When translation agencies use you as a fall guy Thread poster: Thomas Brown
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A friend of mine passed a trial and signed up with a well known and prestigious translation agency a few years ago and hadn't heard from them until recently.
In the mean time he has only been translating part-time and is still something of a beginner. He has now quit his other job and is starting freelance translation full-time, he's never worked in house.
With a degree in finance he hopes to be a competent, experienced JP to Eng financial translator in the future. ... See more A friend of mine passed a trial and signed up with a well known and prestigious translation agency a few years ago and hadn't heard from them until recently.
In the mean time he has only been translating part-time and is still something of a beginner. He has now quit his other job and is starting freelance translation full-time, he's never worked in house.
With a degree in finance he hopes to be a competent, experienced JP to Eng financial translator in the future.
The company that contacted him recently for the first time in years has offered him a sizable translation job. The client is one of, if not the, top bank in Japan and the text is for their website. The text is very complicated, probably at the top end of the scale of complexity for finance. They also asked him to cross-reference all the financial terminology and phrases with translations for the same job from last year. They requested him to cross-reference all financial phrases and terminology with all these documents, 11 in total, find the corresponding English translation used previously and use that. The deadline is very tight and the pay is below what it should be for this kind of complex, rush job.
He started to think it was strange how a company who've never used him for a job before is giving him a highly complex, rush job, for a low pay rate, for an extremely prestigious client, especially as he was honest about his amount of experience. It seemed foolish at best, suspect at worse.
Also, when he asked for a translation glossary they said they had had one on their server from the previous years job, but that it had been deleted. They also asked him not to use cloud translation software like Deep L, even though this information is due to be made available to the public on the banks website.
Together we rather get the feeling that he's being used as some kind of fall guy. Maybe no one in house wanted to take the job so they just want to use him as a fall guy to take the blame for a job, or maybe there's a more complex, internal politics game being played.
I've had something similar happen to me once, a long time ago when I was starting out, but never since. I've found most Japanese translation agencies to be on the level most of the time.
I would appreciate anyone's opinion on the matter. Is this something that happens a lot, or is the agent organizing the job just incompetent? If so why has she been entrusted with such a prestigious client?
Your thoughts on the matter will be most appreciated. Thank you. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Thayenga 
Germany
Local time: 10:54
Member (2009)
English to German
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| The conditions | Aug 25, 2021 |
A rush job for low pay, many demands from the agency to be met, and no previous collaboration seem to raise a red flag, or at least give reason for caution.
What a coincidence (?) that the glossary had been deleted. Who would do that anyway?
With the degree your friend has and his part-time experience he can surely find more rewarding projects, not only in regards to the financial side, but, which is even more important, to be met with respect, not only for the translat... See more A rush job for low pay, many demands from the agency to be met, and no previous collaboration seem to raise a red flag, or at least give reason for caution.
What a coincidence (?) that the glossary had been deleted. Who would do that anyway?
With the degree your friend has and his part-time experience he can surely find more rewarding projects, not only in regards to the financial side, but, which is even more important, to be met with respect, not only for the translator, but also for the actual work scope. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ludovicap
Germany
Local time: 10:54
German to Italian
+ ...
...maybe, by the time he sent the application, the company didn't need anybody (I don't know if he sent a spontaneous one, or if they were really looking for a translator).
Maybe now, some years after sending the application, they might need someone new, but it is just an unpopular opinion, I assume.
I have also started with new agencies in these last months, but they never provided me with big projects at the beginning.
Now, that I am being their translator since severa... See more ...maybe, by the time he sent the application, the company didn't need anybody (I don't know if he sent a spontaneous one, or if they were really looking for a translator).
Maybe now, some years after sending the application, they might need someone new, but it is just an unpopular opinion, I assume.
I have also started with new agencies in these last months, but they never provided me with big projects at the beginning.
Now, that I am being their translator since several months for them, I start receiving projects of more words.
I don't know.
If he feels unsure about it, it is better not to accept that project then.
Otherwise, he would be doing a work he doesn't feel comfortable with and nobody knows how this might end up (maybe good, maybe wrong, who knows).
It is always a little risky at the very beginning, everybody has had that feeling where you don't know if you can trust an agency or a private client, that is why it is very difficult to say from our (or my, at least) point of view.
P.s.: I find it also odd that the file was cancelled, mh. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | This is very speculative and should not be in the scam section | Aug 25, 2021 |
You can speculate about the reasons and motivations of any agency. Of course you need to do your due diligence, check that the agency is legit, and consider if the rate is appropriate. At the same time, you should keep in mind that situations like this can be an excellent chance for a newcomer to get a foot in the door.
For example, this is a time of the year where many translators are on vacation. Maybe the regular translators for this project are not available right now and the ag... See more You can speculate about the reasons and motivations of any agency. Of course you need to do your due diligence, check that the agency is legit, and consider if the rate is appropriate. At the same time, you should keep in mind that situations like this can be an excellent chance for a newcomer to get a foot in the door.
For example, this is a time of the year where many translators are on vacation. Maybe the regular translators for this project are not available right now and the agency finds itself pressed to find a replacement quickly, since the deadline looms. So they might be forced to offer a chance to a new translator (or a dormant entry from their translator database), hopefully one who is competent and has the right specialisation(s). Helping out an agency in such a situation can be a start for a great relationship with the agency, if you do it right, deliver great work and make the end client happy. This can be worth putting in some extra hours on short notice.
I don't believe that a "fall guy" would be any use for the agency. The agency is still responsible to the client and playing blame games will be no use for them. They'd just lose the client and their own reputation.
It is quite possible that the agency is disorganised (and even that can be a chance for a translator to shine), but I don't see a scam here. ▲ Collapse
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Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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| Perhaps they used to outsource and got burned, hard | Aug 25, 2021 |
Is your friend a native speaker of one side of his language pair with a specialist education in the correct field from a country that uses the other side?
Perhaps their last person was your usual ex-Soviet intellectual housewife ex-schoolteacher with a major in Japanese and a minor in English... from Omsk or Novosibirsk University, who has never left her native county except for a package vacation to Turkey 10 years back.
Or a Western college dropout with little more th... See more Is your friend a native speaker of one side of his language pair with a specialist education in the correct field from a country that uses the other side?
Perhaps their last person was your usual ex-Soviet intellectual housewife ex-schoolteacher with a major in Japanese and a minor in English... from Omsk or Novosibirsk University, who has never left her native county except for a package vacation to Turkey 10 years back.
Or a Western college dropout with little more than an unhealthy interest in anime.
There's more of both of those than you'd think trying to play the bottom of the market.
Could be they realized they NEEDED an upgrade, but decided they couldn't justify established pro native speaker or native bilingual rates to their boss and just took a chance on somebody who seemed like he at least COULD possibly know what he was doing to some extent.
[Edited at 2021-08-25 20:47 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-08-25 20:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Not a scam, just poor judgment | Aug 26, 2021 |
Based on my experience, I suspect the agency contracted this job as a first with this client after the Bank was turned down by other agencies on grounds of the demanding conditions (which sound authentic) combined with a low rate. The agency looked into their database and assigned the job to the best fit: Japanese to English translator with a background in finance who is willing to work for a low pay. Bingo. So far, so good. But if the job goes haywire (which it must given the extensive cross-re... See more Based on my experience, I suspect the agency contracted this job as a first with this client after the Bank was turned down by other agencies on grounds of the demanding conditions (which sound authentic) combined with a low rate. The agency looked into their database and assigned the job to the best fit: Japanese to English translator with a background in finance who is willing to work for a low pay. Bingo. So far, so good. But if the job goes haywire (which it must given the extensive cross-referencing work combined with the short turn-around time), no amount of finger pointing at the translator will protect the agency from their client’s wrath, which makes a premeditated fall-guy scheme unlikely. It rather looks like the agency is taking their chances. The translator can be pitied if he has signed on. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | The world of translation... | Aug 26, 2021 |
never ceases to amaze me...
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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I re-read your first post and saw the words FOR THEIR WEBSITE.
This explains pretty much everything.
Many big businesses really neglect the foreign language sections of their websites. Bosses said "make an English website ASAP", so they just hired some random dude. Not like the bosses can read English well and not like anybody else cares.
[Edited at 2021-08-26 12:33 GMT]
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| Early days experience you generally don't repeat! | Aug 27, 2021 |
In our early days, we are more likely to accept jobs that we should not accept. We usually pay the price in terms of underestimating the difficulty (subject matter, documents type) and the time required. The extensive cross-referencing requirements only added to making this job into the job from hell.
It is not a scam. The agency should have known the specific requirements would greatly increase the time element. They probably did know. Either way, it was obvious and they should hav... See more In our early days, we are more likely to accept jobs that we should not accept. We usually pay the price in terms of underestimating the difficulty (subject matter, documents type) and the time required. The extensive cross-referencing requirements only added to making this job into the job from hell.
It is not a scam. The agency should have known the specific requirements would greatly increase the time element. They probably did know. Either way, it was obvious and they should have done a better job of informing the client of the difficulties and impact on time and/or price. However, it is not unusual for agencies to fall short in some way. They sometimes accept conditions that clients impose that are not workable or that will at best have a negative impact on quality.
As time goes on, you tend to refuse these jobs, but not after having explained what IS possible. It is surprising that a client will often accept as it is likely to be the only way they will get their work done. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Confidentiality | Aug 27, 2021 |
It is extremely common for clients, including agencies, to require freelancers to avoid use of any cloud feature during a job. The fact that the text will be in the public domain may seem to make that an exaggerated requirement. If that is what the client wishes, and you accept the job, theoretically it should be respected.
Information of a commercial nature may not seem like a state secret but in commercial terms, a lot of what might appear innocuous to us is quite the opposite fo... See more It is extremely common for clients, including agencies, to require freelancers to avoid use of any cloud feature during a job. The fact that the text will be in the public domain may seem to make that an exaggerated requirement. If that is what the client wishes, and you accept the job, theoretically it should be respected.
Information of a commercial nature may not seem like a state secret but in commercial terms, a lot of what might appear innocuous to us is quite the opposite for the client. Agencies often have this type of clause as standard with their clients. The contract a freelancer has with the agency usually has the same type of clause in it also these days. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:54
Member (2008)
Italian to English
The title of this thread is
"When translation agencies use you as a fall guy"
Isn't that just ... every time?
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