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Underpaid, need advice on reaction
Thread poster: Sally Wals
Sally Wals
Sally Wals  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 06:01
Japanese to English
Oct 23, 2014

Hi everyone,

So I did the wrong thing- I did not check the the amount I would be paid before I completed a job. I am kicking myself about that, but I would like to ask advice on what I should do now.

I just translated an 8 page brochure with 4183 source characters, which apparently I can only ask $92.80 for.
Now that I check, the email they initially sent with the final details regarding payment says that they will charge 0.05 USD per target word; there are only 1
... See more
Hi everyone,

So I did the wrong thing- I did not check the the amount I would be paid before I completed a job. I am kicking myself about that, but I would like to ask advice on what I should do now.

I just translated an 8 page brochure with 4183 source characters, which apparently I can only ask $92.80 for.
Now that I check, the email they initially sent with the final details regarding payment says that they will charge 0.05 USD per target word; there are only 1,921 words in my translation. I guess I just read it as "0.05 USD per source character"; I know I should be more savvy. I'm into my 3rd month of freelancing so I guess something like this had to happen at some point to make sure I was paying attention.

I have emailed them and asked them if there is any way we can re-negotiate, and they said no; that they already confirmed everything with the end client etc.

1) An estimated total of between $195 and $214 was on the initial post (in the 'Budget and payment details' table down the bottom); however the PM said that they were not able to see this, and that those figures popped up automatically. Is this true/ possible that they were not able to see this?

2) They say they used an OCR programme and word count to calculate the number of source characters, which they said was 2619. I copied the entire source text and dumped it into a word doc, and the character total comes to 4183. Does anyone know a reason for this discrepancy? I know the final price must be based on target words, I just want to let them know what I SHOULD have been paid. I can't think of a reason for a discrepancy of 1564 characters.

3) I want to make sure that nobody else gets ripped off. Blue Board seems the way to go. They have no prior entries, and I get the strong feeling that the PM's non-willingness to understand my outrage at $92.80 for 8 pages stems from inexperience (when I asked him for a PO, he told me I could choose my own invoice number...?), and that maybe the PM might have been taken advantage of a little by the end client. If anyone has experience writing a negative entry on the Blue Board, I would love to hear your advice! I've told the PM twice that $92.80 is tooo cheap, they just say that this is what the client wants, and they cannot change it.

Sorry for the long entry, but I feel entirely awful and angry at myself and the PM about the whole thing because I always work really hard on translations, and would really appreciate some advice from those of you more experienced than myself.

Thank you in advance,

Sally
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Michael Grant
Michael Grant
Japan
Local time: 07:01
Japanese to English
Chalk this one up to experience... Oct 23, 2014

I hate to say it, but I think you might just have to chalk this one up to experience. The job is already completed (have you sent it to them yet?), so I can't imagine they would budge on price at this point.

If you haven't sent in the file yet, then you could refuse to do so, but I wouldn't recommend that: it may be unfair but, it would tend to make YOU look bad instead of them.

Maybe someone else has a "brilliant" idea that will work, but that's my take on the situatio
... See more
I hate to say it, but I think you might just have to chalk this one up to experience. The job is already completed (have you sent it to them yet?), so I can't imagine they would budge on price at this point.

If you haven't sent in the file yet, then you could refuse to do so, but I wouldn't recommend that: it may be unfair but, it would tend to make YOU look bad instead of them.

Maybe someone else has a "brilliant" idea that will work, but that's my take on the situation.

Can anyone else chime in with a suggestion?

P.S. The character count discrepancy could stem from them not counting repeated kanji combinations...yes, some clients are THAT stingy!

MLG4035

[Edited at 2014-10-23 08:55 GMT]
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Merab Dekano
Merab Dekano  Identity Verified
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
PO Oct 23, 2014

Sally Wals wrote:

Hi everyone,

So I did the wrong thing- I did not check the the amount I would be paid before I completed a job. I am kicking myself about that, but I would like to ask advice on what I should do now.

I just translated an 8 page brochure with 4183 source characters, which apparently I can only ask $92.80 for.
Now that I check, the email they initially sent with the final details regarding payment says that they will charge 0.05 USD per target word; there are only 1,921 words in my translation. I guess I just read it as "0.05 USD per source character"; I know I should be more savvy. I'm into my 3rd month of freelancing so I guess something like this had to happen at some point to make sure I was paying attention.

I have emailed them and asked them if there is any way we can re-negotiate, and they said no; that they already confirmed everything with the end client etc.

1) An estimated total of between $195 and $214 was on the initial post (in the 'Budget and payment details' table down the bottom); however the PM said that they were not able to see this, and that those figures popped up automatically. Is this true/ possible that they were not able to see this?

2) They say they used an OCR programme and word count to calculate the number of source characters, which they said was 2619. I copied the entire source text and dumped it into a word doc, and the character total comes to 4183. Does anyone know a reason for this discrepancy? I know the final price must be based on target words, I just want to let them know what I SHOULD have been paid. I can't think of a reason for a discrepancy of 1564 characters.

3) I want to make sure that nobody else gets ripped off. Blue Board seems the way to go. They have no prior entries, and I get the strong feeling that the PM's non-willingness to understand my outrage at $92.80 for 8 pages stems from inexperience (when I asked him for a PO, he told me I could choose my own invoice number...?), and that maybe the PM might have been taken advantage of a little by the end client. If anyone has experience writing a negative entry on the Blue Board, I would love to hear your advice! I've told the PM twice that $92.80 is tooo cheap, they just say that this is what the client wants, and they cannot change it.

Sorry for the long entry, but I feel entirely awful and angry at myself and the PM about the whole thing because I always work really hard on translations, and would really appreciate some advice from those of you more experienced than myself.

Thank you in advance,

Sally



Hi Sally

Pacta sunt servanda. Your reputation as a freelance translator costs much more than USD100 or even USD1000.

There are different "methods" to calculate what you will be paid. Some agencies pay me per source word, others per target word. Now, before I start work, I ALWAYS get PO and it ALWAYS states how I will be paid.

If you agreed on per target word method, I do not think there is any reason o room to renegotiate anything. If you think USD0.05 per target word is too low a rate (which it is), do not accept the work in the first place.

You can make a negative entry on Blue Board, but do you think the agency did anything wrong? What are you going to put there? That you took "character" for "word"?

If they pay you what they promised, no matter how low it is, they are not to blame. If nobody accepts work at lower rates than "industry standard", agencies will stop asking for silly rates. Now, that is ideal world and we are living in the real one.

My advice will be:

- Abide by the agreement, deliver the work, make sure you are paid
- Check and double check the conditions in the future and decide whether they are "fair to you" and "fair to the rest of your colleagues".


 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:01
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
What did you agree to? Oct 23, 2014

Sally Wals wrote:
Now that I check, the email they initially sent with the final details regarding payment says that they will charge 0.05 USD per target word

If this is the arrangement to which you agreed, I don't think you have a realistic chance of getting it changed. If it had been $0.05 per source character and 4183 characters then you'd have got $209 - $116 more than it looks like you're going to get. $116 is a decent sum of money, but it's not the end of the world.

I understand that you might find it galling, but how much more time and emotional energy do you plan to put into trying to "right" the situation? If you spend four hours going back and forth with the agency on this issue, and assume pessimistically that you can make $30 an hour, then you've already wasted $120 of working time on a job that's already over.

That $120 is more than the $116 you would get if you were to win your argument with the agency! I can see why you may feel it is unfair, but unless they actively deceived you is there any point in throwing good money/time after bad?

I'm also new to freelancing. I made a mistake recently when I carelessly accepted a job in which the deadline in the final PO was one day earlier than the deadline in the job posting - and it was already a very tight rush job. I still think that it was unprofessional and borderline duplicitous on the part of the company to make that change without flagging it to me. But ultimately it was my decision to take the PO and my fault. I completed the job successfully and have had more work from the agency since.

To be sure, I did consider criticising the agency on the Blue Board for the shift in the deadline on that first job. Instead I took the view that it was a (painful) piece of education, resolved to be more careful in future, stopped worrying about it and moved on. Perhaps - again, I say this with sympathy not as a criticism - you should do likewise?

Dan


[Edited at 2014-10-23 23:45 GMT]


 
ATIL KAYHAN
ATIL KAYHAN  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 01:01
Member (2007)
Turkish to English
+ ...
Misreading the payment information Oct 23, 2014

It is pretty normal that you feel bad about all this. However, you need to know that this will only happen once. It will not happen for the second time. Now that you are experienced, you will probably check the payment information twice.

Long ago, I did a short translation which I do not even remember the topic. I sent them the completed translation with hopes of getting paid as soon as possible. I had not heard from them ever again. Unfortunately, these things happen.


 
Sally Wals
Sally Wals  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 06:01
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks! Would love to see more opinions Oct 23, 2014

I'm on the cusp of sending my third email about this to them, and am going to make it my last, because as you say Dan, what a further waste of my time!

Thank you both for writing conscientious answers.

I am absolutely aware that this will, in the end, be a painful educational experience. Would still love to see some more opinions!

(BTW I think I forgot to mention- this was Japanese to English.)


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 23:01
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
You got yourself a low-paying agency Oct 23, 2014

Sally Wals wrote:
Now that I check, the email they initially sent with the final details regarding payment says that they will pay 0.05 USD per target word (there are only 1,921 words in my translation). I guess I just read it as "0.05 USD per source character" [by mistake].


In my experience, USD 0.05 per word is a normal rate for Middle-Eastern, Indian and Chinese agencies. It is a rather low rate, if you're used to the higher rates paid by Western-European and Anglo-American agencies. However, some of those low-paying agencies do go out of their way to make the job simpler for the translator, which means that you can do "more" work than usual.

I assume the job was Japanese to English, right? In English, the average word length is 5-6 characters.

1) An estimated total of between $195 and $214 was on the initial post (in the 'Budget and payment details' table down the bottom); however the PM said that they were not able to see this, and that those figures popped up automatically. Is this true/ possible that they were not able to see this?


If the e-mail is generated automatically, from some kind of system, then it is possible, yes.

It is a good idea to repeat the offered rate and the deadline in your reply, e.g. "I accept your offer of $195 and I accept the deadline of Thursday, October 23 at 12:00 PST". This helps the PM a lot, to spot time or budget mistakes (for mistakes can be made).

2) They say they used an OCR programme and word count to calculate the number of source characters, which they said was 2619. I copied the entire source text and dumped it into a word doc, and the character total comes to 4183. Does anyone know a reason for this discrepancy?


It may be that they always use the OCR program (because some PDFs are dead and you can't copy from it), and it may be that either their OCR program or their word count program wasn't set to "Japanese". How many spaces and punctuation marks do you have in your copied source text?

Unfortunately, you agreed (with the original e-mail) to be paid USD 0.05 per target word, so even if there is a discrepancy in their source character count and your source character count, it's not relevant because the final price is not based on the source character count.

I get the strong feeling that the PM's non-willingness to understand my outrage at $92.80 for 8 pages stems from inexperience (when I asked him for a PO, he told me I could choose my own invoice number...?), and that maybe the PM might have been taken advantage of a little by the end client.


For some agencies, a "PO" is simply a number that they associate with the project. For others, it is is a formal document with various bits of information on it. Either way, you are usually able to choose your own invoice number anyway (the format of the invoice number that you're supposed to use is usually regulated by your own country's tax laws).

USD 0.05 per word is not a bad rate, for agencies in those parts of the world where it is a normal rate. The PM may not understand your outrage because in his country (or in his agency) it is a normal rate.


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 22:01
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Samuel has given the bottom line Oct 23, 2014

Samuel Murray wrote:
Unfortunately, you agreed (with the original e-mail) to be paid USD 0.05 per target word, so even if there is a discrepancy in their source character count and your source character count, it's not relevant because the final price is not based on the source character count.

The time to complain was when you first converted the source file and found that the source wordcount was substantially higher than that quoted by them. At that point you could have renegotiated, or pulled out if they'd refused to do that.

It's really too late to do anything about it now except learn from the bad experience. As Atil says, it's one mistake you won't make again.


 
Paul Malone
Paul Malone  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 23:01
Member (2004)
French to English
+ ...
Accept your mistake and learn from it. Oct 23, 2014

Can any professional translator, or any professional at all, for that matter, really claim never to have made any mistakes on any level? Of course not! But that is how we all learn, that is how we progress and improve over time. This is how we become true professionals. This is only your third month of freelancing, so why not forgive yourself rather than being angry?

Sally, in my opinion you have made a mistake, but at the same time you have learned an important lesson about the bus
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Can any professional translator, or any professional at all, for that matter, really claim never to have made any mistakes on any level? Of course not! But that is how we all learn, that is how we progress and improve over time. This is how we become true professionals. This is only your third month of freelancing, so why not forgive yourself rather than being angry?

Sally, in my opinion you have made a mistake, but at the same time you have learned an important lesson about the business of translation that you are likely always to remember, and that you are therefore unlikely to repeat. I think that the best approach would therefore be to recognize that you have made a mistake, accept that mistake, but consider it to be an important lesson learned, so well worth the money. And how much money will this mistake have saved you in the long run?

After all, in a few years' time, your annual training budget will no doubt be larger than the relatively small amount that you have "invested" on this occasion. Compared to the entire amount you are likely to earn over your entire career, it's no doubt a drop in the ocean. Let it go, but get it right next time. To err is human, to forgive is divine.
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Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 22:01
Danish to English
+ ...
Live and learn Oct 23, 2014

As others have said already, it's too late to change the price when an agreement has been made. It would not be reasonable to keep asking the agency for more money. When you're freelance, you have no employer to pick up the cost of mistakes, so you need to check price and work details properly in the future.

We've probably all made mistakes of that sort, and my view is that one of the worst things one can do in business is to not respect the terms of a contract, so when I've goofed,
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As others have said already, it's too late to change the price when an agreement has been made. It would not be reasonable to keep asking the agency for more money. When you're freelance, you have no employer to pick up the cost of mistakes, so you need to check price and work details properly in the future.

We've probably all made mistakes of that sort, and my view is that one of the worst things one can do in business is to not respect the terms of a contract, so when I've goofed, I've covered the cost myself.

If you called a plumber to fix something in your home and he gave you a price, accepted the work, got it done, then wanted more money, would you feel he was honest? I wouldn't. You also need to look at it from your client's side.

There is a cost to learning, and the best thing you can do is to forget about it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I think you only risk harming yourself by going on about it.
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Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 06:01
Chinese to English
Lessons to take away Oct 23, 2014

1) You and only you are responsible for your own bottom line. Even when you've got a really good relationship with a client, and the error is as obvious as a misplaced decimal point, there is no guarantee that you will get the benefit of the doubt. Reasonable people become unreasonable around money! So everything has to be super-clear and explicit.

2) Never let an agency talk to you about their clients. You have no business with their clients, and the only reason an agency ever ment
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1) You and only you are responsible for your own bottom line. Even when you've got a really good relationship with a client, and the error is as obvious as a misplaced decimal point, there is no guarantee that you will get the benefit of the doubt. Reasonable people become unreasonable around money! So everything has to be super-clear and explicit.

2) Never let an agency talk to you about their clients. You have no business with their clients, and the only reason an agency ever mentions them is to sell you a sob story.

3) Agencies which don't seem that professional aren't that professional. You can still work with them, but extra care is required.

My sympathies - as everyone said above, it's happened to all of us.
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Sally Wals
Sally Wals  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 06:01
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks again Oct 23, 2014

Thanks again for everyone's really level-headed, mature advice. I feel... more leveled now.

Really good to know that I am not the only one this has happened to.

Little bits of advice like what POs mean to different people and word counts are really helping to fill in the gaps! There is so much going on behind the scenes that is difficult to grasp from my little translation island here, that might help explain some of the underlying tensions here.

BTW, the a
... See more
Thanks again for everyone's really level-headed, mature advice. I feel... more leveled now.

Really good to know that I am not the only one this has happened to.

Little bits of advice like what POs mean to different people and word counts are really helping to fill in the gaps! There is so much going on behind the scenes that is difficult to grasp from my little translation island here, that might help explain some of the underlying tensions here.

BTW, the agency is, in fact, in a very highly developed country.

Thank you all again!
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Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:01
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Time vs. money & effort Oct 23, 2014

It does indeed seem unfair to you. However, this unfairness to you was - unfortunately - caused by your own "negligence".

Always check the details provided by the client before accepting a job. This might take a little time, but less than trying to re-negotiate a done deal. And carefully checking all points of the agreement is less aggravating than the efforts it takes to get upset over something that cannot be changed anymore.

You have a reputation to lose, so my advic
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It does indeed seem unfair to you. However, this unfairness to you was - unfortunately - caused by your own "negligence".

Always check the details provided by the client before accepting a job. This might take a little time, but less than trying to re-negotiate a done deal. And carefully checking all points of the agreement is less aggravating than the efforts it takes to get upset over something that cannot be changed anymore.

You have a reputation to lose, so my advice would be to deliver the file, accept the payment the agency has stipulated, and then file this experience away in your "never again" folder.

Also, a negative BB entry might even harm you more than it would annoy your client, who btw. has the option to reply to your entry right on his BB record.

Show your professional attitude and walk on. This is the best you can do at this point, and it's the best for you, too.
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Elizabeth Joy Pitt de Morales
Elizabeth Joy Pitt de Morales  Identity Verified
Local time: 23:01
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Cheap lesson Oct 23, 2014

You made a mistake, and it really isn't costing you that much. Chalk it up to experience, be glad the project didn't involve more words and thus a bigger loss for you, and move on.

Next time, follow Samuel's advice: repeat all the important PO information in your email. This will help you and the PM catch any possible error or miscommunication so that this kind of situation won't come up again.


 
Stefan Hofmeister
Stefan Hofmeister  Identity Verified
Uruguay
Local time: 19:01
Member (2008)
English to German
+ ...
S*** happens :) Oct 24, 2014

Well, I think, we all learn it the hard way

I recently had a "big" project with a new client and "forgot" to ask, if repetitions AND fuzzy matches would be paid (as they are normally, because all the agencies I work with are very fair!).
In the end I translated about 400,000 characters and got paid for 60,000 - and that was only a part of that huge project (in normal circumstances it would have been about 100,00
... See more
Well, I think, we all learn it the hard way

I recently had a "big" project with a new client and "forgot" to ask, if repetitions AND fuzzy matches would be paid (as they are normally, because all the agencies I work with are very fair!).
In the end I translated about 400,000 characters and got paid for 60,000 - and that was only a part of that huge project (in normal circumstances it would have been about 100,000 to 150,000 PAID characters). And I've got more than 10 years of experience in that business...
You're never immune to something like that, so keep your eyes open.
Cheer up, now you know how to deal with something like that!

BTW: This was the only project I cancelled halfway through in more than 10 years...

[Bearbeitet am 2014-10-24 22:14 GMT]

[Bearbeitet am 2014-10-24 22:15 GMT]

[Bearbeitet am 2014-10-24 22:18 GMT]
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