{"id":7655,"date":"2024-06-20T12:40:59","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T10:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/?p=7655"},"modified":"2024-07-18T22:49:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T20:49:57","slug":"im-reviewing-the-situation-fagin-in-oliver-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/im-reviewing-the-situation-fagin-in-oliver-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m reviewing the situation\u2026\u201d (Fagin, in Oliver) \u2013 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page-restrict-output\"><div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p dir=\"rtl\" style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"right\"><a><span lang=\"he-IL\"><b>By Perry Zamek<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also in this series:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/im-reviewing-the-situation-fagin-in-oliver-part-2\/\">\u201cI\u2019m reviewing the situation\u2026\u201d (Fagin, in Oliver) \u2013 Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/im-reviewing-the-situation-fagin-in-oliver-part-3\/\">\u201cI\u2019m reviewing the situation\u2026\u201d (Fagin, in Oliver) \u2013 Part 3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Over the next few weeks, I\u2019d like to discuss a few questions that each of us should ask ourselves \u2013 as professional translators \u2013 every so often<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">.<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7670 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-33x49.jpg 33w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-133x200.jpg 133w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-249x374.jpg 249w, https:\/\/ita.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pexels-cottonbro-6896186-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">The answers to these questions may lead you to make some changes, or you may be satisfied with where you are at. But it\u2019s worth taking the time to think about these issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Here are the first two questions:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\">How long have I been a professional translator?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\">When was the last time I looked at the mix of my clients, to see whether there are those for whom it is no longer profitable or worthwhile to work?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\"><b>How long have I been a professional translator?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Let me emphasize the importance of the word \u201cprofessional\u201d here. Most of us don\u2019t do translation in order to have a little income on the side. We do this work as our primary income generator, and that means that we have to conduct ourselves as a professionals \u2013 on-time delivery, quality work, proper relations with clients, good business skills, and so on. As we work in the profession, we gain more experience and we hone our skills even more. I\u2019m sure that some of us would look back at translations we did some years ago and be embarrassed by the errors or poor terminology. Also, it is likely that a document that would have taken a certain amount of time to translate back then, would now take less time, either because of familiarity with the material or through the use of templates or CAT tools. In my own case, having built an extensive collection of template documents, I can save a great deal of time by simply knowing where to find the most appropriate template for the document now before me. All this experience and knowledge has to be worth something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\"><b>When was the last time I looked at the mix of my clients, to see whether there are those for whom it is no longer profitable or worthwhile to work?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Some clients send small jobs, in which each word requires research, consideration, weighing up the options. And yet they might not be pleased if they have to pay for all the time involved \u2013 after all, a page is a page is a page (Not so, I\u2019m afraid.). Other clients will send a document at 11:00 at night, and call at 8:00 the next morning asking why you haven\u2019t sent the translation yet! (I do have a life.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">If we haven\u2019t been able to educate those clients as to the value of the effort we put into their translations, or the value of our personal time, then maybe we need to consider a parting of the ways. After all, if it takes 2 hours to earn X shekels from client A, with all their questions and comments and edits, while client B is happy to pay X shekels for half an hour\u2019s work, wouldn\u2019t you want to work with client B, and have an hour and a half available to you for other things? And wouldn\u2019t you want to work with a client who, if they do send an email late at night, will start with an apology for the late hour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">On the other hand, some of us have clients who send us plenty of work, of the type we enjoy doing, and which pays well. How should we respond to the occasional request from those clients for something a little bit outside of the ordinary? I know that I would try to find a solution \u2013 either by taking on the work at my usual rates, in spite of the complexity (it\u2019s a trade-off), or by subcontracting to a colleague who has more of the requisite experience\/knowledge, even if I would make no profit on it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">Again, there are no hard and fast rules \u2013 the important thing is to spend a little time thinking about these and other issues. We don\u2019t have to think about them constantly, but we do need to come back to them every so often.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span lang=\"en-US\">In the next installment we will look at some more of these \u201cevery so often\u201d questions. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page-restrict-output\"><p>By Perry Zamek Also in this series: \u201cI\u2019m reviewing the situation\u2026\u201d (Fagin, in Oliver) \u2013 Part 2 \u201cI\u2019m reviewing the situation\u2026\u201d (Fagin, in Oliver) \u2013 Part 3 &nbsp; Over the next few weeks, I\u2019d like to discuss a few questions that each of us should ask ourselves \u2013 as professional translators \u2013 every so often. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":7670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7655"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7704,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655\/revisions\/7704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ita.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}