Out with the New, In with the Old – a Time Tested Alternative to the New Translation Industry Model

We translators love to constantly complain on social media about how we are treated by translation agencies, or by what is now called the “translation industry” (always in quotation marks on my silly blog, to distinguish this particular industry from translation as a profession, because these are two very different things.)

But when the shoe is on the other foot, when one translator works for another translator, who would then in this case be the equivalent of the “translation industry”, how do we treat the translators who work for us? Is there a difference between us and the industry in what we do unto others?

I think so. In most cases, I have noticed that most translators in fact do unto other translators as they would have them do unto them.

Just like some translators are not really of this world although they do live in it, there is a part of what is called the “translation industry” that is not really a part of the industry, and that part is made mostly of translators or former translators who also run what is a de facto small translation agency.

I myself have been working for other translators for many years and although that part of my life seems to be mostly in the past now, there are quite a few translators who are still working for me or for my small enterprise that is based mostly on translation of patents.

Because I mostly translate patents, the translators that I myself have been working for in the past two decades and who no longer send me work, because they are retired or no longer with us in this world, were also patent translators. In fact, they were mostly German translators, who just like me were translating German patents directly for patent law firms and occasionally needed help with translations of Japanese patents.

As I have said, they no longer send me work, probably because there is less demand for Japanese. But just last week I talked to one of them who translates German patents and who used to send me Japanese patents for translation, on and off for quite a few years. She is in her early eighties now but she still works, and there is plenty of work for her, she said, although she tries to find enough time for traveling as well.

There are generally a few important differences between how the translation agencies run their business in the toxic environment of new “translation industry” and how individual translators and some small translation agencies work with translators. Here are some of these differences:

1. Paying Good Rates Is the Best Way to Ensure Excellent Quality of the Translation

Based on the new “translation industry” model, most translation agencies try to find the cheapest translator who should still be able to do a given job. The results are often not very good, especially since most translation agencies are unable to evaluate the quality of translations (that’s why they need to send a translation test to every new translator for their kind of evaluation that can be done by somebody who understands only one language and generally knows nothing about the subject either.)

But individual translators can tell good quality from poor quality and they are also often able to pay higher rates to other translators because they make most of their money from their own work.

I don’t pay “stellar” rates as one cheeky translator (who just like me may be a bit spoiled when it comes to rates because he mostly works for direct customers) once complained to me, but the rates that I pay are quite a bit higher than what the big players in the “translation industry” typically pay, generally twice as much as what a typical mega agency would pay.

(Please don’t send me your résumés. I need only a few people for only a few languages and there is so much fraud in the fake résumé business that I am only willing to consider translators who have been recommended by other translators that I know already.)

2. Paying Quickly Is Almost as Good as Paying Twice

Another distinguishing features of translators and small to tiny agencies that used to and sometime still do send me patents for translation is that they pay within a few days, which is to say that they usually mail me a check as soon as they have received my translation.

This is very different from the model of the “translation industry”, which generally pays in two to three months to take advantage of a long “float time” during which the industry can let us wait for our money while we are forced to extend credit to the industry, often for a very long time. Who cares how are the translators going to be able to pay their bills before the payment finally arrives?

That’s their damn problem, right?

Well, not really, at least I don’t think so. And because the projects that I handle as an agency are not that many, they are usually relatively small and I have some money in the bank set aside specifically for this purpose, I pay translators who work for me on the first and on the fifteenth of each month, which means that nobody has to wait to get paid for more than two weeks, sometimes only a day or two.

3. A Non-Disclosure Agreement Is Generally Only an Unenforceable Piece of Paper

Unlike the new “translation industry”, I don’t believe much in long, demeaning and sometime illegal NDAs that all translators are forced to sign in exchange for promises of future work, which often turns out to be nonexistent.

If a translation agency treats a translator in this manner, it clearly demonstrates a lack of respect for a translator, and the translator will have no respect for the translation either. Unfortunately for the clients, this means that any NDA could be violated by a translator without a second thought, especially since it is difficult or impossible to prove a violation, in particular if the translation agency is located in another country.

The best way for a translation agency to show that it respects the people who are working for it and whose work is indispensable for the agency’s profitability or survival is: 1. when it pays translators good rates, 2. when invoices are paid quickly (or at least within the promised time period), and 3. when the agency maintains basic norms of polite conduct in the communications with the translators.

I still know a few translation agencies that check all of the boxes for the simple categories mentioned above and those are the only agencies that I still work for.

And when I am the agency, I try to fit into them my little enterprise as well, which among other things means that I basically only ask translators to sign an NDA if it is required by the client. This happens once in a while, but not very often and when it does, the translators only need to sign a short statement about confidentiality.

Instead of relying on a piece of signed paper with thousands of words of tricky and scary legalese on it that for the most part has nothing to do with confidentiality of documents anyway, I try to establish a relationship of trust between myself and the translators who work for me. I believe that this is by far is the best way to ensure the confidentiality of documents.

I believe in the principles outlined in my silly post today because this is how the old “translation industry” used to work, before mammoth agencies ruined it, especially as smaller agencies started to imitate the ruthless corporate methods of their larger and particularly arrogant and greedy brethren.

I try to imitate the old translation agency model because I think that the old model is much better not only for translators, but also for their clients.

Painful experience has taught me that few things in life are as stupid as trying to find very good wine in a very cheap wine bottle. You have to pay a decent price for a decent wine. Don’t be surprised if a cheap wine turns out to be poison that will give you a major headache.

Despite the propaganda of the “translation industry” extolling the advantages of “new and innovative techniques”, referring in fact mostly to dangerous and counter-productive techniques for post-processing of the machine translation detritus, translations are in this respect no different from wine.