On the Relative Irreplaceability of Translators

 
A core principle of the so-called translation industry is the notion that all translators are easily interchangeable and replaceable.

Project managers working for translation agencies have databases containing dozens, hundreds, or thousands (or at least that’s what translation agencies say on their websites) of translators who may be called upon by an agency depending on the particulars contained in each entry, (especially based on how much they charge). Because some of these translators may have moved (or may even have died) by the time they are needed for a particular project, many project managers send mass e-mails these days to multiple prospective warm bodies when a real project suddenly materializes.

In a system based on the operating mode described above, mass e-mails certainly save time. But this is not a system that would work for me, as I don’t consider myself part of the so-called translation industry anymore.

An alternative approach is based on a very different concept and principle, namely that a really good translator is not easy to replace. In fact, most of the time a good translator is almost irreplaceable. This principle and belief that I share with many, or perhaps only some modern translation agency owners, is not based solely on my vanity as a translator, but on logic and experience.

When a translator who has been working for the same client on the same type of translations for many years suddenly becomes unavailable, the replacement, when and if found, is likely to be at least somewhat deficient. Even if the new translator is good and experienced, he or she will lack client-specific knowledge that the translator who has been working for the same client for years has accumulated over many years.

Of course, each and every one of us is replaceable in the long run. As somebody put it, I think I read it in a British spy novel, “Graveyards are full of indispensable people”. But when a good translator must be replaced, there is a learning curve, sometime a long and painful one, and the resulting quality of the replacement translations may vary, at least during the initial stage.

The relevant knowledge is not as easily transferable in the translating profession as it is in some other professions because the knowledge is client-specific. When you need to have your garage door or water heater replaced, you need a professional repairman who knows a lot about garage doors or water heaters. But the repairman doesn’t need to know anything about you and your business. He already knows how the water heater or garage door will be used.

On the other hand, the first thing that a translator needs to ask himself or herself is:”How will be this translation used by the client?” Even though most translation agencies generally don’t tell translators much about the purpose of a translation, (perhaps because they don’t know or don’t care), we have to keep the purpose of the translation in mind when we are translating.

Just like we may not be easily replaceable to our clients, our clients are also very hard to replace, the good ones, anyway, which once again makes the issue of relative irreplaceability of translators extremely relevant when we want to go on vacation.

I remember that in the early 1990s, before most people started using the Internet, I tried to simply not worry too much about the business I may have been losing while I was traveling. When I came back home, there was a stack of unanswered faxes in my fax machine that I had to deal with to try and salvage a couple of jobs if possible.

But back in the 90s I was working mostly for translation agencies, and since most of them operated on the principle that every translator is more or less easily replaceable, it was not such a big deal.

As I started working mostly for direct clients, not being available for work, even during a relatively short vacation period, became a much bigger problem. Most translators probably try to solve this problem by trying to find a partner who can be trusted to replace them competently if a rush translation is needed. But in my case, the situation is complicated by the fact that I translate from seven languages (although most of the time it is just two or three of them), and also the fact that I am a one-man translation agency when I am working on projects that I cannot translate myself. Success or failure of the mission when I work as a translation agency, and this is now an important part of my business, depends on how much I know about the subject matter, the client, and the translator.

I gave up on trying to find a suitable temporary replacement partner years ago.

Before cell phones were turned into personal computers, I used to log into my e-mail account from “Internet kiosks” at airports, and check out Internet cafés in Europe, first thing after breakfast, to at least stay in touch with my clients by e-mail while on vacation. Are we really on vacation when we have to check our e-mail constantly?

Translators are considered as quite unimportant in the grand scheme of things, if they are given any thought at all. That so-called translation industry is trying to replace them by “crowd-sourced” amateurs which is just another piece of evidence clearly showing how little the so-called translation industry understands about translation.

Translators are not considered to be important in the grand scheme of things by anybody … until the guy or girl who did the last translation so well suddenly becomes unavailable, for example because he or she joined the ranks of other indispensable people in a graveyard who no longer answer their e-mails.

There are crowds of people in this world calling themselves translators who are hungry for work and eager to take on any translation project, sometime at any price. But the problem is, since only a very small percentage of them can do the job well, it’s very hard to replace a good translator when a complicated project suddenly becomes a very urgent task and the translator who used to do this project very satisfactorily suddenly becomes unavailable. The relative irreplaceability of translators then becomes very evident for example when a translator dares to take a few days off and go on vacation, although this is something that, unlike translators, most other people can do every year without worrying much about anything.