Proofreading related work, should it be paid for?

jyuan_us wrote:

Let me elaborate on the behavior of PM A and the possible behavior of PM B

jyuan_us wrote:



So are you telling us when you were a PM, you only considered which was more efficient for yourself, instead of what is more efficient for the job itself, or for everybody involved including the linguists?

jyuan_us wrote:



So I will not discuss it any more after this.

My themes: 1.As a PM, you don't have to punish the translator by forcing him or her to correct the error you have found, particularly when a copy that requires 2 more steps (editing and proofreading) is involved. And if you do enjoy punishing somebody rather than use a more efficient solution, you are at the risk of losing your qualified linguists. This is a matter of attitudes and behavior in your project management work.

2. An error is already there, and it has to be corrected. A more efficient way should be used to correct it. When judging what is more efficient, everybody involved should be considered: you, the one who created the draft, and the linguist to edit the copy. All people involved constitute a whole team, and the waste of time of anybody in the team by going for the less efficient way is eventually a loss for everybody.

3. If you as a PM want to maintain a long term relationship with the linguists you value, sometime you have to be flexible, polite and accommodating.

I think the particular PM was poor in all these aspects and sooner or later, the linguists will all stop working for them and this would lead to her being fired.

If anybody doesn't understand these points, I will find his or her comments not worthwhile replying to, no matter what they want to say.

[Edited at 2014-07-15 00:35 GMT]

[Edited at 2014-07-15 02:26 GMT]

Elizabeth Joy Pitt de Morales wrote:

Quality includes following the client's instructions.
...
Perfection is generally unattainable: most people understand this. Striving for perfection, however, is what leads us to produce our very best.

...striving for perfection...top-rate translators all read and applied instructions...the desire to hand in a perfect job...

Texte Style wrote:
I sometimes bent over backwards to accommodate top-rate translators, but my top-rate translators all read and applied instructions.

Texte Style wrote:
It's not about punishment, it's about ensuring that translators follow the instructions.

Texte Style wrote:

If the same happened again, they would get a stiffer reminder.

Texte Style wrote:

When I know the client is going to have a competent person check my work, and when that person will be liaising with me to deal with any questions, I may forego the second pair of eyes stage, and they get a discount accordingly.

As a lone translator, I don't usually accept projects involving more than one step in the translation process.

jyuan_us wrote:
if someone spit on the ground, no matter for what reason, do you remind her not to do so again, or do you push her head to the ground to lick the spit dry?

jyuan_us wrote:


Hmmm, you actually don't need to accommodate your top translators if they all read your top-rate translators all read and applied instructions.

Texte Style wrote:
If I have to pay the editor more to clean up the translator's mistakes, I don't see that the agency is winning out on this project, unless, of course the translator deducts that extra money from his own invoice. I don't remember seeing anything about that.

Sheila Wilson wrote:


Personally, I would react immediately with a grimace, because that would be unavoidable - an automatic reaction. But we're all different; we all have different standards of behaviour. So I'd then just make sure I didn't get involved further, as in moving out of reach, turning my eyes away, and walking on.

Perhaps that's what we should do now - move onto other things. After all, the OP's question has been fully answered.

Phil Hand wrote:


I feel compelled to voice a measure of support for JYuan here. We often discuss on this forum how the industry has become money-oriented, and we translators are often the only people in the chain standing up for quality. And we do. We try to make things perfect all the time.

But sometimes we're businesspeople, too. And we get to decide what business we're in.

I also think that everyone commenting here seems to have overlooked one detail of JYuan's story: he did the corrections. The story is: translator starts working for a client; project seems to be going well; client hits translator with request for finicky edits; translator does edits, decides this client is not worth the time input; translator ends working relationship with client. There is no fault anywhere in this story. A client has the right to demand all the edits they want; we have a right to choose who we work for.

Because sometimes we get frustrated with it all, you know? Like you - and like JYuan, I'm pretty sure - I strive for perfection every day. But just occasionally I'm not up to it. Some Wednesdays I wake up with a thick head, and I just can't go the extra mile that morning. What sets good professionals apart is not actually the perfection we achieve sometimes; it's the competence we display when we can't achieve perfection. Competence like doing JYuan doing everything the client asks and choosing to walk away from the job rather than risk further friction.

Texte, I also think you slightly misstate the job of the PM. Whether or not you get paid overtime is absolutely irrelevant to the question of responsibility for a project. If you're the Project Manager, this project belongs to you. From the translator's perspective, the internal salary arrangements of the agency are not important. What is important is that the agency - and the PM representing the agency - own the project. They do not give responsibility to us. We don't get to choose our own proofreaders (we just have to deal with whoever they find for us). We don't get to talk to the client about style issues (we just have to live with whatever "the passive is weak" stylesheet we are given). The project doesn't belong to us. So when we see a PM making choices which are not about optimizing the project, but about covering a PM's ass ("I'm not paid overtime!"), we rightly see this as a failure to take responsibility.

Yesterday I had a PowerPoint failure (anyone else had error 1935?). I ended up over deadline, because there were 20 words in a ppt that had to be changed in an Excel graphic, and my computer wouldn't open it. This was a direct client, so I called the contact, and she said, "Oh, just put them in a note and send them to us. I can have someone do it here." Hallelujah! Job done. I'm not trying to wriggle out of responsibility here: I messed up, the fault was mine. But her attitude was one of perfect get-the-job-done professionalism, and everyone's day suddenly became much easier. When JYuan meets someone who doesn't have that attitude... Sometimes it's better just to walk away.

Oh, and there's issues of scope of expertise - is my skill really in fixing dates? I dunno. Look, everything that's been written about the urge to perfection and taking responsibility is right. But I think that the realities of the job often pull us in another direction. And we are all commercial entities, too. Sometimes a job is just not worth the time or the irritation.