This post is inspired by something Ted Wozniak posted on Facebook, linking to Sébastien Devogele’s blog post “The Rate Rant.” The issue: translators who complain about bottom-feeding agencies that pay low rates, endlessly try to drive down prices even further through fuzzy match discounts, treat translators as a cog in the production machine, etc. Some would argue that this ranting has a point: it publicly shames these agencies and encourages other translators not to work for them. Others (including me) would argue that this ranting might serve as a catharsis, but it’s ultimately a waste of time and energy, and may even harm the ranter in the end. Here we go:
First, ranters, I hear you: bottom-feeding agencies, offering 2.765 cents a word for 8,000 words in two days are annoying. It’s doubly annoying that these bottom-rung agencies are, as Chris Durban found out in her “Mystery Shopper” experiment, telling clients that they provide high-quality translations by expert translators. As if Target said, “Shop here for heirloom-quality stuff that you’ll pass on to your grandchildren.” It also makes me sad (or maybe I’m just a bleeding heart…) that lots of translators see no way out of the bottom-rung market: they don’t know how to or don’t have the time to market themselves to better-paying clients, or they don’t know how to improve their translation or business skills so that they could work for better-paying clients, or they’re so busy cranking out the hoppers full of words at 2.765 cents each that they can only think about getting through the day.
At the same time, here’s my bottom line: if a client’s business model bugs you, simply don’t work for them and leave it at that. Just as I don’t give my money to Walmart or McDonald’s because I’m personally opposed to their business models and employment practices, I don’t work for bottom-rung clients because I choose to work for clients who value my work and are willing to pay accordingly. Why not rant? Here are my thoughts, but of course you can disagree:
- It’s a waste of time. I’m not going to put Walmart out of business by refusing to shop there, because tons of other people will still shop there. My goal isn’t to put them out of business, it’s to refuse to support them. You’re not going to put A+ Fast-n-Cheap Xlationz out of business by railing against them, because lots of clients will still use them, and lots of translators (for the reasons described above) will still work for them. If you want to put your emotions to a better use, do client outreach presentations to teach businesses how to choose a (real) high-quality translation provider; do presentations for other translators to teach them how to market themselves to better paying clients.
- As Chris Durban has commented before, ranting fosters a negative mindset about clients in general (they’re idiots, they don’t know anything about our work, they just want the fastest, cheapest translator out there, we should be suspicious of them until they prove otherwise). I’ll tell you–and lots of other premium-market translators will tell you–that’s not true. There are lots of clients out there who are not only willing but eager to pay real money to a highly-skilled professional who is consistent and confidential and responsive. But that work doesn’t fall into your inbox: you have to be out there looking for it, either online or in person or both; and realistically, most translators aren’t willing to do that or don’t know where to start.
- If you’re not in the bottom-rung market, it’s a completely different industry. I really don’t concern myself with the lowball market, any more than I concern myself with whether machine translation is going to put me out of business. Because in the end, it’s so different from what I do that it’s not even worth complaining about: sort of as if Major League Baseball complained that a middle school was holding a baseball game right next to their stadium and potentially siphoning off their spectators. When a client approaches me and their first question is “how much do you charge?,” I know that there’s a 90% chance that I’m not the right fit for them. I tell them that I understand the reality of budget constraints, but that I’m busy all the time at my regular rates, so they should find someone else. And I’m busy all the time at my regular rates because I’m “out there”–writing, speaking, attending conferences, meeting other translators who refer work to me, giving out information that potential clients find online, visiting my existing clients so that they keep using me, and so on. If it’s a choice between spending 10 minutes railing about “Get a load of what this parasitic agency asked me to do!!! Can you believe it!!” versus spending 10 minutes reading a potential client’s blog and commenting on it and maybe getting their attention in a positive way, to me, that’s a no-brainer.
Other thoughts on the rate rant?
Jim says
Hi Corinne,
I agree. I joined a group on LinkedIn that names and shames low-paying agencies, and it gets repetitive. In addition to not wanting to waste my time commenting in a negative way on a public forum (as many people there seem to do quite a bit), I prefer to spend time working with existing clients and finding new ones. Considering how finite the days are, this is a more productive use of my time. I also find that negativity breeds negativity. The more you complain about something instead of finding ways to fix it, the more bitter you’ll become in the end. Better to spend that time gaining the knowledge, experience, contacts needed to get where you want to be.
Regards,
Jim
joanne says
Hi Corinne,
I couldn’t agree more. I too prefer to spend my time working at improving my translation performance for my existing clients. It challenges my brain and that is more important to me than indulging in negativity.
Eve says
Sing it baby! You know I agree. Thanks for verbalizing clearly the thoughts against those who are “against” it all in the industry 😉
patenttranslator says
I agree that it is mostly a waste of time if the moaning is excessive, which is often the case. Many people read it and/or contribute as misery loves company.
On the other hand, these postings are good entertainment and it also is a good thing that when somebody says “Big Turd” or “Pig Turd”, everybody knows which agency it is.
I also think that the cumulative effect on the bottom line of these companies should not be underestimated.
Thanks to these postings, the Pig Turds of this world may be eventually forced to work only with subprime translators who can’t find any other work, which would be a healthy self-corrective mechanism of the market.
Tapani Ronni says
Exactly! I keep repeating the same message to people in panel discussions. Whining and complaining simply looks unprofessional. Focus on marketing.
Nicole Y. Adams (@NYAcomm) says
Thank you for this excellent post, Corinne. You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth and I especially agree with “I really don’t concern myself with the lowball market, any more than I concern myself with whether machine translation is going to put me out of business. Because in the end, it’s so different from what I do that it’s not even worth complaining about”.
One might think these points are obvious to everyone, but unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. It is encouraging, however, that more and more colleagues are starting to point out the futility of it. Why complain about something that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) concern us? This negative energy could be so much more effective if it was put into something positive to advance our profession – together.
Andrew Morris says
Great post, and couldn’t agree more. Perhaps people rant because it’s easy. You get instant sympathy from other fellow-sufferers, it takes zero intellectual effort and above all it obviates the necessity to ask yourself tough questions about your own role in attracting such low-ball experiences “It’s them, not me!”
Nico Vercesi says
This is a great post, Corinne! And I am glad it is your voice saying these words. Maybe now the great bulk of self-righteous linguists (who do nothing but whine about how bottom-feeding translation companies take their clients and kill the industry) will go out there and actually do something besides blaming someone else for their lack of work. 😀
Emma Paulay says
I totally agree Corinne. Not only is ranting not productive, it has a knock-on effect that can actually be harmful in terms of the message that it conveys to those around us. This morning, I read this post that talks about how our attitudes influence others, for better and for worse http://99u.com/articles/7016/how-influential-are-you. So my conclusion is that if those of us who display a positive attitude about our profession keep on speaking out and spreading some joy, then we will counteract and hopefully actually crush the negativeness.
nancyalocke says
Excellent post, as usual. The comments also provide food for thought. In particular, I echo Jim’s sentiment: life is too darn short.
SvenFren says
Thanks for this! I’m often confused by why so many translators spend so much time complaining instead of just moving on. As you say in your last point there are different markets, just ignore the ones you don’t want to be part of. Just this morning an agency I had approached informed me that my rates were too high and that they have hundreds of excellent translators who only charge X (way lower than my rates), and my thoughts were OK, they don’t want to pay the price I charge for my services, they probably don’t understand/care about the value of what I’m offering, and I don’t want to lower my rates, so no bad feelings, we just won’t work together. Rather than dwell on this or bad mouth the agency I decided that I needed to spend more time working on my marketing and better targeting prospects to try and ensure that I’m only spending time talking to clients who need the kind of translations I’m offering, which feels like a combat far more worthy of my time.
Tanya Quintieri says
Great post. And there’s another downside to rants: It gives young colleagues the wrong impression of our industry. Sad but true: You will hardly find any positive voices out there. Fora and online groups are great (as in convenient) to vent. But the problem is, young translators new to the business get really intimidated. When young translators ask me how to learn more about our industry, I tell them to stay away from social media and to try to find a mentor who they can talk to. Or select their fora and social media groups very wisely. And if in doubt, come back and ask how much weight they should put into this or that. If our industry as a whole wants to grow, we need to support the development of self-confidence. They need to learn to love what they do. Not dread it. But then we have university lectors here in Germany who tell them: If you wanna make decent money, don’t work as a freelance, go work as a cashier at LIDL or ALDI. *sosad*
Giovanni says
I can’t stand colleagues who complain, but also colleagues who blow their own trumpet incessantly… as bad as each other, imo… maybe I should write a blog on this… 🙂
Kaiya (formerly Janet) says
I’m going to go out on a limb (apparently!) and agree with patenttranslator’s post. And while it may not be immediately productive to whine and rant, it does serve something of an educational purpose, for starters. When other people name and shame the lowballers (or those who practice other disreputable practices), I may later recognize the name and know to stay away without going through the hassle of superficial negotiations. When a newbie sees what fellow colleagues consider inappropriate (or possibly just plain insulting), that newbie has a much better idea of what is considered “normal” (or not) and how to negotiate (and stick by) terms. It’s great if we “don’t concern ourselves” with lowball (and oddball) requests (“offers”), but that doesn’t mean we don’t get them, and sometimes it’s so frustrating, it just helps to do a little venting. I, myself, don’t happen to do that online very often, but my significant other sure gets an earful! Yes, even I get tired of reading some of those types of posts, but that’s the great thing about the Internet – I can choose what to read and what not to waste my time on. While some may not see the point in complaining about rates and “offers”, I don’t really see the point in complaining about the complainers. I, for one, am certainly not in a position to hold their venting against them! 😉
Olivia Bravo Arvizu says
You call it shouting and moaning and I call this article serving for agencies and harmful for colleagues. This is exactly the same mediocre argument used by non-voters – “if all politicians are the same, then simply do not vote and let others decide the future of your country. Just let it go. If you get screwed it is not MY problem, right?”
It’s just a choice between spending a day railing about “those ranters” or standing up for your industry and taking ten minutes to create awareness with your colleagues, agencies, and clients.
Lukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz says
Just the one thing, in short, that it doesn’t make sense to pretend that things are better than they really are. We don’t become prosperous translators by just sucking it up.
Marie Le Men says
From what I gathered on this page, there are clearly 2 types of translators: the self centered and the communist 🙂
Some translators keep to their main aim which is being “prosperous”. A very strange word but well, it’s not considered dirty after all. They don’t waste energy thinking of the big picture, of coming up with solutions. They don’t need to. Good for them, they just run ahead keeping their good and bad experiences to themselves. They also make sure they are pleasant to the right people and scratch the right backs.
Some others actually have a political conscience and don’t live in a bubble. They understand the situation (well summed up by Steve Vitek in his ironic comment) and take a little time to share their bad experience with others, promoting a sort of solidarity concept.
Sorry for this political aparté. I am young, with only 3 years of experience, and therefore I have to deal with a very unwelcoming industry. The only good things about it are these forums where people are actually sharing valuable information (what you call “ranting”).
christinedurban says
Marie, I’m glad to read that you are young. 🙂
And — as usual when someone has disparaging comments on this or that “category” of translators — I’m intrigued by your characterization of prosperous/”self-centered” (your word) translators as… having no vision, no political consciousness?
Frankly, my experience of such people is that many of them give back to the profession all the time. Through writing workshops, mentoring, business tips and advice (offered for free, imagine that), lectures, taking on interns, producing client-education documents that are made available to everyone, doing volunteer work for universities and student groups and professional associations and on and on and on. And on.
A statement like “They [the self-centered bad guys, apparently :-)] “don’t waste energy thinking of the big picture, of coming up with solutions” is so inaccurate and misinformed as to be, well — comical. Ditto implying — even stating — that successful translators have sold out, sucked up to one and all.
Where ever did you come up with that facile and mindless thrust?
OK, OK — you can get away with it because you are passionate and young, so no big deal. 🙂
Seriously, one point that Corinne and others have tried to make is that translators can show solidarity in far more constructive ways than complaining about the price-puller-downers and cheapskates, for (to paraphrase), “the lowballers ye shall always have with you.”
How about this: if (following a suggestion made by Corinne) you were to take the 10 or 15 (or 20 or 30 or more, based on some list members’ frenetic participation) minutes a day spent on lists where people are complaining about ridiculously low job offers and instead *spend that time in venues (online or off) where clients are*, learning about real clients — good ones — and getting your head wrapped around where their heads are… you’d likely find the translation world a far more welcoming place.
That suggestion and many many other very concrete ones are being made by translators who make a good living and — perhaps not coincidentally — have shaken off default rant mode. Who demonstrate impressive solidarity. I’d be happy to give you a ton of examples off-blog if you like.
Keep — or should I say *get* — the faith! 🙂
Marie Le Men says
Dear Chris,
This was a bit of a rant so it might seem “passionate” but it’s also pretty accurate to me still. And thanks for your offer, I’d love to hear your examples, but why off-blog? Everyone would love to hear them.
I’m glad you are working on giving back in your own way and reaching out to the new generations of translators, although I think this debate on “ranting” is going to remain quite sterile. However I’m a bit surprised by your slighty patronising shortcuts and oppositions:
young=passionate?=”facile and mindless thrust???” (Ouch. What’s mindless about my theory, if you care about helping out then don’t identify with the selfish group I’m talking about)
as opposed “old=sold out ??” That’s ridiculous. I respect more experienced pairs and seek their advice. Please don’t distort and caricature my comment:(
Forums=ranting=negative energy
as opposed to promoting oneself=being constructive
There are useless rants in those forums, just as there are useless blogposts, and useless annoying selfpromotion. You can waste your time the way you choose to:)
We all know that it’s no doubt more useful to promote oneself that whine on the internet all day. Pity the fool who only does the latter. And we all promote ourselves as much as we can, since we are not idiots either, but that doesn’t mean we cannot vent off or exchange information, one does not exclude the other. It seems you slightly underestimated the use of these forums, let alone the damage it does to lowballers, who may on the long run get deprived of competent translators (why not hope that?). I do agree with you on the fact that there are people who complain of the bad rates, as if they can’t do anything about it. Ok it’s offensive and they can just place them in the trash. What they are doing on the forums I think is a little more political that simply whining. They are in fact publicly listing the company in the bottom feeder category to: vent off the frustration of being insulted with such low rates, discourage others from associating themselves with that company, embarrass them (doesn’t seem to work), hope that the cie’s clients eventually sees all the bad publicity and be scared off, try to stop them from getting away with the low rates. What is wrong with that?
Perhaps it would be right to clearly acknowledge it is just not as easy to start a career in translation as 20 years ago. I wasn’t trying to oppose old/young in a caricatural way but was just indicating that I am fairly new and inexperienced and that the market doesn’t seem that welcoming to me, despite my MA in literature and Masters in translation, as well as my 7 years of experience in an English speaking country. In fact I rarely get offered decently paid jobs. Ive only managed well for now because I had a very large contract that kept me busy for 2-3 years. The majority of jobs offers I received I refuse because they pay less than 6 cents and won’t accept your higher price, because there are 10 or more so called “proz” on their list. Therefore I only work every now and then, although this is my chosen profession.
Now I don’t spend any time ranting on these threads because I don’t work with the wrong people, and that is thanks to those translators who spread the word and build up a fairly accurate black list for all of us. I do agree it’s smarter to spend it promoting your services but don’t you think we all do that too?
I promoted my services to the best agencies, who all recruited me after I successfully passed their tests. The “hic” is that they do not offer me any work, unlike the lowballers who harass me. As to the wonderful world of direct clients, I’m still in search of the secret tips.
Suzanne Smart says
Corrine, I couldn’t agree more. And it’s true that negativity breeds negativity – I am often contacted by low-rung agencies and as a result I notice that my mindset is always suspicious when a new agency contacts me. Rather than think “great, a new client, this might be the start of something beautiful”, my first thought tends to be “great, another person who wants everything done yesterday at rock bottom rates”. That is not a good mindset to start from and is one far more likely to harm me than them.
I’m not sure I’d like the ranting to disappear altogether though – most translators enter the profession with no idea where to start from other than Proz, Translator’s Cafe and so on. Without the ranting many of them may never even become aware that they are bottom feeding or realise that they are entitled to better things. If nobody tells them that 2 cents a word is pathetic, how will they know?
Patricia Will says
I absolutely loathe all the ranting. It is so far removed from my own experience of good, highly professional agencies (usually small to mid-sized owner-operators). I regret that it might give newcomers to the industry the impression that this is all there is. I cannot understand why people devote so much time and energy to complaining about these bottom-feeders. Simply say no thank you and move on.
Ben Hemmens says
It’s just a different market. Yes it’s frustrating that clients don’t have sufficient awareness of language-related issues to understand the differences, because they are misunderstanding their own needs. Doing themselves no favours.
But in the end, the only remedy for bad work is good work … and patience. I’ve relaxed a bit on this issue since experiencing that clients who evidently have chosen much cheaper solutions eventually show up again wanting my work. My one tip would be, when asked to give an opinion on a bad translation, not to simply dismiss it with the first expletives that come to mind. To avoid that, I’ve sometimes written factual critiques using linguistic terms that the people probably don’t understand. But they come back. I guess the impression that you are deeply into your stuff, even to an extent that they don’t want to get into, is much better than the impression that you are just one more of the grumpy people they have to deal with every day – many of whom don’t know what they’re doing. Instead of insulting their previous choices, show them you care about what they really need.
When their mental image is that you are the seriously geeky and character who groks their stuff like nobody else (but doesn’t swear at them), then they’ll come back with the jobs where they really need their stuff to be grokked. That’s cool, because those are the jobs they’ll be ready to pay for and they’ll also be the most interesting to work on. If you are that person, the world will eventually find out about you.
In having a low-price segment that delivers poor quality, we are in the company of many, many other professions. But cabinetmakers haven’t died out entirely just because most people get cheap furniture made in low-wage countries.
Anon+ says
I know it’s a little late to post: But isn’t refusing to support a company a short-term goal that serves the long-term goal of driving them out of business?
Jeff Alfonso says
I personally like to hear different opinions and especially the reasons why. Although it isn’t my personal taste, I realize that some people express themselves with a negative slant while others are very sunny.
In my opinion the only way it can be productive is if the complaining is genuine, and open to constructive dialog not dogged repetition. Everyone is at a different place in their life so perhaps for some this subject is old and a waste of time while someone else at a different stage could benefit from the discussion.