Most annoying types of agencies

Baran Keki wrote:
Agencies asking for impossible deadlines are not worth working for, but I'd personally prefer to be ranked based on 'delivery speed', instead of 'per word rate', if that makes sense?
This reminds me, I sometimes stumble upon profiles where our dear colleagues proudly state "I have never missed a deadline in my career!"
I don't know if it's me, but this awfully sounds like a doctor saying "I have never killed a patient on the operating table! Put your trust in me!"

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
The criteria for your ranking are quality (i.e. amount of corrections from the reviewer), punctuality (i.e. delivering by the deadline) and speed (i.e. delivery before the deadline). Most translators (myself included) are good at providing the necessary quality and sticking to the deadline, so basically, the determining factor to get to the top of the ranking is speed. If you are at the top of the ranking (and you charge peanuts), you are more likely to be picked by the agency for their jobs. Also, the time allocated to you for subsequent jobs will be shorter. It's another meat-market kind of race for jobs. No, thank you.

Baran Keki wrote:
I don't believe I can relate to the kind of experience you described. English to Turkish jobs are fairly scarce in the European translation market, so there is no huge turnover. But if I were working with Turkish translation agencies I'd almost certainly come across the type of agencies you mean.
Oddly enough, I remember reading a post here (years ago) where a translation agency stopped working with a translator because they delivered their assignment a lot earlier than the deadline, they probably suspected foul play.
Still though, I can't help being amused whenever I see the gimmick 'I have never missed a deadline!'

Baran Keki wrote:
This reminds me, I sometimes stumble upon profiles where our dear colleagues proudly state "I have never missed a deadline in my career!"
I don't know if it's me, but this awfully sounds like a doctor saying "I have never killed a patient on the operating table! Put your trust in me!"

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:

are those who put their "vendors" in a ranking system and one the factors determining the ranking is their delivery speed.

Ice Scream wrote:


I agree, except... Have you never worked on the other side? Translators miss deadlines all the time, and it's a nightmare. You can correct errors, but you can't turn back time.

Adieu wrote:

Replacing words in a decent-looking translation? Are you quite CERTAIN you know your subject? Or are you implying their reviewers are the ones that don't?

Because while I don't know Turkish, I've worked on clinical trials in several other languages extensively. And the one thing that happens in all of them is that machine translation can't follow the terminology, because there are different terminology conventions for different sub-fields in different languages within that field depending on context.

You'll end up with stuff like IMPD Section Medicinal Product (should be: Drug Product), Summary of Amendments in Material Change (should be: Summary of Changes in Substantial Amendment), provision of claims to apply significant changes (just lol), Declarations of Identity (that are actually about identical-ness), Protocols that are actually Minutes or Certificates or Maintenance Records, Patient Cards that are CRFs or medical records, graphs that are schedules, etc. etc. etc.

Ice Scream wrote:
I agree, except... Have you never worked on the other side? Translators miss deadlines all the time, and it's a nightmare. You can correct errors, but you can't turn back time.

Not even if you're Cher.

Adieu wrote:

Do they mention this? Or is it just a feeling you get based on your experience with them?

Adieu wrote:

I do a lot of revision work and some people are so serially late I'm genuinely shocked anybody still keeps giving them jobs.

In my experience, translators generally fall under 100% punctual (quite rare), 95% punctual (nonetheless considered generally responsible by PMs), or... maybe-70% punctual at best.

How the 70%-ers continue to get jobs astounds me. Occasionally, I try to nudge PMs to get rid of them, usually to no effect.

Btw, I'm from the obseesive-compulsive 100% punctual group. I've negotiated a couple approved extensions (beforehand!) over the years, but I've never ever just vanished inexplicably for hours or days like many others do.

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
But I was talking about those quite rare professionals. I occasionally ask for an extension, but I never deliver late without asking the client first. Most "translators" are pretty mediocre and have no linguistic skills or business sense. This is my experience too.

Baran Keki wrote:

Those speedy (grown) Bambinos are all located in Italy and working with Italian agencies, right? If the Italian agencies are paying (and those students, housewives, part-time musicians living with their parents are accepting) a pittance, then your style in the UK must be pretty cramped as the cost of living must be higher than it is in Italy? Are you only working with the UK agencies?
I've often wondered about this with my fellow Turkish translators living in the UK or Europe. They must be finding it hard to work from English to Turkish given the willingness of Turkish translators living in Turkey to work for peanuts. You can change your location, but not your mother tongue (except on Proz, of course, by adding that dodgy looking gray 'N' sign on your profile, always with the 'US variant')..