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Have you ever considered leaving this industry and this site?
Thread poster: Little Woods
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Comfortable, no Apr 6, 2015

Teresa Borges wrote:

Like Tom I must say though that I don't need to worry too much about my income as I receive a comfortable pension…


Mine is anything but comfortable, which is partly why I keep on working. I **do** need to earn a particular amount per month, to avoid digging into my savings.


 
Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 11:26
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Keep a break Apr 6, 2015

Little Woods wrote:

Recently, I grew tired of the industry and the site to the point that I stop applying to new project posts. Just spending my time on the holiday and daily activities, sleeping, meeting friends. It wasn't that I overworked. Last year I had moderate workload and I was satisfied with that but the last few months made me thought alot and just got depressed and tired of the working and participating here.


It is quite normal to feel down and depressed sometimes, some call it burn-out. Try to get exercise and a hobby and wait until you get into higher spirit.


 
brg (X)
brg (X)
Netherlands
This site Apr 6, 2015

is not the translation industry.

 
Diana Coada (X)
Diana Coada (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Please look beyond ProZ Apr 6, 2015

houtberg wrote:

This site is not the translation industry.


[Edited at 2015-04-06 16:11 GMT]


 
Bernhard Sulzer
Bernhard Sulzer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:26
English to German
+ ...
There's more to life Apr 6, 2015

Diana Coada, PGDip DPSI NRPSI wrote:

houtberg wrote:

This site is not the translation industry.


[Edited at 2015-04-06 16:11 GMT]


Yes. And look even beyond translating, unfortunately.


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 14:56
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
You really don't have the option Apr 7, 2015

If you are a professional translator, and not a hobbyist or an amateur, translation is what you are trained to do best. You can't do anything else better. So the option of quitting translation really just does not exist. Of course you need to earn your bread from translation, but that is not the only motivation that keeps professional translators going - they genuinely like what they do and would like to continue translating just for the sake of translating.

As for this site, as oth
... See more
If you are a professional translator, and not a hobbyist or an amateur, translation is what you are trained to do best. You can't do anything else better. So the option of quitting translation really just does not exist. Of course you need to earn your bread from translation, but that is not the only motivation that keeps professional translators going - they genuinely like what they do and would like to continue translating just for the sake of translating.

As for this site, as others have said, you surely realise that there is much more to translation than proz.ocm?
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Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 14:56
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
The secret Apr 7, 2015

Tom in London wrote:

Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei wrote:

......... buying some bonds (over here we get 27% interest per annum


!!! Tell me how !!!!


Most likely, the inflation rate there is 30%, which leaves an effective yield at a more reasonable -3%!


http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ghana/inflation-cpi

[Edited at 2015-04-07 03:27 GMT]


 
Arianne Farah
Arianne Farah  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 05:26
Member (2008)
English to French
Maybe in a decade... Apr 7, 2015

I love translating, I'm good at it, I can do it from anywhere (as of April 20th, I'll be leaving my apartment behind and going nomadic - airbnb is a wonderful thing - staying 2-3 months here and there). I own property and know that in the worst case scenario I'd be able to live off of my rental income alone, but I'm 30 years away from retirement so I expect to quadruple that amount by then (in today's dollars).

That being said, I have to plan for a 30 year horizon and I cannot be ce
... See more
I love translating, I'm good at it, I can do it from anywhere (as of April 20th, I'll be leaving my apartment behind and going nomadic - airbnb is a wonderful thing - staying 2-3 months here and there). I own property and know that in the worst case scenario I'd be able to live off of my rental income alone, but I'm 30 years away from retirement so I expect to quadruple that amount by then (in today's dollars).

That being said, I have to plan for a 30 year horizon and I cannot be certain that we won't reach a point where MT will be used for medical, technical and financial texts (my specialties) by then. The next 10 years, no worries, but 15, 20, 25? who knows. I've started a Masters degree in Computational Linguistics, I'm going to potter around for the next few years, taking a single class at a time - any more and I would have to cut down on my work load or cut corners which wouldn't be good professionally or academically. After that there are very interesting PhD programs out there and the field is enough in demand that it pays students a very decent wage - at that point I would have to take a decision on whether to continue translating or move to academics full-time. However by then we will be several years in the future, my horizon will be shorter and my knowledge of the science behind such things as MT and where the field is going will be much better, allowing me to make a more informed choice.

Rather than risk becoming obsolete in a couple of decades, I'm taking steps to future-proof my career since my experience as a translator will be an asset should I choose to work in machine translation. Working as a 'post-editor' is just not an option for me. I'd rather be the researcher or programmer in that scenario.
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Little Woods
Little Woods  Identity Verified
Vietnam
English to Vietnamese
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you all for your comforting words and inputs Apr 7, 2015

I wasn't really depressed in a medical sense but it is more like I was upset. I am also not worried about the income for this year as I have enough to last till end of the year. As for other investments, I also thought of it but my savings is not that much for the time being so that is my future goal. Right now I am about to complete my medical degree to strengthen and officialize my existing specialization in this field so I am covered in the continuing education aspect. Btw, I like reading abo... See more
I wasn't really depressed in a medical sense but it is more like I was upset. I am also not worried about the income for this year as I have enough to last till end of the year. As for other investments, I also thought of it but my savings is not that much for the time being so that is my future goal. Right now I am about to complete my medical degree to strengthen and officialize my existing specialization in this field so I am covered in the continuing education aspect. Btw, I like reading about life sciences so I am partially doing what I like.

I was upset because lately I've experience a lot of the downsides of this profession in this site. My new clients and PMs seem more rude, unresponsive after all my effort of communicating. I was turned down from the project I have been in for years because of the new recruiter's doubt on my time zone, others on my rate. I am also sad with the backhanded behaviors between competitors. The last thing was I received an email via my profile asking me to joint a company where translator would work in their spare time for some pocket money (Their ads said so) and those translator could be students, housewife and professional translators. I wonder what was wrong with my profile that it turned out this way as from my profile I am not a student and don't aim for pocket money. I don't want clients who out to look for first come with lowest price translator. It also made me think has this profession stooped to this level after the interference of the Asia-based agencies (you name it). The only happy event was that my PM told me I was praised by the client who is my fellow countryman living oversea. There are some other things that set me in a bad mood. I feel that my work is not appreciated or may be I was just a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.



[Edited at 2015-04-07 09:27 GMT]
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Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei  Identity Verified
Ghana
Local time: 09:26
Japanese to English
That's just the way it is. Apr 7, 2015

Tom in London wrote:

Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei wrote:

......... buying some bonds (over here we get 27% interest per annum


!!! Tell me how !!!!

There's no how about it, that's just the rate. http://www.bog.gov.gh/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=86 is actually on the low side. It can get as high as 29% depending on where you invest and what the BoG rate is at the time.

The actual inflation rate (on the ground, not in the government's books) is much higher than that, so you're barely staying afloat by investing. I'm assuming the situation would be a little more encouraging in Vietnam.


 
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 10:26
English to Polish
+ ...
Yes Apr 30, 2015

Little Woods wrote:

Have you ever considered leaving this industry and this site?

Recently, I grew tired of the industry and the site to the point that I stop applying to new project posts. Just spending my time on the holiday and daily activities, sleeping, meeting friends. It wasn't that I overworked. Last year I had moderate workload and I was satisfied with that but the last few months made me thought alot and just got depressed and tired of the working and participating here.


I am frustrated with the low quality or low attractiveness (or both) of PolishEnglish jobs posted here. This includes:

– posters who expect a full-sized private tender for a 100-word translation (or otherwise very short)
– posters who act like morons who have 5 days for the project but spend the first 4 selecting the translator (you check this by comparing quoting deadlines with project deadlines)
– posters from the UK or USA or some other Western/affluent country, who expect to pay below Polish average (this is a country with 3 times smaller average or minimal wage than in their own, and they still try to pay below its average translation prices)
– posters who stop barely short of expecting you to work free of charge in consideration of the 'exciting opportunity' bestowed on you to work for Their Magnificent Companies
– low rates and clearly unprofessional budgets, even from companies who claim to be professional

Everyfreakingbody seems to be looking for the bargain of his lifetime.

However, one can't blame the site or its staff for this, or only to a limited extent.

***

As for leaving the 'industry' — and I resent the word 'industry' — I have similar reasons but also:

– lack of appreciation for the translator's work or the education and talent required
– lack of understanding of our work and the potential of that lack of understanding to affect our liability since it's so easy to sue us for not being infallible, not having infinite attention spans, not being a machine essentially (and we all know how a machine translates)
– agencies' expectation to build up one's own or one's client's ego at the translator's expense, a bit like with concierge services sometimes, a tendency for agencies and translators to make it a concierge service that's not really about translation but more about pleasing the client (where 'pleasuring' might be the more appropriate word)
– sometimes frustration with how wrong original authors are or how they don't seem to think logically
– rude clients


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Lion Apr 30, 2015

Richard Foulkes wrote:

......when work is slow ..... your brain needs stimulation or it can start to work against you. I think a caged animal in a zoo walking around in circles is a good metaphor.


Interesting thought, Richard. I wonder if any research has been done into this? In my experience, the psychological stimulus of a period of very intense, highly focussed intellectual work (translating over several days) followed by the sudden change of finishing the translation and doing nothing at all, must be a syndrome that has a name.


 
Richard Foulkes (X)
Richard Foulkes (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
German to English
+ ...
It must have Tom... Apr 30, 2015

I also sometimes wonder what percentage of our brains we use as translators since it's essentially just one main process (plus proofreading and research), albeit your brain can end up pretty 'fried' after a marathon job.

There must also be another term for the struggle to get back into your stride with that first job after a quiet spell (unless that's just me!).


 
Diana Obermeyer
Diana Obermeyer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
Member (2013)
German to English
+ ...
Frozen gearbox??? Apr 30, 2015

Richard Foulkes wrote:

I also sometimes wonder what percentage of our brains we use as translators since it's essentially just one main process (plus proofreading and research), albeit your brain can end up pretty 'fried' after a marathon job.

There must also be another term for the struggle to get back into your stride with that first job after a quiet spell (unless that's just me!).


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:26
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Just wear one of these Apr 30, 2015

This should help anyone who can't refocus:

http://laughingsquid.com/the-isolator-a-bizarre-helmet-for-encouraging-concentration-1925/


 
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