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Poll: Does your workflow decrease during the summer? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Does your workflow decrease during the summer?".
View the poll results »
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Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 22:07
Member (2006)
German to English
| No, increased | Aug 7, 2014 |
drastically this year. I think everyone must be on holiday at the moment. I am having to turn down loads of work at the moment because I am simply too busy.
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Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 23:07
Turkish to English
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| Usually it does, but ... | Aug 7, 2014 |
... this year I have been working at close to capacity since the end of May.
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| Depends on contract | Aug 7, 2014 |
Depends on contract with my clients(for example a Publisher) If it is fixed the workflow is usually stable.
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| During the summer... where? | Aug 7, 2014 |
I am in the Southern hemisphere, and my workload (I guess it was what the asker meant by workflow) throughout a 12-mo. period is about equally split between domestic (Brazil) and foreign (mostly USA) clients.
However I would say that the combined demand is quite erratic. Whenever I think that I detected some seasonal trend, the next year proves me wrong.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 22:07
Spanish to English
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Work coming in from some of my regulars might slacken off, but other stuff tends to come in from other sources. For example an agency sent me something last week and I hadn't done anything for them in a year or two. So it's swings and roundabouts really; basically if I stick my head above the parapet and make myself available, there's work to be had if I want to accept it.
[Edited at 2014-08-07 11:09 GMT]
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DianeGM
Local time: 23:07
Member (2006)
Dutch to English
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I don't really notice a specific trend from summer to summer. This year July was quiet but August is looking pretty busy. I do tend to work less hours during summer for various reasons ... but not because there is less work. I usually still have to turn some jobs down.
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| no real trend either way | Aug 7, 2014 |
there will sometimes be a slow period during the summer. It was actually kind of quiet in june but since then I have been steadily working...not overwhelmed but consistently working and now, doing a large proofing job that will probably continue for most of the rest of august!
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Georgia Morg (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:07
Portuguese to English
A very northern-hemisphere-centric question if I may say so. One's summer is another's winter......I assume you mean US/European summer?
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ArtefactHT
Canada
Local time: 16:07
English to French
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| Still too early for me to answer that... | Aug 7, 2014 |
... as I launched my freelance business this past May after 11 years of working for companies!
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As Michael mentioned, a lot of translators take holidays during the summer.
I tend to recommend to new translators to try to get their foot in the door either in August or over Christmas and New Year because it's the time when serious agencies with long-term relationships will be willing to give a new translator a chance since their 'A' team is on vacation.
I have no children, so my schedule is my own and I tend to take vacations at off-peak times both to minimize loss ... See more As Michael mentioned, a lot of translators take holidays during the summer.
I tend to recommend to new translators to try to get their foot in the door either in August or over Christmas and New Year because it's the time when serious agencies with long-term relationships will be willing to give a new translator a chance since their 'A' team is on vacation.
I have no children, so my schedule is my own and I tend to take vacations at off-peak times both to minimize loss of work and take advantage of really good travel deals
Case in point, I work on recurrent financial projects with a few of my long-term agencies - through batch numbers, I can usually ascertain throughout the year that I get between 1/3 and 1/2 of the project for those end clients to which I'm assigned at any given time; this month I got 85% of the project. I expect that by the next large project, at the end of the 3rd quarter I'll be back to 1/3 or 1/2 of the project since time is of the essence.
I recently mentioned on facebook that the job posts for En->Fre had gone up from an average of 1-3 a day to over 20 a day this month; even though I've been so busy as to pulling 12-hour days I took 15 minutes to answer 2 interesting agencies looking for long term collaboration - it truly is the best time to find new clients because even though the demand for work isn't higher over the summer, the offer is much lower so you have a better chance of being noticed... as well as booking a 60-hour week should you so choose ▲ Collapse
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Michael Harris
Germany
Local time: 22:07
Member (2006)
German to English
ArtefactHT wrote:
... as I launched my freelance business this past May after 11 years of working for companies!
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Erzsébet Czopyk
Hungary
Local time: 22:07
Member (2006)
Russian to Hungarian
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SITE LOCALIZER
This year in July we finally returned to the same level we had before the global crisis. And still August is pretty busy, thanks God
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Helen Hagon
Local time: 21:07
Member (2011)
Russian to English
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| Only if I make it happen | Aug 7, 2014 |
I try to reduce the amount of work I do over the school summer holidays in order to spend some time with my children. I am currently finishing off a long-term project and then hoping to have a couple of weeks off later this month. I usually tell my regular customers when I am going to be unavailable but, as the holiday period approaches, I find I receive more job offers than usual from those agencies for whom I only work on an occasional basis. Presumably this is because their regular translator... See more I try to reduce the amount of work I do over the school summer holidays in order to spend some time with my children. I am currently finishing off a long-term project and then hoping to have a couple of weeks off later this month. I usually tell my regular customers when I am going to be unavailable but, as the holiday period approaches, I find I receive more job offers than usual from those agencies for whom I only work on an occasional basis. Presumably this is because their regular translators are an holiday and so project managers are obliged to work their way down their lists of translators until they find someone for the job. If I wanted, I could probably keep myself very busy throughout the summer. ▲ Collapse
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