Tuesday, August 30, 2011

What’s sauce for the goose…

I’ve recently criticized here translators who don’t know how to communicate with translation companies, and start their messages with “Dear Sir / Madam” (going downhill from there).
What’s sauce for the goose, however, is also sauce for the gander. Translation companies and project managers also should refrain from a scattershot approach, sending translation requests to “everyone”, as if any translator were perfectly interchangeable with any other, in the hope that someone is desperate enough to accept a rush assignment due in just a few hours.
From a major translation company:
Hello Everyone,
We have an urgent request for [Name of the project]. Please find below the details. Would request you to please confirm your availability at the earliest. Upon confirmation from me or [Name of PM] please start working on the request.
Answer:
We are not available for this job.
Also, our name is not “everyone”: a little bit of courtesy and respect for professionals would not hurt.
Best regards,
(No, it is not from TP – it is from a company who should know better – and, to their credit, often does).

3 comments:

  1. Well, sometimes they even forget the name of the project.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a good answer! I tend to not answer these requests at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I definitely agree, I tend not to reply as well. But maybe answering something would actually improve their communication in the long run, never thought of that!

    ReplyDelete

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