Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Good agency. Bad communication. Thread poster: Miranda Drew
| Couldn't agree more | Oct 25, 2018 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: bad agency. There is no excuse for that... since you are not prepared to drop them, it looks like you will have to put up with their behaviour, because they are not going to change. Good communication is absolutely essential, but often vastly underrated for some reason. What if a dream job from this "good" agency turns into a nightmare (confusion over deadline, refusal to pay...) because of a communication error? | | |
jyuan_us wrote: they don't acknowledge the receipt of your deliverable Is it possible to acknowledge receipt of a deliverable? By that time it must be a delivered! | | | jyuan_us United States Local time: 08:43 Member (2005) English to Chinese + ...
Chris S wrote: jyuan_us wrote: they don't acknowledge the receipt of your deliverable Is it possible to acknowledge receipt of a deliverable? By that time it must be a delivered! Sorry for the error. I clicked "post reply" before polishing my post. I meant to say "It is particularly annoying when they don't even acknowledge the receipt of the file you have delivered." | | |
jyuan_us write: Sorry for the error. I clicked "post reply" before polishing my post. I meant to say "It is particularly annoying when they don't even acknowledge the receipt of the file you have delivered." No, no, I’m not correcting anything. It’s just a joke/withering comment on the commoditisation of our beloved metier... | |
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"good agency" | Oct 26, 2018 |
Well, to be a good agency (professional) the necessary attributes should be there. Paying on time is only one aspect. If they send urgent jobs and then can't confirm in time, that is not being a good agency. When you collaborate with a company that is disorganized in some way, it impacts on your life, and can also impact on your income and efficiency. | | | Emma Gledhill Switzerland Local time: 13:43 German to English + ...
In my experience these things do happen and the best thing to do is to state the bleedin' obvious. "Yes I can do the job, I need a go-ahead by X to deliver by your deadline of Y, otherwise the deadline will have to move accordingly", "Yes I can do it if you confirm by return, otherwise it will be subject to other work I receive" etc. Set out your stall clearly to cover yourself so you can then act accordingly and let them deal with it as they please | | | Miranda Drew Italy Local time: 13:43 Member (2009) Italian to English TOPIC STARTER Just an update | Nov 22, 2018 |
The agency emailed me yesterday at 2pm asking if I could do a 500 word job for today. I wrote back that I could, if they showed me the files. No answer, so I just ignored it and went on with my other work. At 6:30 pm when I was already out for dinner, I get an answer - here are the files to translate. They were a mess of revisions and a PDF document, so a very confusing job on top of everything else. I wrote back, sorry, but I got no reply from you for 4 hours, I have accepted other... See more The agency emailed me yesterday at 2pm asking if I could do a 500 word job for today. I wrote back that I could, if they showed me the files. No answer, so I just ignored it and went on with my other work. At 6:30 pm when I was already out for dinner, I get an answer - here are the files to translate. They were a mess of revisions and a PDF document, so a very confusing job on top of everything else. I wrote back, sorry, but I got no reply from you for 4 hours, I have accepted other jobs for tomorrow and cannot fit this in. ▲ Collapse | | | B D Finch France Local time: 13:43 French to English + ... When is a job "confirmed"? | Nov 22, 2018 |
Miranda Drew wrote: ... I do try to not worry when the job is not confirmed, and of course accept other proposals that I receive in the meantime. But they've acted this way with confirmed jobs. The last example I was talking about, the job was confirmed. At this point I guess I will let them know in each case that if they don't answer, I can't take the job.... A job shouldn't be treated as confirmed until you have been able to view and provide a price for the actual file(s) they want you to translate and a job order form has been sent and accepted. Up to that point, you can accept other work. If you get another offer that would stop you meeting the first agency's deadline, then it's only reasonable to tell them that, unless you get confirmation within a given time, you will accept the other work and tell them what the effect of that would be on your ability to meet their deadline. Of course, problems can arise after confirmation of a job, e.g. you might find some technical glitch in the file, e.g. you might discover that text in some of the graphics isn't editable. But, that's another matter and needs to be negotiated. Re your update: If they are in the same time zone as you, then they are working late and were probably not setting proper terms and conditions for their client. Glad you had other work to do and hope you enjoyed your dinner!
[Edited at 2018-11-22 15:22 GMT] | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Good agency. Bad communication. Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
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