Giving it away
One curious, and slightly annoying, aspect of being a translator is that “friends” have no qualms about asking you for freebies.
Now, a line or a paragraph is no ordeal, and I’m happy to oblige. But I’ve had acquaintances ask if I’d translate their website, company brochure, job application letters wherein they claim fluency in English… I’ve had virtual strangers – parents of my children’s friends, whom I’ve never even met, send my kid home with 10 pages of business documents to be translated into French, adding, ‘It doesn’t have to be perfect,’ as though that somehow absolves them of the basic gesture of offering me money for the service. This is all the more irksome since I know I’ll be incapable of giving them shoddy work.
And I realize it’s my own damn fault for acquiescing, viewing it – perversely, no doubt – as doing my kids a favour, but still… Where do they get the nerve?
We all know the old cliché of doctors and lawyers being asked for advice at cocktail parties, but I doubt anyone would have the blithe chutzpah to demand free heart surgery, representation in court, for the chef from the bistro down the street to come over and cook up dinner for eight, or when you get a minute, could you type out a little novel for me? Oh, and make sure there’s a penguin in it somewhere…
I don’t know what it is about translation in particular – perhaps the fact of involving the ubiquitous commodity of language – but there really does seem to be something about this business of mine that makes people presume it’s not a real job.
Hey, my 7-year-old nephew could do that, but he’s away for the weekend, so, would you mind?
As my idol Nancy Regan once pointed out, I really should learn to say no.
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Comment
- When the kids come home with documents to translate, why don’t you send along a ‘devis’ to the parents before starting the work? That might make them think twice.
— Louise Oct 18, 11:33am # - Hey, in Italy the seven year olds are not away for the weekend, and they do all the important translations for exhibitions and the like.
So count yourself lucky.
— Jeremy Cherfas Oct 18, 3:11pm # - Could you teach the kids to not take documents from anyone? You know, along the lines of “don’t take candy from strangers.”
— Alli Oct 18, 6:20pm # - There is no need to feel shy asking for money. I mean it.
I am in this business for more than 24 years and I got rid of such free works in the first year itself.
It was a friend of my late father. He told me that he had a set of German drawings to translate, I being an engineer I should find it interesting as well as easy and so on. I didn’t reply to him, went through the drawings and then told him that the work would cost him around Rs. 2000 (a big amount in those days), which was reasonable and even a little less than the market rate. The gentleman told me that he was a good friend of my late father. I just replied to him that he should then go to him and get the work done. Then the entire urgency vanished and he said that the drawings were not so essential after all.
One good thing came out of it. I gained the reputation of a serious professional. Amazingly I was respected more for it. This is the only course to adopt. Afterwards if you want you can always do one or two free jobs for really deserving persons and not for friends of friends on the lookout for a sucker.
What I did was disrespectful and no doubt about it. But the point arises as to why I did it. It was (and is) because I respect my profession more and I have a horror of being treated as a naive sucker (redundant adjective?). Such a surgery was required in the incident in question. Better that than being saddled with unpaid work.
In fact the gentleman was banking on just such a consideration of respectfulness to elders and I saw through it. I do not regret what I did. See the result. Whoever comes to me with jobs knows pretty well that I do not do it free of cost and let me repeat that I am respected for it.
Regards,
N.Raghavan
— N.Raghavan Oct 18, 6:43pm # - Design is the same. People want you to “help” them, usually under the guise of teaching them how to use an application, but what they really mean is “do this for me because I don’t really want to learn InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator and my budget is gone.”
— blurb Oct 18, 7:12pm # - Well, actually, I’m a literary translator, so I don’t know much about electrical engineering, I have to be honest with you… Oh, I see, and you want it into French? Hmmm, well, generally speaking professional translators only translate into their native tongues, and mine being English… Oh, it’s not hard, is it, because it was actually written by a Greek person who only speaks rudementary English… Just a few pages. You want to send by fax. Yes, mm hmm, they’re bound to be nice and legible. No rush, eh? You only need them for tomorrow afternoon. How nice of you to understand that I might have other things to do and won’t be able to get them to you straight away.
I can’t decide whether my eyes glaze over more when I hear myself saying this kind of thing, or when I hear other mothers say to me – oh, you work from home! I wish! You’re so lucky you can spend all that time with your children.
(Um, who are in daycare like your kids. Because unlike all those other mentally taxing jobs, you can translate really well with an 18-month-old underfoot…)
— Mara B Oct 18, 9:20pm # - Computer geeks get the same thing too. I can’t tell you how many times friends, family, and acquaintences have asked for help with their computer, saying “Oh, it should only take you a couple minutes.”
They all get the same basic, polite, refusal: “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I take pride in my work and I’m well paid for it—so I can’t just do it half-way. Like you, I work all day and need my off-time to study and persue other interests to keep me sane. Besides, I’d feel terrible if something went wrong and your important files were lost. Neither of us wants that kind of stress on our relationship.”
It works almost every time. The few times that it doesn’t, it’s usually with “Oh, I’ll be happy to pay you for it.” When they hear the hourly rate (3x my normal salary), it scares off the remaining few.
Truthfully, I imagine it to be the same for nearly every skilled profession. As you said, that “little legal matter” or “small cough” for the lawyer or doctor, the weird squeak for the car mechanic, installing a fence for the carpenter, and the quick proof-reads from writer/editor friends.
— etherdust Oct 19, 1:09am # - The freebee-geebies come in so many guises, crass favor-asking being only one style. Another is when a legitimate paying client starts adding to the job already specified, or making huge time-sucking changes, and any designer, architect or contractor has tales to tell in that department, filed under ‘project creep.’
My favorite ‘favor’ flavor is when people call the high school, wondering if some talented student could design a poster/brochure/webpage for them and uh, maybe earn some extra credit for it?
I invite them to come to class, students interview them about the project, and then we write and send them a scope of services detailing our proposal and our fees. When we actually get the jobs, we get taken seriously.
Yup, I’m trying to teach the kids not to be chumps, even though, or maybe because I’ve learned the hard way.
I got rid of the last ‘just a quick consultation. I’ll make us a pot of coffee, and I’m sure it will take less than an hour’ person by telling her I doubted she’d want to make me coffee when I was charging her $100 per hour. The ‘ulp’ was audible over the phone and I was high off the power of calling her cheap-ass bluff for over a week.
Of course in that instance it helped that I could look out the window and see a guy digging a ditch for my new sewer line and know the plumbers were charging me $60 an hour for his time, $85 an hour for theirs. I figured a college degree and thirty years of experience should put me in a slightly higher bracket.
There’s also that perverse law that dictates that people don’t value what they get for free, and I’ve found the most grateful clients are those I’ve charged the most, and the biggest pain-in-the-bazoonkies were ones I was doing pro bono work for, without exception.
— wizmo Oct 19, 1:25am # - I reckon it’s that you work from home. That seems to delegitimize your job in the eyes of some. There’s a diatribe somewhere from a famous-ish author (Ruth Rendell?) about how a writer’s family will blithely assume that the plumber may be scheduled to call even during the final sprint towards the Booker/Pulitzer/Nobel-winning Novel Of The Century. If the dog needs picking up from the vet or the offspring takin to the dentist, ‘real’ workers don’t need to take time off.
I expect it’s the same for postmodernists too. They find it so hard to say no in the face of persistent requests to dethrone the author. How many are sick to the back teeth of having to deny the intrinsic essence of some textual object the kids have brought home.
And anyone who lives next door to a firefighter ought to know they should dial the damn number like anyone else whose house is on fire!
— Zac Oct 19, 1:28am # - I’m currently a working graphic designer and I voluntarily design the posters and programs for the community orchestra which I play principal flute in. Community groups are always desperate for help from its members, and I happily volunteer my services to do my part (if only to get out of having to do fundraising). Besides, if any other happy “desk-top artists” in the orchestra got their hands on the program, it would be a dog’s breakfast (sorry, Oliver) of multitudinous type faces and cheesy clip art. I could never suffer the indignity of it, knowing I could create something beautiful.
One of the orchestra members, a geologist by day, abysmal horn player by night, asked if I could redesign his business card. “Ducky Geological Consulting Services”, and yes, there was a very bad cartoon of a duck as the “logo”. I told him my hourly rate, and said we could keep the duck (I could tell that rebranding was not an option), but it would have to be properly illustrated and I know this really great illustrator…you’re probably looking at a few hours of his time at XX$ and same for me for design…
I never heard another word about his little project until, as volunteer in charge of fundraising, he gave me his new card with his email address, to which I was to send him the orchestra logo. “Ducky” was replaced with some bitmappy globe reference, and all the edges of the card had perforation marks. I was relieved not to have had to sell my pearls to this swine. I wonder what HIS hourly rate is…
— sue Oct 20, 3:02am # - As a lawyer, let me assure you that plenty of people have the “blithe chutzpah” to request free representation in Court, free wills, free divorces, free real estate transactions . . . . It’s the curse of selling time, skill and experience.
— C.C. Oct 20, 8:06pm # - c.c.: Wow. I have to say I’m kind of impressed by that overblown sense of entitlement.
a geologist by day, abysmal horn player by night… Very funny & really should be a pitch for a comic strip, or a doomed to fail sitcom.
I have to say, too, that one of the things weighing on the translation business is the floodgates of bad practices opened up by the internet & online bidding systems.
Most clients have no idea what is involved in the translation process (and disdain the notion that any sort of expertise is required), in addition to being incapable of judging the final product. So most cling to the reasoning of why pay 15 cents a word, when I can get it for 2?
— gail Oct 21, 10:34am # - ever heard someone say in the metro “oy, g’is a tune!!”
— Ruth Phillips Oct 23, 6:27pm # - I often get asked to do small design jobs like business cards or posters as a “favour” in our small rural community. If I’m inclined to do it, my solution to the non-payment dilemma is to set up some kind of trade for the work.
Roofers, landscapers, massage therapists, or a local band, they all have something to offer in return. This is such a reasonable request to make (rather than working for free) that I’ve never had anyone turn down that type of arrangement. I might not always redeem the trade, but at least I’ve set a value on my skills and there’s a mutual respect for each other’s work.
— diane Oct 26, 6:30pm # - The original article is gone, but in 2003 James Duncan Davidson wrote “Know Why You’re Working for Free”:
http://www.penmachine.com/2003/01/know-why-youre-working-for-free.html
“If you are speaking or writing, quit working for free already! Unless of course you are trying to push a technology, product, or yourself. And in that case, know why you are working for free.”
I do a lot of gratis work for an association I belong to, and for some friends, family, and my wife. But it’s usually small things, and I know why I’m doing them. But, like others, in my professional life as a writer and editor (and as a musician too), I’ve found that the more I charge, the more respect I get, and the better defined the parameters of my work are.
But it certainly isn’t a problem just for translators. I think anyone who’s doing an intellectual labour, rather than a physical or manufacturing one, faces a lot of these sort of requests, because people who need help honestly have no real idea of the time, effort, and expertise that the help they need requires.
— Derek Oct 26, 10:00pm # - And then there’s the friend with the truck. Always the best buddy on moving day or when the delivery of the new couch is just too dear at a paultry $35.
I should divvy up my chiropractor bills among the lot of them!
— Jeff Oct 27, 9:12pm #
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