- the source text has to be radically re-written just when it is due for translation,
- a new function has just been added to the software application, which means the whole user guide has to be redesigned,
- the work provider suddenly has second thoughts,
- the technical writer is busy on another project and his whole schedule has been re-prioritized,
- head office has forgotten to send the document and the person who was supposed to do that has gone away on a trekking holiday in the Himalayas with no cell-phone and no one is sure about the right version,
- the file has become unreadable and the text has to be typed out again,
- the source document has been lost in the post, and no one has made a copy,
- the file has just 'evaporated'.
Of course, some translators revel in this kind of situation, especially when they can charge special 'emergency' rates (e.g. night or week-end work, extremely short deadlines, etc.). As one 'high speed' translator puts it: "A translator with absolutely no time management problems will not be a translator for very long".
Wishful thinkers may also live in the hope that higher tariffs will allow them to slow down a little, that clients will allow more time for the translation, and that they will at long last be able to concentrate on quality and fine-tuning rather than mass production... But, when it comes to the crunch, the translator is bound hand and foot to the work provider and has to fit in with the latter's workflow and organisational practices, or try to change them, or turn down the contract.
6. Managing the 'in-between' times
Translation is strongly influenced by economic fluctuations. As we have already pointed out, translation volume is a good indicator of import and export levels, and translators are often the first to be affected by an economic slowdown and the last to feel the benefits of a recovery, because translation is at best seen as an adjunct and not a core part of the products and the production process. This is a fact of life that translation service providers, whatever their status, just have to put up with.
Under normal conditions, translation goes through a series of'natural' cycles. These are determined first of all by the ups and downs in individual work providers' needs and requirements, and therefore in their translation needs. But the translation 'cycles' are also geared to budgetary considerations and to the availability of funds (or liquidity constraints) at certain times of the year. Because of this, some times of year will always be slack, while others see a surge in demand. If translations are not carried out in-house, work providers do not suffer from this state of affairs. By externalising all their translation work, they transfer the impact of the peaks and troughs onto the sub-contractors. The cyclical and often unpredictable nature of demand in the translation industry explains why so many companies rely on sub-contractors to take up the slack or to meet sudden surges in business and why the translator always gets the short end of the stick.
Translators can only try to soften the worst effects of erratic demand patterns by bringing their clients round to the idea of translation needs management by encouraging them to plan when their translation needs are likely to arise, in which language combinations, and what volumes will be required. If their clients can start planning their needs two or three weeks (let us say, a couple of months) ahead, translators should be able to avoid getting cornered.
In any case, translators just must get used to the idea of having to deal with ups and downs in demand and even try and put them to advantage. A lull in activity is the time to put archives in order, update resources (for instance by cleaning up the translation memories for major clients) and more importantly, relentlessly look for new business. This alone will eventually increase the workload and pave the way to the translator's nirvana, i.e. a situation where it is the client who has to find a slot in the translator's work schedule, rather than the translator having to bow to the vagaries of demand.
Another solution is for the translator to rely on translation agencies and brokers to supply regular work and cushion the ups and downs thanks to the numbers and variety of their subcontractors. But this is only possible for top-of- the-range translators.
Useful advice to translators
1. You can only hope to manage your production and your tariffs if you know what your productivity actually is in relation to various parameters (e.g. according to the circumstances and the type of materials to be translated). To do this, you need to know your overall productivity and productivity per task so as to be able to determine:
- the income you want to generate and the necessary productivity gains which may be required,
- the time required for each job.
2. Before drawing up an estimate, always ask the work provider for one or more representative samples of the material for translation: this will help assess the true cost of the job.
3. Never work for less than the job is worth just because you happen to be going through a slack period and you want to keep up your turnover and cover your overheads. This would be suicidal because:
- Capital has a cost.
- Selling a service is tantamount to lending money to your client until he pays the invoice. Cutting your profit margin means lending at rock bottom interest rates.
- You may have to turn down more lucrative work while you finish a bargain basement contract.
- Working for two different rates means that you end up being your own competitor.
- Cutting your rates means undercutting other translators and forcing down tariffs across the board.
- Your other clients will eventually find out that you have charged them higher rates and will take their custom elsewhere.
- Any time spent on 'survival' work is time not spent on advertising, following up contacts and looking for contracts.
4. So what is the answer?
- Only give discounts for very good reasons (regular clients, special jobs, large volumes, 'open' contracts, etc.).
- Stick to your standard tariff but offer improved or extended service. Everyone will eventually hear about any extras of yours.
- Stand up to clients who always demand 'a bit more for a bit less'. The answer is clearly and emphatically "NO".
Adapted from Norman Brodsky - The Capacity Trap - Inc. - August 1996 (www.inc.com/magazine/19960801/1759.html)
chapter 9
Living in a crowd
Interacting with no end of 'partners'
Introduction
The specialised translator now lives fairly and squarely in the modern world, interacting on a regular basis with a whole range of partners, and not only via the Internet.
1. Translators and their work providers
Translators sometimes entertain a difficult relationship with their work providers. Of course, they play a pivotal role because the translations they undertake are by definition considered essential (otherwise, why would anyone have commissioned them?), but they are also on the sidelines insofar as (a) translation is generally not part of the work provider's core business and (b) translation always appears to be slightly out of sync with the rest of the processes.
Abiding by a few basic rules helps establish and keep up a good business and working relationship with work providers:
- always treat each work provider as an important client, irrespective of the volume of work supplied and particularly if the contracts are rather small;
- always fulfil the client's requirements and whatever has been promised or agreed on;
- always provide that extra service that the client did not expect and that can be produced at very little or no extra cost (e.g. a paper copy of a glossary for in-house use, a word of advice);
- always comply with the client's specifications or, if in doubt, discuss them with him in a positive way;
- get the client involved in any decisions that need to be made, or, at least, make sure the client is aware of the options and gets a chance to decide (or to approve the translator's own choice);
- get the client to sign a contract or agreement - in whatever form;
- never do anything that has not been agreed on without consulting the client (e.g. never sub-contract part of the work or cut corners on quality without consulting and giving justification and guarantees);
- always keep the client informed if there is any risk or likelihood that the translation may not comply with the original specifications or not be completed on time;
- always deliver high quality work, on time, and for the price originally agreed;
- remember to include the client in any customer relationship building exercises, i.e. gifts, greeting cards, personal visits, telephone follow-ups, open days, information on new staff or new tools and systems, promotional campaigns or demonstrations, new services, etc.
In a word, a good business relationship between the translator and any one client is based on:
- mutual trust,
- communication and discussion (explanation and negotiation),
- a clear contractual basis.
The contractual agreement, which requires discussion of the issues involved, clarifies the mutual obligations and responsibilities of both parties, thus reducing the risk of undermining the trust that cements any business relationship. It must be remembered, in that respect, that both the work provider and the translator are normally closely bound in the quality assurance process, and that the former should play an active part in it on request by the latter.
i.i Educating the work provider
One may well wonder if there is any translator who has not at some point in his career complained about being misunderstood by the work provider or by the contractor (the person acting on behalf of the work provider). Educating the work provider is a worthwhile pursuit. The purpose of the exercise is to 'teach' the work provider how complex the translation process is and how that process can be improved with a bit more input on his side.
In most cases, the 'first-time' work provider (a) generally hasn't a clue what translation entails, (b) cannot understand that it is not simply a matter of knowing languages, (c) has no idea how complex a process translating actually is, (d) feels it takes far too long, (e) finds the result at best passable because he has no clear benchmarks by which to judge the result, (f) cannot understand why the translator needs to 'look up things' and, last but not least, (g) finds translation is terribly/rather/a little (tick whichever applies) overpriced. And this is a perfectly natural reaction...
It is therefore necessary to explain what translation is about (with a little help from professional associations and colleagues) and:
- demonstrate that translation is in fact a complex process, by identifying and explaining the different stages,
- show, through an example, how any important translation requires no end of checking and counter-checking,
- explain how long each stage in the translation process takes, and why,
- stop using word count as the basis for estimates and invoices, and opt for a set rate or an hourly or daily rate (as in other standard business practices),
- refuse to lower rates, by arguing that basic costs and overheads cannot be reduced,
- refuse to be underpaid for any translation work, on any grounds whatsoever,
- use a simple but useful battery of ordinary business instruments (i.e. delivery forms, quality control forms, standard agreements, general conditions of sale, etc.) to show that translation is just as serious as any other business.
All this will demonstrate that translation is not just a pursuit for enlightened or 'inspired' amateurs but is actually a very serious (and more often than not highly technical) activity carried out seriously by serious professionals.
Of course, translators will always seek to be understood and appreciated by the work provider (and will seek to involve the work provider in the translation process as far as he will go), but they also have a duty to comply very strictly with the work provider's brief and instructions, even when these seem misguided or downright silly. In this case, the translator should try to convince the work provider and, if unsuccessful, can either decide to apply the instructions blindly or, as a last resort, refuse to do the job.
To put the picture straight, it must also be emphasized that more and more work providers have undertaken to 'educate' their translators by imposing stringent requirements and enforcing drastic specifications, precisely because they take translation very seriously and want to apply to the purchase and procurement of that particular service the same principles and procedures that apply across their business.
A special case: the in-house translator
In-house translators often have difficulty fitting into the right slot within the company. In R&D or production departments, they should by all rights be members of the technical team as this would give them unlimited access to the authors, product designers, and potential information providers or proof-readers. Yet, there is every chance that they will be located in the communication or documentation department, and therefore immediately set apart from the very people they will need to consult on a daily basis. Admittedly, of course, intranets and networking make remote contact possible at all times but translators would like to work where they think they belong: the technical or product lifecycle side.
In an ideal set-up (a) translation would be attached to the R&D or production functions, or to any other department or service actually commissioning the translation work and (b) all members of staff would have an obligation to contribute the information required by translators (and technical writers) and to take part in the quality control process applied to any documentation produced by the company or on the company's behalf.
2. Translators and prime contractors
The prime contractor maybe:
- the work provider's authorised representative, acting on his behalf,
- a third party who has won a bid to carry out all or part of the work.
In the first instance, the prime contractor simply stands in for the work provider and the points made about relations between the translator and the work provider will apply, except that the prime contractor generally has a more proactive role and will not wait for the translator to ask questions. A translator working for a prime contractor will generally have less leeway than when working directly for the work provider or translation requester, as the contractor will enforce detailed specifications for the job in hand.
The translator's position is more awkward when the prime contractor is in effect a 'middle-man' (and therefore a profit centre) between the work provider/translation requester and himself. When this is the case, the translator normally has no direct contact with the work provider and therefore not with the authors or designers of the material to be translated either. This maybe because the prime contractor does not want the work provider to be aware that the work has been sub-contracted, or because he wants to prevent any possibility of access from the translator to the work provider. The translator is therefore entirely in the prime contractor's hands as only the latter will be able to contact the work provider. Some translators may be quite happy with this kind of set up because (a) they like to feel they can assume full responsibility for any decisions and choices they might make (b) they are therefore quite satisfied that the prime contractor will prevent the work provider from interfering in the translation and (c) this means that - in theory at least - the prime contractor alone will be in the line of fire if ever the work provider is unhappy with the work.
3. Translators and project managers
Generally, whenever a translation is divided into job lots shared out between a number of translators, a project manager is appointed.
The project manager may be appointed by the translation company. Or he may be appointed by the work provider or the prime contractor - in which case he is technically a 'job manager'.
Whatever the situation, the project manager is the absolute 'boss' who has the final say in all matters relating to the way the translation will be carried out and whose instructions all translators and editors/revisers must obey. The key to good relations between the project manager and the translators are:
- a detailed and comprehensive set of specifications, rules, and procedures.
- compliance with a reasonable but strictly enforced work schedule,
- regular reporting both ways,
- strict a priori harmonisation, thanks to:
- clear, detailed directives, models, templates and benchmarks,
- shared validated terminology and phraseology resources,
- perfect coordination of whatever changes are necessary: all the translators must adopt whatever changes are deemed necessary at the same time, failing which harmonisation would become a time-consuming and expensive process,
- ongoing dialogue and regular progress reporting throughout the project,
- insistence on final harmonisation.
In project work, harmonisation is vital: any attempts by individual translators to be original inevitably threaten the whole project. This does not prevent translators from expressing doubts, making comments or suggestions, or pointing out apparent mistakes or discrepancies, but no change can be made unless and until it has been approved by the project manager and, from that moment, absolutely everyone must implement it.
4. Translators and finance, accounting, purchasing departments
For obvious reasons, translators need to keep on the good side of their work provider's accounting or finance department or purchasing department, and to get on well with the people involved.
This means the translator has to be careful to:
- supply all the financial and accounting paperwork required on time (as normally specified in the contract);
- make sure the documents supplied comply with the contract specifications.
It is also through the purchasing department - providing they are in charge of translation contracts - that the translator will be able to establish a good business relationship with the work provider and will get first hand information about future contracts or calls for tenders.
5. Translators and writers or designers
Contacts between the translator and the author/writer or the designer of the material to be translated generally occur when the translator needs clarification on a number of points.
The translator is, by definition, the author's or designer's most attentive reader, however arduous the task. He may need to consult with the author or designer of the material over content, organisation, or style. In other words: when there is something wrong or presumably wrong. And this is where caution is required.
One of the most devastating mistakes a young translator can make is to wrongly question an author's or designer's judgement. What the translator may take for a mistake is often perfectly legitimate in the technical field concerned and, in any case, trying to score points against the author of a technical document by pointing out 'mistakes' is a sure way of making a lifelong enemy.
Any queries or questions should be approached with tact and caution: "I don't quite see what is meant here" or "I'm not quite sure I understand what this refers to" are always preferable to a frontal attack. Frequently, the translator makes the writer realize that there was in fact an omission, a badly phrased or ambiguous sentence or even a genuine mistake in the text... But the translator should always tread carefully: any defect is most likely to be attributed to the word processor, the secretary, the typist or the student intern who either "made unwarranted changes" or, on the contrary, "did not correct what he/she had been instructed to correct". What the translator can hope will happen is greater awareness on the part of the author, who may be a bit more careful when next drafting a document.
What the translator also has to realize is that many of the people who write documentation are not professional writers, that many find it a chore and that, unlike the translator, most of them are primarily engineers and technicians... All the more reason why translators should take care not to antagonize them.
When translations are carried out in-house, relations between the translator and the author/writer or designer should normally be closer (they work on the same premises) easier (both work for the same company or organisation and both do serve the same interests) and more profitable (in that the author can explain meaning in detail and provide the translator with all the necessary information and explanations about the subject matter, the product, or the domain concerned).
6. Translators and proof-readers
The job of the proof-readers, in theory at least, is to correct whatever is blatantly wrong in a translation while at the same time identifying and pointing out anything they find strange or unusual or ambiguous. Since it is not their job to correct the translation proper, they are not felt to be actually passing judgement on the quality of the translator's work.
All the same, translators who rely on 'volunteer' proof-readers must be wary of exhausting potential resources. Even the most willing partners need some kind of compensation for their pains, in cash or in kind (i.e. free translation or other services in return). And translators must also be very careful not to place their proof-readers under the kind of pressure - in terms of notice and deadlines - that they themselves resent on the part of their work providers.
Even when the relationship with the proof-readers is defined within an institutional framework of some kind (e.g. when both the translator and the proofreader work for the same employer) the translator must be careful to stick to schedule and give the proof-reader sufficient notice for the job in hand.
7. Translators and revisers
The relationship between translators and revisers is often a difficult one. The reviser is all too often seen by the translator both as a quality assessor and as a stern and unforgiving schoolteacher, out to correct all 'mistakes'. No one, whatever the circumstances, enjoys being subjected to critical appraisal, especially when it is relentless and uncompromising, as the reviser's has to be. Many a translator feels tempted to take the easy way out of any problem and say: "Let the reviser get on with it then and do the translation himself, if he's so good at it..." To make things worse, the reviser may, at times, make rash corrections, overlooking the fact that the translator has had to compromise to come up with what seemed to him to be the only possible solution, albeit a not very satisfactory one.
If the reviser has been commissioned by the translator, problems seldom arise. Both will work as a team and share responsibility for the ultimate quality of the translation and also for the economic viability of the job. The translator soon learns that the reviser is there to add value, not to correct elementary mistakes, more especially as the price charged for the translation is the sum of the price paid for the translation and the price paid for the revision - meaning that it is in his best interest to make the time spent on revision as short as possible.
If the reviser has been commissioned by the work provider, the respective contracts of the translator and reviser are independent. The shift is from the idea of a partnership to that of a test of strength, with the reviser having the upper hand most if not all of the time.
Whatever the circumstances, both the translator and the reviser should, to avoid conflicts, consider that they are jointly and severally responsible for the quality of the end product in the sense that any failing on the part of either one will necessarily have a detrimental effect on the assessment of their joint performance. This implies:
1. that there should be a dialogue between the reviser and the translator, and that the latter should be able to defend his point of view and retain ultimate responsibility for making the corrections,
2. that the reviser's work should be carried out in optimal conditions for maximum efficiency.
This means:
- that a clear definition of the mutual responsibilities of the translator and the reviser should be spelled out in a written agreement;
- that unless otherwise specified, all translations submitted to the reviser should be of 'revisable' quality, i.e. in the right format, free of language- related errors, free of unintentional omissions, complete with the source material and the necessary resources, and with all the unresolved difficulties and remaining queries clearly indicated;
- that the reviser's corrections should be as light-handed as possible;
- that revision should move from simply correcting or post-editing the finished translation towards assessing and approving the basic resources and options and advising the translator before the beginning of the actual translation. This means that the role of the reviser has to shift from quality control and upgrading to quality assurance and advance validation. The reviser should thus become a previser.
A translator should at all costs avoid (a) irritating (b) annoying and (c) enraging the reviser. These successive states are usually brought on by the following:
- a significant number of 'elementary' mistakes that the translator could and should have corrected,
- repetitive errors (especially if they have already been pointed out and even corrected by the same reviser in previous translations),
- the translator deliberately trying to paper over hesitations or uncertainties,
- the translator leaving it to the reviser to sort out difficulties,
- the translator deliberately ignoring directions or advice given by the reviser prior to the start of the translation,
- non compliance with the work specifications,
- hard copies with single line spacing which are impossible to annotate,
- the presence of computer viruses in the files,...to mention but a few.
One simple rule that can help the reviser keep his hair on and stay on good terms with the translator is the following: each correction is made only once (i.e. on its first occurrence) and the translator is responsible for correcting all subsequent occurrences of the same mistake.
8. Translators and technical experts
Technical experts have a particular type of expertise that the translator does not possess and that is needed in the course of a particular project involving such skills as transcribing videos, burning subtitles, disassembling sites or programmes, converting or back converting files, re-designing Web page buttons or windows, changing software interfaces, programming runtimes, etc.
The first priority in this context is to define the respective roles of the translator and the technical experts. The prime responsibility is generally decided by the work provider or his prime contractor when awarding the contract for the job. Given a choice, it is generally thought advisable to award the contract for the whole project to the translator when the latter has the required technical know-how in the sense that he has a good understanding of the different phases of the project, the expected outcomes, the resources required and how long each phase should ideally take.
If the translator (or project manager) is given responsibility for organising the whole process, he should:
- take the time to explain to the technical experts what the 'translating bit' is about,
- carefully schedule the various actions by the technical experts,
- spell out the required specifications for each job,
- specify the quality control tests and procedures,
- specify who will responsible for making any corrections, and at what stage,
- only approach competent specialists in the areas concerned,
- be careful to prepare and forward the necessary sets of materials to the relevant operators on schedule and check that all the necessary equipment and software is available,
- specify the destination of the end-results (and where exactly they should be forwarded).
If, on the contrary, the translator is working for the technical experts, he should:
- ask the experts to clarify exactly what his responsibilities will be,
- specifically ask to be shown where his work fits into the overall schedule,
- ask for a detailed set of specifications,
- find out what quality control tests and procedures will be applied,
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