How about we call the plumber and ask him to speed up the job – and potentially delay his jobs for other clients – because we have a wedding in our house next week when we don't actually have that wedding? That's false pretences.Īpart from the time and factors like moving deadlines with other clients, also money is involved when the agency or client agrees not to charge a rush fee after being told a moving story of how the client (or outsourcing agency) really needs that job so fast.
The false pretences involved in the artificial rush make the contracted agency or the contracted translator allocate their time and resources in a changed way in order to respond to a client's legitimate need. Usually a client or agency who claims the job needs to be done ASAP also claims that the circumstances are objective in nature, that the urgency is a necessity that results from independent reasons, and thus that no rush fee should be applied – in contrast to more culpable or whimsical situations where someone forgot about the need to translate, took his sweet time or simply wants it fast because he's impatient. What is artificial rush is when the client or agency higher in the chain claims the job is urgent and needs to be done ASAP, for example tomorrow morning, while in reality nobody looks at the delivered translation until next week or even later. Also, the need for revision, checking, editing and proofreading is not artificial. To avoid wasting space on triviliaties, let me say right away this isn't about including a buffer zone in a deadline, especially where the delivering agency or client has a record of late deliveries. I simply read about yet another translator being hurried into a rush translation only to have it shelved for a long time after delivery. This is the direct cause why I decided to write this article. In this context I want to address a popular problem in the translation industry, which is: Time can be similar to money in this regard, and sometimes time is converted to money in a very direct way, such as the billable hours charged by lawyers and some other professionals. Or else they get their money under false pretences. A vendor should not lie about the quality of his product delivered to clients. A worker should not lie in his CV based on which he negotiates his salary. If this sounds complicated, I will try to offer a 'real-life' illustration: A beggar should not lie about his ailments and disabilities when he asks compassionate walkers-by to share their money with him. Just like someone's money, his time belongs to him and we shouldn't claim it from his under false pretences. However, at this time I want to focus on a different aspect of respecting another's time: It would also be a good idea to fish out those cases where a current or potential partner clearly invests his or her time in our business relationship (for example by writing a thoughtful response, an elaborate offer, a detailed quotation etc.) and reply in kind. Of the two above aspects I will speak in only most general terms: it'd be a good idea to make sure that we don't waste other people's time through inefficient processes in our own business. the time they spend dealing with our own problems). Giving them something in return for the time they give us (e.g.Respect for other people's time comes in two basic varietes: The ethical problem I want to tackle here is:
Today is Sunday and while I wouldn't like to write about a substantive translation issue, I thought it was a good opportunity to broach an ethical problem.
0 kommentar(er)
