Translation Agency Word Work Email Translator

Dear Misa

thanks for the opinion. I think that, for translating, a lot of customers approach a lot of companies and they are not really interested in reading the text. They might glance at the page visually, and then go straight to the contact form. But there are some pages I want to improve, and maybe all of them when I have the budget for this. I recently added a bunch of text to the main language page and which I think could be interesting reading, but which definitely needs polishing.

Dear Stella

managed to farm it out. I just thought I remembered you saying that your UK English was perfect or something. For the PayPal address, you can copy that in the Payment form below. Soon I plan to write to all the assessors to give me their full charges, so that I can put your translator information into the accounting.

Dear Deborah Christen

I was just letting you know that both the assessors felt you were not native German, although they still gave you good scores. That is why I asked you this question. Eventually I hope to have at least one more assessor, so perhaps the outlook will change. Or perhaps you could send me some of your previous translations, together with the originals, so that my assessors can have a second look at this?

Dear Jochen

well, you already have a good rate and I have principles of what is fair. I put into accounting an extra ten bucks for the last double check. The customer says his translators do this for free, but I don't think it should be like that.

Dear Jane Zhang

here is the invoice you requested. And now I would like to discuss the logistics issues with you. I am not always at the computer and internet, but I have a pocketpc/mobile phone through which I like to check my email every hour or so. But the provider with which I have a roaming plan is not good and I fear my connection with them will soon end. Meanwhile, Turkey, where I am presently located, has recently implemented some ridiculous law where I would have to import and register my phone with them if I will want to use it with a local sim card. Since my mobile is pretty expensive, they want to charge me a hundred dollars for this. I only plan on being here a few months and once I get back to the Czech Republic I will get a roaming plan with another provider, but I can spend the hundred bucks if I get enough work from various sources. Now concerning the fact that you like to have your translations proofread by the translator after they are converted to pdf format, or prepared for printing, I'd like to get into a better routine with you. With the system I have set up I can forward files with my mobile without having to download them, but generally this translation process is an additional administrative process, as much work as handing out a proofread, so I would need to charge something for this extra process. I generally expect all my translators to proofread their work at least once after themselves. If you want them to read over their work again, I would not want to ask them to do this without offering them something for it. But perhaps I could think up a system where you could upload the file and they check it, so that I would not have to charge extra for my own administrative work. This could also speed up the finalisation process, if I am not at the computer and internet at the moment and not checking my email so often. Note that I am in Europe and your day would end around my midnight. So if you think there could be a lot or regular work, I can set up this process, and spend the hundred bucks to import my phone into Turkey. Otherwise, I really do not have enough work at the moment to warrant this silly expenditure.

cau dude,

read some of your emails on my mobile yesterday and responding from memory before I get to the internet cafe later today and download them. I wouldn't respond to a regular customer this way, and it may become a bit of a shock to you, but I think you should also consider it as friendly advice. I see your pages on the internet in my seo work and technically I shouldn't even be offering you this advice, because I'm essentially helping a direct competition. But as a friend I'll do it. Basically I have to say I don't like the approach you are taking with me. You made some comment yesterday indicating to me how this "global bidding game" works. Excuse me, what the fuck do you think I have been doing all these years. Do you think I am some Czech monkey who has been jerking off? I don't even have Czech translation customers and I'm not even interested in them. I have been on the global scene from practically day one and have gone through hundreds of these bidding wars. And from your emails yesterday it seems apparent you don't even have this job bagged and are just bidding on it. What I don't like is you lording over my head this carrot you are dangling over my head, like I'm a little starving boy who will gladly shit in my pants when some great provider of work such as yourself comes along and offers me something. You seem to have a tendency to go on great ego trips at every opportunity. You send me emails of pictures of yourself sitting in the office, and a lot of them I cannot see any purpose in them except you are getting off on your own ego or something. I can tolerate this in personal emails, but don't even think of taking it into business. Or lording anything over my head, like I'm some little pee-on who can't wait to bow down and kiss your feet with the work you are so graciously bestowing on me. I treat my translators like gold, because without them I am absolutely useless. I have told customers to go to hell in the past just because I was sick of dealing with them. I do not need to reduce the quality of my life for the sake of getting more work. I have a great relationship with all my customers and all my translators, and I don't need anything in that formula that makes me feel like a dog or anything less about myself after a day of emailing. For your information, the biggest project I've done to date is 5 million words in 11 languages for Dupont, through one agency in the US, which needed to be done within about one month. The 5 million given to me was about 75% of the entire project, and given to me because the agency in the US, with its staff of people, could not handle any more. I worked my ass off in an unbelievable way, but I pulled it off, single handedly. As I've pulled off numerous big jobs, single handedly. More recently for monster.com into five languages, 220,000 words each. Over time I have been setting up my system to handle higher capacities. I have a server running in Prague where project managers can log in from different time zones (mostly the cheapest regions such as China and Rumania etc.) to keep things running 24 hours a day, and I am presently training people so they can do various things and answer emails for me, which has been the most time consuming in the past. I have dished out several thousand dollars to my programmers to develop scripts to automate things (and I have learned a lot of programming myself), so now I have a much higher capacity than I did in the old days of the 5 million word project. I also now have an seo expert and I am quickly climbing up in the webrankings. So I am well positioned in this global bidding war and I have much experience with it, and now I have the background set up to handle a high capacity. Presently I am also bidding on all of Panasonic's work, which could translate into 3 million words a year into about 25 languages, so please spare me any hint of smugness or "I'm greater than though" attitude, because I certainly do not need any such work. You will find that translators sit at home, tend to be an eccentric lot, and the quality ones who have been doing it for a long time can be the smug ones, convinced they are the centre of the universe and have customers begging at their door. So if you are finally getting onto the global bidding scene, as you so generously pointed out to me, it is you who should learn to tolerate the smugness and egos of translators and not dish it out, because I can see now you are going to piss off a lot of quality translators, who might never consider working for you in the future unless you come grovelling back to them. This is my friendly word of advice. I feel you are only going to hurt yourself with this approach, and saying "someone in India is charging less than you" in the manner that you have. You will definitely piss people off, and I find this a tricky game to play. I carefully suggest to translators and bring their price down gently that way, but I will never blatantly do it in almost a crass manner as you have. Anyway, maybe you could play around on your big global scene which it seems you have just freshly discovered, and come back to me after you've gained some experience, and are certain you can communicate with me in a professional and business manner without any tinge of smugness and ego. I find these characteristics revolting and I certainly do not want it in my business dealings. And you should be careful about quality. Bargain basement shopping in this way will not lead to quality. I think we can both assume that there is not an army of quality German translators living in India. We are all just cheesey car salesman using the same resources. Indians have the advantage that they have lower costs, but I have set up my system such that I believe I can compete directly with Indians, considering I am hiring Rumanians etc. And because I'm good at logistics, and computers, and running things very effectively. A customer will often hit the internet, do a bunch of keyword searches, maybe a bunch of directories, going perhaps 40 pages deep in its surfing and hit a shitload of translating agencies. I don't know if this Red Cross is LA based and is ignorant and giving you preference. And before taking large jobs from new customers, I also research them. I guess Red Cross is trustable, but is it directly Red Cross? I've been screwed royally in the past but in every case I have dug deep into my pocket and paid my translators for their translation work, so I have an excellent reputation on the internet and will not take on large projects without enough assurance. Anyway, I've said what I said and you decide how you want to continue, but don't write me again if you do not have the right attitude. It pisses me off and I don't need it. later

Sorry for the late response. Took a while to complete the transfer. I looked in my records and see that you have translated 29,000 words from Spanish to English in August of 2003, out of an 11 language project of 5 million words total. I was trying to add the details of translators in the old offline database to the new online one, but the script went awry. Sorry about that and I will respect your wishes to be removed from the new database. I do not expect to be approaching translators in the old database anymore.