Next-level LSP shamelessness

Christopher Schröder wrote:


Are you saying you won’t get tired or have sore body parts if you charge full price? 😂

Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:


They promise you 20,000 to start, you get a total of 25,000 (if they're honest), you get paid for 15,000.
Proz should make a survey among those working 20+ years in the industry: "How many of the promises about long-term projects actually materialized?" Beginner's bait to lower your price. A large agency had a real long-term project last year for a major retailer. The first files were ok. After two weeks, you ended up "processing" files full of MT and TM matches on a slow online system, average pay resulted in less than $6/hour. Obviously at that point I quit, same day, and asked the PM to reassign my files to anyone else.

Lingua 5B wrote: "Send us your CV", and "free test" are the biggest beginner's baits.

Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:


I'm not saying that the offer in this thread is not legitimate (it may be), but during slow periods in 2006-2007 I signed up for dozens of agencies asking me for CV, etc, and a few months or couple of years later they didn't exist. Small agencies pop-out like mushrooms, lead by 1-2 people. Cost of opening an agency in the US: about $250 for an LLC. If they get enough signed NDAs/Agreements in their files, and about 40-50 small clients, they can potentially sell the business to a larger agency. Free labor force with signed docs and all their information, rates, and tests on file.
Problem with translators is that they are agreeable introverts, they feel isolated from social/business environments, all alone in a corner, anything the "master" throws at them looks delicious. It's in the Proz_Rate_Calculator too: how many grams of rice do you need to survive little guy?


[Edited at 2024-02-13 03:18 GMT]

Lingua 5B wrote:
I'm saying that since you'll get tired through intense work (the alleged big volume) that factor should be incorporated into the price (no discount).

Rachel Waddington wrote:



We are not all introverts, and being an introvert doesn't mean you aren't able to stand up for yourself in any case.

The real problem is that the way we work as translators isolates us and puts us in a weak negotiating position. This environment means that important skills are lost or never developed. And there is no minimum wage legislation or employment rights for translators.

Lieven Malaise wrote:

I translate large projects on a regular basis and I don't see why a large project would be more tiring than a smaller one. I don't translate more hours a day because of a large project (unless I start to procrastinate, but that's another story). It's all the same. I would even say they are more comfortable. Once you are past the terminology research phase (mostly the first couple of hours) they often feel like a joyride.

Lingua 5B wrote:
"Send us your CV", and "free test" are the biggest beginner's baits. When I see one of those phrases, I know it's time to steer away. Because they both indicate they don't have any project on the table at all (but they freely lie they do).

Lorenzo Meloni wrote:

Honestly, after many years, I still don't understand why volume discounts should even be a thing in translation.
Sure, they make sense if you have a machine printing pieces, where the higher the volume, the lower your fixed costs per piece.
But as a linguist there is no economy of scale, you'll always output the same amount of words per hour, regardless of whether you're translating a 1000 or 10 million.

Kay Denney wrote:
I think it may have made sense to a certain extent in the days before CAT tools. A large job would involve a lot of repetition and thus recycling. You could just search/replace all those 100% matches and so a little discount wouldn't hurt you. Now that CAT tools take care of them (while also making us do stupid QA things where you waste time endlessly adding and deleting spaces before and after the CAT tool's tabs) and agencies discount repetitions as a matter of course, it doesn't make sense in the least.

Lieven Malaise wrote:

If you want to have a good laugh, followed by a really good cry. Quite amazing. (credits: Mind Huntress on Facebook)



[Bijgewerkt op 2024-02-12 14:10 GMT]

Lingua 5B wrote:



Mind control: don’t overthink.

The text is hilariously worded. Attach CV by uploading it? Are there ways to attach something other than uploading it? “Lace your shoes by using your fingers”.

Where do they find these assistants and project managers, how do they source them? Just based on that letter, I would turn down the offer, even in the case of a good rate. I can’t trust a company whose employees don’t know how to write.

Yasutomo Kanazawa wrote:

600 USD may suffice.