Hi,
why don't you just read my profile. There you will find that I am not
working in the fields you require.
Please dont contact me again.
What is your opinion? Was my answer rude? How would you have reacted to such an email from an agency?
Here are my two cents:
1. Yes, I find your answer a bit rude or unpolite. I am thinking of "politeness" in the terms described in wikipedia ("the goal of politeness is to make all of the parties relaxed and comfortable with one another").
If I had received your message, I would not have felt relaxed and confortable with you.
2. Having said so, my reaction to the agency's original mass mail would have depended on my business needs.
Is that agency a company with whom I may make business in the future?
Do I want to keep receiving mass e-mails from them, just in case an interesting job ever comes in?
Is there a real possibility that a good business relationship can ever exist between them and me?
If the answer to any of those was "yes", I would probably have replied something along the lines "Thank for your message but at the moment I am not working in the fields you mention, blah, blah, blah."
If I had any interest on educating then, I might drop a line pointing out that perhaps their method of contacting translatoras (without even signing their messages) could potentially jeopardise their opportunities for finding the right people.
There are dozens of sites which explain how you can give negative feedback in a constructive and positive way, so I don't need to ellaborate on this.
If I was sure that I never want to receive any e-mail from them, I would have let them so in a polite way, trying not to offend the person on the agency's end for any simple reason: you don't know whom you are talking to.
The offended person could be working next year (or in ten year's time) for a company with whom you might want to make business and you don't really want this person to remember your name in a negative way.
You can achieve the same goal that you wanted to achieve without offending anyone. There is no real added value in making somebody feel insulted (other than personal relief, as some have mentioned).
3. What I would definitely not have done is let the whole world (including potential customers) know how I made a potential customer feel insulted, no matter how right I feel about this. I don't think I would have started this thread.
If you google "Siegfried Armbruster problem", you get directly to this thread. This is something I would not feel very confortable with if a potential customer was googling my name before contacting me for a job.
Daniel
| | | | Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia (X)
Australia
Local time: 12:56
English
+ ...
| sounds too familiar... | Sep 30, 2010 |
I've been getting a few similar emails lately - just a mailout from agencies to the entire list of translators in my language direction. It's pretty rude, and usually they are just looking for someone cheap. Your response to them was pretty harsh, though I am not blameless either
However, this:
3. 3-5 different sample translations in banking/finance/economic
field (English paragraph followed by German translation) from any
of your past clients.
is BLOODY rude! How dare they ask for materials from other clients, haven't they heard of NDAs? I am not about to start revealing documents and information that other clients sent to me, regardless of how sensitive or important they might be. And five of them is just too rich, a translation test is usually a single page of text.
I've blasted a couple of agencies out of the water for asking me to send "sample translations" like this, suggesting that they look up the dictionary definitions of confidentiality and discretion.
[Edited at 2010-09-30 03:07 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 04:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Not always confidential | Sep 30, 2010 |
Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia wrote: However, this: 3. 3-5 different sample translations in banking/finance/economic field (English paragraph followed by German translation) from any of your past clients. ...is BLOODY rude! How dare they ask for materials from other clients, haven't they heard of NDAs? I am not about to start revealing documents and information that other clients sent to me, regardless of how sensitive or important they might be.
Not all clients require that you keep their stuff confidential. I have more than one such client (and no, they don't simply neglect to send an NDA -- they actually encourage me to be as free with their content as I wish, as long as they get a quality translation before the deadline). I agree, though, that unless the client had said "this is not confidential" then it is confidential.
Also, confidential information can become non-confidential, through e.g. publishing. If you had translated a financial article for a newsletter (not a private one), then you can offer that as a sample translation immediately after the newsletter is published and distributed. Or if you had translated a financial report, or an annual report, and these things have been published, then they are no longer confidential documents.
The details of your relationship with your client are still confidential, but the text itself and the fact that you were the translator becomes public knowledge as soon as the translation is published. [Okay, this may not be quite like this in a few countries where authors don't have moral rights, but in most civilised countries the translator's right to be identified as the author of his translation is an inalienable moral right, even if he somehow abandons his copyright.] If the translation is no longer confidential, then neither is the identity of the translator.
I've blasted a couple of agencies out of the water for asking me to send "sample translations" like this, suggesting that they look up the dictionary definitions of confidentiality and discretion.
If the agency merely asks for samples (not necessarily live ones, i.e. ones that were translated for other clients), then you can easily generate your own samples by translating free content (e.g. content that is licensed as Creative Commons). There is nothing wrong with providing such samples. In fact, depending on your country's copyright laws, you could even use copyrighted material for your sample translations, as long as the excerpts that you copy are relatively small portions of the whole.
[Edited at 2010-09-30 09:31 GMT]
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| As a matter of interest... | Sep 30, 2010 |
.... suppose I responded to this...
Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia wrote:
I've blasted a couple of agencies out of the water for asking me to send "sample translations" like this, suggesting that they look up the dictionary definitions of confidentiality and discretion.
... by asking if you had ever heard of anonymising a document?
3. 3-5 different sample translations in banking/finance/economic
field (English paragraph followed by German translation) from any
of your past clients.
And five of them is just too rich, a translation test is usually a single page of text.
The length of an individual (free) test is at least in part determined by how much time the average translator is prepared to spend on working for no immediate financial recompense, and that time appears to be about an hour (judging from previous discussions on the matter), for those prepared to do it at all.
I would venture to suggest in contrast that the volume of a sample, assuming one were well-prepared enough to have prepared anonymous or public-domain samples ready to meet not wholly unreasonable or unexpected requests for same from potential clients, would be a function rather of the amount of time the potential client was prepared to spend reading through our stuff. And from that viewpoint, up to 5 paragraphs hardly seems excessive to me.
| | | | Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia (X)
Australia
Local time: 12:56
English
+ ...
Samuel Murray wrote:
If the agency merely asks for samples (not necessarily live ones, i.e. ones that were translated for other clients), then you can easily generate your own samples by translating free content (e.g. content that is licensed as Creative Commons). There is nothing wrong with providing such samples. In fact, depending on your country's copyright laws, you could even use copyrighted material for your sample translations, as long as the excerpts that you copy are relatively small portions of the whole.
[Edited at 2010-09-30 09:31 GMT]
Now that's a nice idea, I'll have to remember that! Thanks!
Regarding the rest of what you said - I agree in general, however most of what I translate isn't published. Sometimes I do website content, in those cases I wait until it's published and then provide a link to the site, usually by that stage it's bilingual and serves as a proof of my work. The rest of my work is pretty confidential, it's just what the clients are happy with. I think only about 10% of my clients haven't requested an NDA, and I just don't want to risk it. A love letter is still a love letter, not something you would show to anyone else (apart from a translator)
In any case, I think that providing pre-translated texts is not exactly representative of your work. You might have had a week, or even a month to work at it, polish it, give it to a colleague to check - of course it's going to be good! Whereas a test that you only have a day or two to complete, with the text that the client sent, is much better. One agency I signed up with asked for a translation of a random website or a web article, with a link to the original - that works too!
| | | | Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia (X)
Australia
Local time: 12:56
English
+ ...
Charlie Bavington wrote: .... suppose I responded to this... Daria Bontch-Osmolovskaia wrote:
I've blasted a couple of agencies out of the water for asking me to send "sample translations" like this, suggesting that they look up the dictionary definitions of confidentiality and discretion. ... by asking if you had ever heard of anonymising a document?
There is only so much anonymising that one can do... It's just not something that I would want to risk, even if that particular client didn't request an NDA. Maybe that's just my own hang ups...
3. 3-5 different sample translations in banking/finance/economic
field (English paragraph followed by German translation) from any
of your past clients.
And five of them is just too rich, a translation test is usually a single page of text.
The length of an individual (free) test is at least in part determined by how much time the average translator is prepared to spend on working for no immediate financial recompense, and that time appears to be about an hour (judging from previous discussions on the matter), for those prepared to do it at all. I would venture to suggest in contrast that the volume of a sample, assuming one were well-prepared enough to have prepared anonymous or public-domain samples ready to meet not wholly unreasonable or unexpected requests for same from potential clients, would be a function rather of the amount of time the potential client was prepared to spend reading through our stuff. And from that viewpoint, up to 5 paragraphs hardly seems excessive to me.
That's 3-5 paragraphs that you have to find among your non-confidential stuff, and the text that the agency is just too lazy to provide themselves. In general, I suppose 3-5 paragraphs would fit on a single page (which would make them about 300 words or an hour's work), unless you are talking about Proust
Seriously, though, how much would you trust translations, provided by the translator him/herself? Can you trust that it's their work and not someone else's, who is vastly better? Or trust that they didn't spend a week polishing and proofreading it? One of my clients sends me translation tests to proofread, and subsequent work that they do for that company - honestly, a couple of times I couldn't believe that it was the same person who did the test and the translation!
[Edited at 2010-10-04 11:37 GMT]
| | | | Michal Glowacki
Poland
Local time: 04:56
Member (2010)
English to Polish
+ ...
| a different note | Oct 8, 2010 |
Going to the initial post...I understand all of you who think the email was rude and I totally agree - if you don't like it, the magical button 'delete' is always there for you. I, personally, wouldn't find this email rude (although maybe I would not bother to answer due to the 3-5 samples they request). However, ou would not believe how many translators seem to have trouble reading job posts and project briefs. A simple example: A job posting for an agency for, let's say
German>English, ... See more Going to the initial post...I understand all of you who think the email was rude and I totally agree - if you don't like it, the magical button 'delete' is always there for you. I, personally, wouldn't find this email rude (although maybe I would not bother to answer due to the 3-5 samples they request). However, ou would not believe how many translators seem to have trouble reading job posts and project briefs. A simple example: A job posting for an agency for, let's say
German>English, medical, UK-based, English mother tongue only.
Now - out of 16 emails received by the vendor manager at the translation company:
5 were from translators who are not UK-based (I'm sure they figured that the requirements are just to get some more characters and fill the space)
6 were from translators whose mother tongue was German
4 were from translators who didn't have any experience in medical
1 was from an experienced German>English, UK-based medical translator with English as their mother tongue.
What is the connection? A PM has to assume that the translator may not read the message to the end or disregard part of it. As a result - a simple piece of information is put: if you cannot be bothered to fulfil all the requirements, I cannot be bothered to read your message.
In my opinion, the askers response was a bit harsh and I, as a PM, would probably not like it at all. Although most probably I would also use the magical key on my keyboard and go on to other tasks.
As for mass emails and not using the name of the translator - unfortunately, when it's Friday, 4pm and you have an urgent request that needs to be ready on Monday morning and all your 'regular' translators are busy or out camping, you need to work and work quickly. Sometimes it compromises the quality of your email and it loses the personal touch, but I wouldn't take it personally. I am all for being nice to us translators, but I am also all for seeing the broader picture and sometimes understanding that PMs and VMs sometimes also work under high pressure. Mind you, when working as a PM I always sent unknown translators emails with their names. The only mass 'Dear Translators' email I sent was to a group of translators working on a big project and I needed to get the message to all of them. But that's a different pair of shoes, I guess.
As a note, I am a freelancer now but I just try to see both sides of the wall that divides us from the translation agencies.
[Edited at 2010-10-08 15:25 GMT]
[Edited at 2010-10-08 15:26 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 03:56
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| My experience | Oct 8, 2010 |
Michal Glowacki wrote:
However, ou would not believe how many translators seem to have trouble reading job posts and project briefs.
I've seen several offers on another site that, near the end of the post, require you to "Include the word 'abcdef' in the subject line as proof of having read the offer" (where 'abcdef' is a word of their choice with no relevance other than to weed out those applicants who have not followed, or indeed cannot follow, this simple instruction.
I have no idea how many useless applicants this rules out but it does back up what you say.
| | | | Michal Glowacki
Poland
Local time: 04:56
Member (2010)
English to Polish
+ ...
Sheila Wilson wrote: Michal Glowacki wrote:
However, ou would not believe how many translators seem to have trouble reading job posts and project briefs. I've seen several offers on another site that, near the end of the post, require you to "Include the word 'abcdef' in the subject line as proof of having read the offer" (where 'abcdef' is a word of their choice with no relevance other than to weed out those applicants who have not followed, or indeed cannot follow, this simple instruction. I have no idea how many useless applicants this rules out but it does back up what you say.
Yep, that's a fairly good technique. That done you just set up a filter on your email client and you don't even have to touch the 'delete' button.
| | | | | You gave them what they deserved... | Oct 8, 2010 |
A good company usually posts its job ad instead of sending mass mails.
Call the company by phone.
Explain to it's owner that this attitude is not a part of kindness but it is a relative of evilness.
Make the person (who contacted you) write a letter of apology from all who received this letter.
I am not a perfect person but I always try to fight such attitudes especially if it is related to my profession.
They should learn and never forget the f... See more A good company usually posts its job ad instead of sending mass mails.
Call the company by phone.
Explain to it's owner that this attitude is not a part of kindness but it is a relative of evilness.
Make the person (who contacted you) write a letter of apology from all who received this letter.
I am not a perfect person but I always try to fight such attitudes especially if it is related to my profession.
They should learn and never forget the fact that you are a HUMAN but not an animal on the market or a tool.
You should fight this back!
Also if you are in doubt with yourself you may do a simple judgment logic.
Could this person write such mail to any potential client in this world?
A letter which contains such words "Hi Client, Submit your documents to be translated correctly, otherwise we wont translate them and delete without informing you, watch and be careful!"
Of course they could not!
So, what makes this person treat translators in that way?
Do not let them get away with what they did.
[Edited at 2010-10-08 17:18 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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