| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: Have you ever turned down a job because you did not agree with the agency's contract terms? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever turned down a job because you did not agree with the agency's contract terms?".
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| | | | Mike Sadler (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:23
Spanish to English
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| Some agencies really try it on | May 9, 2013 |
I was recently offered work by an agency with an appalling BB record, for failure to pay. They agreed to my demand for full payment in advance, but I still declined the work when I read, as part of their NDA, that it demanded that no comment be posted in any public forum regarding them.
The agencies and people I do work for are invariably highly professional, so the odd cowboy can hitch his pony elsewhere.
| | | | DianeGM
Local time: 19:23
Member (2006)
Dutch to English
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best to ask questions first to avoid trouble later.
| | | | Vibeke Degn-P
Norway
Local time: 18:23
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian
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| Five minutes ago | May 9, 2013 |
I'm not kidding - five minutes ago I sent a mail to an agency saying I could not accept their terms. I wish they would understand that I do not want to sign off my life, house, car, family and pets in order to do a little translation for them.
Vibeke
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Enrico Zoffoli
Italy
Local time: 18:23
Member (2013)
German to Italian
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And both times with the same drill:
- They contact me and ask to submit my rates
- I submit my rates, to which they agree
- They ask me to go through their ridiculous registration process
- They invite me to be "more flexible" in terms of rates (those very same rates that they already accepted)
- Bye and thanks for wasting my time
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 09:23
English to German
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In memoriam | A contract needs to be built and agreed upon by both parties. | May 9, 2013 |
Good agencies will agree to your changes. After all, you are the other HALF of the contract. Not 10% or 20% or 30%.
My personal record: 14 months (!) of negotiation. They wouldn't let go. Neither did I. They finally rewrote the contract and they are now one of my largest clients. Now we trust each other blindly.
| | | | | | Vibeke Degn-P
Norway
Local time: 18:23
Member (2010)
English to Norwegian
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[quote]Nicole Schnell wrote:
14 months (!) of negotiation.
I'm impressed. Or shocked. Haven't decided which yet. I really hope they are a good customer, because that's hard work to get work. I have yet to be presented with a proposal interesting enough to go through that. I usually just say "No, I don't like the suspicious tone in your contract, and no, my rates are not negotiable". They usually get my point.
But thumbs up! Well done, Nicole!
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Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 09:23
English to German
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In memoriam | Here is how it worked: | May 9, 2013 |
[quote]Vibeke Degn-P wrote:
Nicole Schnell wrote:
14 months (!) of negotiation.
I'm impressed. Or shocked. Haven't decided which yet. I really hope they are a good customer, because that's hard work to get work.
My miniature corporation is set up in a way that there are no owners, only shareholders. Technically, together with the other two founders we are only employees of our own little boutique company. Our accountant does the payroll. The advantage? I can use the full legal bull whip when it comes to slow payers. The respect you gain is tremendous.
The agency in question finally provided a contract that they usually use for their end clients. Now we are all happy.
How I learned how to do that? I once outsourced a serious 4-digit job to my own and largest agency client. This way I learned how their contracts with their end clients look like. From this moment on, my contracts look the same.
| | | | | Yes, a couple of times | May 9, 2013 |
Sometimes I just got tired of hackling with them.
Some agencies are just incredible: loads of paper work taking all kinds of irrelevant precautions without considering the translator's rights.
I usually tell them off, reminding them I specialize in contracts and would like to suggest certain amendments - some agree, others don't.
I also try to explain that a respectful tone in the contract is much more conducive to a good business relationship.
| | | | | Yes, many times | May 9, 2013 |
I consider my one-man-show as a services providing outfit like any other. So I have to abide by the local law, and I chose to uphold some ethical principles, as well as some house policies based on sheer common sense, whose rationale I am never shy to explain.
Some of the most typical agency terms that made me turn down jobs:
Price - Like any other business, I have my costs, and I have my prices. Just as I don't care if they are willing to pay me more than I charge, I w... See more I consider my one-man-show as a services providing outfit like any other. So I have to abide by the local law, and I chose to uphold some ethical principles, as well as some house policies based on sheer common sense, whose rationale I am never shy to explain.
Some of the most typical agency terms that made me turn down jobs:
Price - Like any other business, I have my costs, and I have my prices. Just as I don't care if they are willing to pay me more than I charge, I will not accept lower prices. My deliverables have price tags attached to them. If I'm still in business, they must be worth it. Of course, I also have my quality and timeliness standards, so they know beforehand what they are paying for. While I try to sell my prospects out of ordering anything I know they won't need, I charge for everything I do for them.
References - Some agencies demand sine qua non three references. I don't want my good clients pestered with that agency's spam to the tune of Whatever this jerk does for you, we can do it better, faster, and cheaper!" which is the intended purpose of collecting "references" in 99.9% of the cases. Furthermore, I have NDAs signed with most of my clients, whereby I am not authorized to disclose that I've ever done anything for them. The funny thing is that these reference-demanding agencies have similar NDAs.
Trados - Some agencies demand Trados absolutely, even if it's to translate a handwritten document or a script-less video for dubbing, or when it's a Brazilian sworn translation governed by law, which requires delivery in hard copy. They read somewhere that everything anyone needs to do a good, cheap, and fast translation job is Trados, and believed it.
Illegal demands - As I mentioned Brazilian sworn translations being governed by law, the vendor agreement from one widely known translation agency had no less than 19 points where it clashed with Brazilian law on the matter. Their legal department has been supposedly analyzing these items... since December 2008! Unfortunately I can't mention their name here.
Payment terms - Some agencies want to borrow money from me. Bluntly stated, they want to use a freelance translator as if it were a financial institution, to pay 2+ months after I've delivered my services. I advise them to order their translations from a bank, which will help them get lower interest rates on regular translation rates.
Abusive liability - They want to hold me accountable for, e.g. the printing cost of many thousand copies of my translation. In other words, if they unilaterally don't like the style of one phrase in a book I've translated, they expect me to pay them the cost of reprinting the entire edition, which may be several hundred times what I'll get paid for the translation... even if they don't reprint it at all!
This list could go on and on... Fortunately, there is a large number of sound-minded translation agencies everywhere that I can work with. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 18:23
Member (2009)
English to German
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Mainly because of either their payment terms or the agency's "additional requirements".
Last week I was invited to join an already existing "large pool" of translators. All members of this pool (allegedly) have agreed to doing extremly urgent, though small translations with a maximum delivery deadline of 15 minutes at a word rate of EUR 0.04.
The catch was , if the translation was delivered up to 20 minutes late, ... See more Mainly because of either their payment terms or the agency's "additional requirements".
Last week I was invited to join an already existing "large pool" of translators. All members of this pool (allegedly) have agreed to doing extremly urgent, though small translations with a maximum delivery deadline of 15 minutes at a word rate of EUR 0.04.
The catch was, if the translation was delivered up to 20 minutes late, payment was to be reduced by 50%. Any later delivery "merits" a 100% deduction. Of course, the translation still needed to be delivered, the times spent on the translation went "on the house", so to speak.
Other job offers were also turned down when a time consuming registration process on the agency's website was demanded. After receipt of the translator's full details and the CV, the agency staff would then decide whether the translator has any chance of ever getting a job. However, that decision would only be made after the translator had signed an astoundingly "creative" NDA that practically left her/him with a multitude of obligations, but with practically no rights at all. Needless to say that their "favorable" payment terms were 60 days from the end of the months.
Another reason for having turned down jobs was that the agency insisted that I'd use Trados.
Sometimes I believe that Trados seems to be the only CAT tool on the market. I do use a CAT tool, just not Trados.
There's more to a translator's life than wasting time on such offers of collaboration that, most probably, will never materialize.
P. S. And I didn't even asked them how large their translator pool was.
[Edited at 2013-05-09 12:30 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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I often decline unsolicited jobs from arrogant and unsympathetic agencies who expect me to complete a lengthy registration process, sign numerous agreements etc. and then accept their starvation rates and imposed discounts before they grant me the favour of being allowed to work for them. I will continue to do so.
Steve K.
| | | | David Wright
Austria
Local time: 18:23
German to English
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| Contract terms? | May 9, 2013 |
I haven't seen any contract terms from any of the agencies I work with (and have been working with for decades) and we have never had any problems. But I suppose the world is changing in this respect too.
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David Wright wrote:
I haven't seen any contract terms from any of the agencies I work with (and have been working with for decades) and we have never had any problems. But I suppose the world is changing in this respect too.
If my memory serves me right, the first contract I signed with a translation agency was some 4/5 years ago and I have been working with some of them for over 25 years, without a single problem.
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