| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | My diversified client portfolio dried up! Thread poster: Tom in London
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Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:03
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Hopping from segment to segment | Feb 13, 2016 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
Just last night I jumped around all over the place in memoQ doing what I could describe as "the easy bits".
So glad it's not just me doing this!
Dan
| | | | | I do it too... | Feb 13, 2016 |
Dan Lucas wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
Just last night I jumped around all over the place in memoQ doing what I could describe as "the easy bits". So glad it's not just me doing this! Dan
makes it more fun and keeps you awake... 
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Charlie Bavington wrote:
Just last night I jumped around all over the place in memoQ doing what I could describe as "the easy bits".
I do it particularly in two cases:
1. To start getting the discounted segments done quickly. This makes it easier to manage the time spent on them so they don't consume more time than what is justified by the lower word rate (with the aim of obtaining the same hourly rate as for the non-discounted segments). When that's done, I go back to normal translation mode where I can care properly for the language.
2. At the end of the day when I'm tired. Then I can continue with the more demanding bits next day.
| | | | Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 20:03
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
It didn't occur to me that people might think you're supposed to translate a text in a preset order when using a CAT tool. Just another misconception, obviously.
Charlie Bavington has summed it up quite well. I'm afraid the effort is wasted here, though - The OP somehow has come to the firm belief that CAT tools wouldn't be useful for his line of work, and that working with a CAT tool makes translation a boring task or is suitable only for boring texts. One major feature of a belief... See more It didn't occur to me that people might think you're supposed to translate a text in a preset order when using a CAT tool. Just another misconception, obviously.
Charlie Bavington has summed it up quite well. I'm afraid the effort is wasted here, though - The OP somehow has come to the firm belief that CAT tools wouldn't be useful for his line of work, and that working with a CAT tool makes translation a boring task or is suitable only for boring texts. One major feature of a belief: It's immune to reasoning. From the criticisms Tom brings forward against CAT tools, it is quite clear that his knowledge of what they actually do is very limited, and that he is not open to change that.
I've said it before: In my book, "I don't like it" is a perfectly valid reason not to use CAT tools. And even if you prefer writing your translations with a quill in the light of a wax candle - more power to you, as long as it makes sense businesswise, or if it's just a hobby.
Attempts to put oneself above other translators that do use CAT software by insinuating that they were delivering substandard work that could only be done well without a CAT tool are as helpless as they are ridiculous, though. ▲ Collapse
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| Well, I agree | Feb 13, 2016 |
Erik Freitag wrote:
Attempts to put oneself above other translators that do use CAT software by insinuating that they were delivering substandard work that could only be done well without a CAT tool are as helpless as they are ridiculous, though.
Fortunately this misconception is not very widspread, on the contrary, CAT are very useful for consistency for all kind of translations. Perhaps it is just ignorance (in the sense that they ignore the real usefulness of a CAT.
And yes, startng from the beginning is absolutely not a requirement, I am jumping right now (for example).
| | | | | Drip, drip, drip | Feb 13, 2016 |
Erik Freitag wrote:
It didn't occur to me that people might think you're supposed to translate a text in a preset order when using a CAT tool. Just another misconception, obviously.
Yeah, it is enlightening to see. I'm genuinely glad he mentioned it. There must be other people thinking similarly untrue things. If we've helped shed some light, and someone, somewhere benefits (and Tom surely has, at least!) then it's a positive outcome.
I'm afraid the effort is wasted here, though - The OP somehow has come to the firm belief that CAT tools wouldn't be useful for his line of work, and that working with a CAT tool makes translation a boring task or is suitable only for boring texts. One major feature of a belief: It's immune to reasoning. From the criticisms Tom brings forward against CAT tools, it is quite clear that his knowledge of what they actually do is very limited, and that he is not open to change that.
Well, some people do change their minds eventually. I don't much care whether Tom uses a CAT or not
But I do care about faulty reasoning, and the dissemination of false information, no matter how innocently done. (See that "someone's wrong on the internet" cartoon - that's me, that is!) And of course, any given thread is not solely for the OP's benefit. And the dripping of bits of information, the chipping away at false arguments, can have an effect over time.
Tom has said he does property valuation reports. I did a bunch of about a dozen last year. By the time the tenth one rolled around, I was able to kick off memoQ to autotranslate 100% matches, and I earned €100 while I was away in the kitchen making a cup of tea. Yeah, I know, it's crass to talk in such a way. But them's the facts.
I've said it before: In my book, "I don't like it" is a perfectly valid reason not to use CAT tools. No argument here Just don't try to justify it with untruths.
| | | | | Discounted segments | Feb 13, 2016 |
I just checked a recent, concrete translation of 11374 words, out of which 8271 were paid at full rate and the rest discounted at various percentages.
So as to provide what the client paid for, and nothing more, I started by completing all the discounted segments. That took me 1 hour and 10 minutes for the 3103 words. Out of the 3103 words, 2177 were in 100 % matches (on segment basis) or repetitions.
The fully paid words took me 18 hours and 23 minutes, final reviewing... See more I just checked a recent, concrete translation of 11374 words, out of which 8271 were paid at full rate and the rest discounted at various percentages.
So as to provide what the client paid for, and nothing more, I started by completing all the discounted segments. That took me 1 hour and 10 minutes for the 3103 words. Out of the 3103 words, 2177 were in 100 % matches (on segment basis) or repetitions.
The fully paid words took me 18 hours and 23 minutes, final reviewing included.
Calculating my hourly rate for the fully paid words and the discounted words, I reached the result that the rate for the two different parts was the same (within an insignificant margin).
This hourly rate is not far from what I was able to earn as an independent mainframe (IT) consultant in my previous career.
So to earn a decent pay for 18 hours and 23 minutes of interesting work, I had to do 1 hour and 10 minutes of less interesting work. Is that so terrible? Which professions consist of 100 % super interesting tasks only?
Sure, the discounted segments are not as perfect as the fully paid segments, but that's the client's choice, not mine; I do what I can reasonably do in the shorter timeframe given, and if the client wants house wine for one person out of 19, I give them house wine for that one person and good wine for the others.
This was a car-related translation, and they absolutely depend on different translators' using a consistent technical vocabulary, so using their term base in Memsource is a must for them. Having their technical terms readily available also makes the job easier so I can focus more on making the text flow instead of spending time looking up in dictionaries.
I shall not complain. There is no need to exaggerate how terrible or not this is. Not much in life is perfect, so instead of complaining about the discounted segments principle, I make the best possible out of it instead. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I'm going to emphasise this point too | Feb 13, 2016 |
Angie Garbarino wrote:
CAT are very useful for consistency for all kind of translations.
By the same token, indeed using the same processes, they are also invaluable if you need to be inconsistent, i.e. if you need to make sure you are varying your turns of phrase. If it is crucial to your self-perception as a worthy successor to Shakespeare himself, if it is vital to your wordsmithery that you are never caught using the same word for the same thing twice, a CAT tool can help achieve these goals.
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Arianne Farah
Canada
Local time: 14:03
Member (2008)
English to French
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: Dan Lucas wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
Just last night I jumped around all over the place in memoQ doing what I could describe as "the easy bits". So glad it's not just me doing this! Dan makes it more fun and keeps you awake...
Though I use Trados Studio - especially in times such as now when if you can just imagine a cat SURROUNDED my mice with the catch phrase 'I haz too much work' and then just culling the lame ones to at least seem like they're getting something done
When I'm pulling 12-hour days 20 days in a row including weekends, sometimes it's nice to 'relax', put on some background TV and just go through the 95% and above matches because they require less concentration (usually, in Trados, it's a tag thing).
Before you ask, I have no idea how February got this crazy; I've been turning down projects right and left and cherry picking the most profitable ones; and once I'm 'base booked' - i.e. booked about 15,000 words/week which is 5 6-hour days, give or take, I only take non weighed projects with more than 50% match in my TM or I ask for a 50% surcharge in the hopes the PM will find another translator (I never say 'no'; I find it helps the business relationship to always say 'yes, however').
To get back on topic though, I also have lulls, sometimes nothing comes in for 2 weeks and I start to panic a bit, but I always book up afterwards - our business is highly cyclical. If, within an agency, you're only working with 1 PM or for 1 end client, once that PM leaves or the client's contract is over, it's like you're starting all over again. If an agency starts giving you TONS of work from a particular client, mark the date, chances are on the same date the next year or the year after, it'll dry up once the contract is over, so you have to see things like that coming and plan ahead for them. You can also cultivate your relationship with PMs, those who have been in the business for a few years tend to stay in the business and they'll bring you with them when they change agency, so there is a way to mitigate that particular risk.
Lastly, never turn down a itsy bitsy project from a new end client at a good agency.... I've had a 150-word weekend job turn into a 60,000 word project. It's so easy to ignore those little rush jobs and just answer Monday, but if you're already at your computer, checking your email, what's 20 minutes of work - the PM will be so very grateful they don't have to keep emailing and calling translators over the weekend, you get major brownie points, and they'll remember you next time they have a well-funded project. It's all part of the customer service I offer as a business; and it gives a good ROI over time.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:03
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER | Way off topic | Feb 13, 2016 |
We're so far off-topic now that I've set my email programme to automatically trash all notifications.
| | | | 564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 20:03
Danish to English
+ ...
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
2. At the end of the day when I'm tired. Then I can continue with the more demanding bits next day.
And when I just want to get something out of the way, e.g. literature lists or something that needs to be formatted in a specific way (yes, Studio does a lot of this, but not all), or text that is not to be translated, which I may choose to lock, or text that is loaded with tags... or anything, really, that I would otherwise have to make a mental note of remembering to do throughout the remaining text.
Out of curiosity, Tom, do you overwrite the source text as you translate? I.e. you work (presumably?) in a copy of the source text, while keeping the actual source text at hand, printed or somewhere else on your screen or on another screen?
This is one of the things I really like about working in Studio, i.e. that you always keep the original source file at hand, next to each segment. I.e. you don't have to go rummaging through a separate file to check what your otherwise brilliant translation was based on.
And back to the opening topic: Thanks for sharing this. It is encouraging to know that this happens to others, too... In all of my (15) years as a translator, I have never seen anything that would indicate a reliable pattern or trends in the industry. A myriad of factors outside our control can affect our clients temporarily or permanently. We all need to keep flexible, I guess. But it does get tough at times...
| | | | | We had permission :) | Feb 13, 2016 |
Tom in London wrote:
In accordance with Proz rule 376,576,687 this discussion can now wander off-topic.
________
seriously though: during various past lulls I have had a go at CAT tools and hated them all.
If you get permission from the OP to change the topic, is the new topic really off-topic?
I'd suggest using the lull to have another look. FWIW, I had a lull in Jan and used it to (relatively) calmly buy new hardware and software and play around a bit.
Back on the old topic, which is now off-topic because you changed the topic (!), if clients have gone dormant, you can:
a) ask them why - I use email 'cos it's less confrontational and no reply is all the reply I need anyway
b) chill (with or without netflix) and hope some word of mouth kicks in sooner not later
c) actively seek out new ones, by whatever means you prefer. I had some success a couple of years ago by "connecting" with some names from the past on LinkedIn. I've been on the verge of an agency trawl a couple of times in the last 5 years, but then the old faces come back and it proved unnecessary.
Other people may have more aggressive tactics, but I can't see how folks who have 20 different clients a month cope with it all, so I'm happier dealing with smaller numbers, with the extra risk that entails.
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:03
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Oh, he uses a CAT tool | Feb 13, 2016 |
Erik Freitag wrote:
The OP somehow has come to the firm belief that CAT tools wouldn't be useful for his line of work, and that working with a CAT tool makes translation a boring task or is suitable only for boring texts. One major feature of a belief: It's immune to reasoning.
Well, you're right, but in the interests of accuracy allow me to remind you that Tom has more than once commented that he uses a complex system of macros in Word to help him translate. Ergo, he is using a CAT system, just one that was built and customised for the use of one person.
Whether Tom's CAT tool is built and customised well is another issue. One suspects that the concepts fit Tom perfectly but that the execution may be, ah, lacking. As Paul Graham persuasively argued in the Blub paradox, people using lesser tools do not accept that their tools are inferior, because they do not understand the power conferred by advanced features of superior tools - indeed, the paradox predicts that they will dismiss such features as "unnecessary". As you say, a religious belief is not open to question or reasoning.
Anyway, the thread is approaching its natural end. We have got to the stage where Tom has poked the hornet's nest and is complaining in surprised tones about hornets. Soon he will say something snarky and somebody else will be mean back to him. Then he will claim that he would never say something as rude to another person, ignore everybody else pointing out that he did in fact do just that, and depart in a huff. The thread will continue for a few posts then roll to a gentle halt.
Just another day on the ProZ forum. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Regards
Dan
[Edited at 2016-02-13 16:13 GMT]
| | | | | The diverse kinds of diversification | Feb 13, 2016 |
In answer to Tom's original question: it hasn't happened to me. I have lost a couple of regular clients (agencies) over the years when the end clients no longer needed translations, but I think the reason why I haven't lost several at once is because my workload is diverse in various ways. Firstly in terms of language pairs, secondly in terms of the number of countries my source languages are spoken in (I get a fair amount of French work relating to African countries and sometimes Belgium/Switze... See more In answer to Tom's original question: it hasn't happened to me. I have lost a couple of regular clients (agencies) over the years when the end clients no longer needed translations, but I think the reason why I haven't lost several at once is because my workload is diverse in various ways. Firstly in terms of language pairs, secondly in terms of the number of countries my source languages are spoken in (I get a fair amount of French work relating to African countries and sometimes Belgium/Switzerland as well as France, Russian work relating to former CIS states and Romanian work relating to both Romania and Moldova), and thirdly in terms of subjects, as I work primarily in three "core" fields and a few others now and then. And my main three fields at the moment (law, business and international development) aren't so closely interconnected that a downturn in activity in one area would affect both of the others, so if things did slow down in one of them, I shouldn't lose too many clients at once - in theory! I have struck what I hope is a reasonable balance between risk avoidance and getting out of my depth; there are plenty of fields I don't touch, and sometimes I even turn down work in my stated fields if I think there is too much new/difficult terminology for me to take on a job (for example, I translate a lot of legal documents but wouldn't nornally touch certain areas of law such as land law).
[Edited at 2016-02-13 23:51 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Laura Kingdon
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:03
Member (2015)
French to English
+ ...
| In response to the original question... | Feb 14, 2016 |
Things have been very quiet for me for about the past two months, and I think I diversify about as much as I can normally handle. I can't say I haven't been panicking a little bit... but then, on Friday, I got three jobs of decent sizes all at once. I guess it just happens, but I always feel like I must have done a really bad job in some way... even when there's nothing to suggest that's the case.
Anyway, I've been using the time to work on broadening my knowledge so I can specializ... See more Things have been very quiet for me for about the past two months, and I think I diversify about as much as I can normally handle. I can't say I haven't been panicking a little bit... but then, on Friday, I got three jobs of decent sizes all at once. I guess it just happens, but I always feel like I must have done a really bad job in some way... even when there's nothing to suggest that's the case.
Anyway, I've been using the time to work on broadening my knowledge so I can specialize a bit more as a translator, so it hasn't been completely wasted.
FWIW, I use Trados. I don't think the lull has anything to do with CAT, even if that seemed to be the primary suggestion of some on both the threads I've seen lately about work drying up. ▲ Collapse
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