Agencies and agencies | Jun 24, 2006 |
Hi Sarah, Like I said myself, there ARE some very professional agencies, and I work with the good ones I know. But I still feel that this kind of agency is becoming a rarity. As the number of freelancers across the world is rapidly growing, we will eventually be all fighting for work from these agencies - or from direct clients. Now, because many people get into translation just because, without experience or studies, many translators do a bad job. This reflects on rates because, if... See more Hi Sarah, Like I said myself, there ARE some very professional agencies, and I work with the good ones I know. But I still feel that this kind of agency is becoming a rarity. As the number of freelancers across the world is rapidly growing, we will eventually be all fighting for work from these agencies - or from direct clients. Now, because many people get into translation just because, without experience or studies, many translators do a bad job. This reflects on rates because, if a client is to get a mediocre quality translation, they might as well not pay the full price. You probably know just as well as I do that good translators are also getting increasingly hard to find. Basically, there is a lot of crap on the market on both sides. But also, many of the freelancers see that there is a buck to be made with outsourcing, they start outsourcing, many of them telling themselves "I'm better at PM than at translation anyways". And that's where many agencies come from. People who simply want to take a cut on other people's work. Not ALL of them come from there, but an increasing number, yes. And they try lower rates, see if anybody bites - and the uneducated translators, mostly those who are new in the business, eventually bite, and sometimes even hard! These agencies take much larger cuts than the ones you and I prefer to work for. Will they eventually take a little less when they come across translators who do an excellent job? I don't think so... I have been disappointed many times at the way certain agencies handle their business, their clients, their translators and their projects. I recently looked at some LISA statistics and was speechless in front of the data. Most agencies don't proof work, and even most of those who do only spot check. These two categories amount to over 2/3 of the agencies who responded to the survey. And I know from experience that, when a client gets a not so good job from an agency, often, the agency, not willing to acknowledge that they gave no means to the translator to do a better job, pretend it's all the translator's fault. Once, an agency convinced me to translate a PowerPoint document, which I was reluctant to do, as I had a hard time understanding the document at all. They said, don't worry about it, just translate it, that's all. They never paid me, saying the client didn't like the work (the document contained only partial phrases without any context). So, often, the translator is the one who is deemed to not have done a good job, and the agency swallows the money, apologizing to the client about the bad translator and swearing never to work with that translator again. So, I have decided a long time ago that, if an agency fails to appreciate my work and tries to squeeze more and more out of me, I will not show any appreciation to them. And in the case of such agencies, if I don't have a contract stating that I am not allowed to work directly with a client of theirs, I will not mind taking jobs from that client and will not even feel dishonest. In fact, I think that this whole question is a question of loyalty. To me, loyalty goes both ways, and when someone is not loyal to me, they lose my loyalty for them. I also think that, by making your contact info available to their client, the agency acted in a very unloyal manner. In fact, in some jurisdictions, it is considered illegal to do this. So, if I can't count on an agency to keep my confidential data to themselves, they shouldn't count on me to look out for their interests. I appreciate the time you took to explain all this in detail. For once, I am not the only one who wrote a full page! ▲ Collapse | |