Greedy Greedy!

A few months ago we had the project from hell. Over 50 languages, small bits of text which were chopped up into individual phrases for recording.

The logistics are a nightmare because a) language grammer throws around word order. b) arranging tons of small texts for that volume of languages is a project management nightmare (especially when the company doesn't charge specifically for project management) and c) because the client was a putz.

Also, built into the contract was aclause that if more than x% of the languages went wrong, the costs for reparation would be deducted from the bill.

I'm happy I didn't manage this one, but even if God had handled it would have gone wrong. x in x% was a very small number.

We ended up eating most of our costs. Then, and this dumbfounded me, the sales guy who was responsible for selling this project suddely flashed dollar signs in his eyes and sold the same client (a client I would have cut my losses and run on) a second project! His excuse was that he wanted to recoup the expenses, something I think would have been better to do from finding other clients. A big fat "I told you" so followed.

Well to make the story worse the second project also doesn't go swimmingly, but better than the first, however this time the contract was a bit more in our advantage. The client wasn't satisfied and simply refused to pay the whole bill.

Yup, now we're incurring lwayer costs to sue for the amount of the second project.

Way to go sales dude, your greed made the company barely break even that year.

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Your Christmas Bonus Is...

It was near the height of the tech boom. Every company in the US was rolling in bathtubs of benjamins. Except ours. How else could one possible explain the following:

While sometimes I struggle to call a Localization Company a "Tech Company", they really are. We're kind of the bastard children of the "Tech Haves". I've worked for Tech companies that were very generous in their Christmas bonuses. Not so in this case.

It was during a year where it was so busy and slammed that many of us had pillows and blankets stored under our desks for a quick nap in the middle of the night while trying to meet deadlines. I'm sure money was being made, but perhaps money was also being spent. Just not on us. Our Christmas bonus that year? A weak movie ticket pass. w00t!!! Note to bosses everywhere. Don't bother with movie passes and crap like that - Target gift cards and cold, hard cash makes everyone happier. I digress. I couldn't hold my excitement in! But I had to. Another announcement was about to be made. Our boss at the time, a man who enjoyed leather and feathers, announced that he was giving everyone a Christmas present as well! Only it was going to be in the form of a White Elephant Party. Any guesses as to what the gifts were? No? Give up? The boss was emptying out his closets. Old VHS tapes of bad movies, books, used video games for the PC, etc. Yup, that was our bonus. I worked 60-70hr weeks for weeks on end for what? A small movie gift card and a used copy of "Wolf". Sweet. It wasn't long after that when another company came calling and I answered their call.

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Authoring in Word

One of the dumbest things I regularly come across is a problem I'm sure most every translator, Project Manager and DTPer has come across.

Authoring in Microsoft Word

Yes, regularly manuals for translation come across my desk which have been created in Microsoft Word. 300 pages of unstyled, picture filled, embedded table containing documentation with semi-autogenerated Tables of Contents, Figures and Appendices.

If I have a word of advice for clients regarding this: you will save significant cost in authoring and in later publication if you use a real tool. Quark (7!), InDesign and the like.

File size limits on RTFs is 512MB (at least on older systems, not sure if that's still true). CAT tools use RTF oftentimes as the raw format for translation. So if you want to use CAT tools and their potential cost-saving benefits, don't write 200 pages of image-laden material in Word.

So, don't be retarded. Save yourself money, time and improve quality by using a tool designed for authoring large documents.

Thank you.

PS, if you use word and generate TOCs... make sure your styling is done well or I will beat you with a wet noodle. And a large invoice.

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How much? and When?

Some clients really don't have a clue how much time a translation really takes sometimes. Its the reason I prefer to educate them while working with them. However, sometimes you receive such crazy requests you just have to laugh.

Today I received an urgent request mail. He needed a translation and he needed it fast. Tomorrow morning in fact. Well the first questions I ask are: which languages, and how large is it? A few hundred words is relatively easy to arrage usually.

"Oh, I'm not sure, let me check" a few moments later of synth Kenny-G (and you thought the saxophone was bad) he returns with "its a document in German, and we need it in English. I'll fax it to you."

This makes more and more warning bells ring and luckily I stopped him before he could put me through more of that Kenny-G while faxing the document. "And how many pages" I ask?

"oh, not too many, its about 30 pages... its legal text so can I get that certified too?"

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Tag, you're it!

Here's a story I remember being told a little while ago from a translator's perspective. I'll write it down first person so as best to preserve the feel.

Some PMs simply like to turn a blind eye to what they send you, hoping you'll solve their problems for them. At one point I received a file from a client for translation in Tag Editor. The rates weren't so good but since it was a good client from whom I receive regular work, I decided OK, I'll do it.

I finished the translation within the time allotted and sent it back to the PM who sent it further to editing. A week later (remind you, this is a translation of 2000 words or so and an editor should not have taken more than an hour or two to work on it) the file came back FILLED with changes. 99% of the changes were preferential but every single change screwed up the tagging!

I'm sure the PM just sent it through without thinking or looking, which is understandable too when you would have time pressure. Receiving the file a week later with that number of changes was unreal. Then the PM asked if I could fix all the editors mistakes in the tagging because she said that they wouldn't have been necessary had I done my job in the first place. They were almost all preferential changes! I said no at this point and said I would only fix the errors if paid for it.

She probably thought it was worth a shot to get some free hours out of me, but I was astounded by the total lack of respect for my work from a client I have worked with for years. Eventually she conceded and paid me the hours, but the gall of this person was unbelievable.

Lesson? Stand up for yourself!


- thanx for telling me the story, I'm sure alot of translators have experiences similar situations.

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oops, updated!

Ever just finish preparing a project when the client writes a message saying two files were updated?

Yeah. Me too. And this particular project has material that was supposedly "finalized" in 2005. Strange how it could have "just" been updated.

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Client and foresight don't mix...

What a wonderful situation. There's a large scale translation project going in 20 languages. This project was well prepared and implemented. Discussed with the client and more than enough time for all aspects was arranged. It seemed like a dream come true! How often do these come along in localization?

Well the bubble burst. The pilot was completed successfully and on basis of a client-OK the other languages were launched. Or so we thought.

So the client OKed how the project looked based on the initial pilot and all other languages were started, translated, sent to review, and then to publishing.

But... after all this was completed, the client, in their infinite wisdom, came back to the pilot and decided the layout wasn't what was expected and needed to be redone. This, of course, has repercussions for all languages. It wasn't a linguistic error, nor a timeline issue (though now it will be!). But layout. In their source in fact.

I bet what happened is the delivered pilot sat on someone's desk while the client contact said "yeah yeah yeah, its ok". Then after approval was given someone finally looked at it and gave feedback. This means instead of altering the source before translation of remaining languages the remaining languages, each and every one of them, now need to be altered afterwards.

Client's budget blown. Timeline blown. Vendor annoyed. Client pissed. All because some yahoo at the client failed to do the one task asked of them.

The dangers of a multi-language project appear with a vengeance... get something wrong in the source and you can multiply the amount of time it takes to fix the source by the number of languages in the project.

Congratulations client, your foresight astounds me.

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Observation

I went straight to this site this morning to see what the newest post might be and I'm still laughing at the ads that were pulled in by Google. There were two in particular, the first was an offer to download a free "prayer ringtone" and the second was for one of the major loc companies.

How perfect.

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ATOM Feed Live!

Per popular request (well ok. One guy) the ATOM feed has been activated. There should now be a little feed icon ready for all that direct feeding goodness.

-Happily contributing to your information overload.

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Quote Vadis

An email arrived from Chet with the following ARGH!

I was working as an R&D/Engineering type at a large L10N company half a
dozen years ago, and was was asked by an in-your-face go-getter sales
rep to do a rapid yet detailed technical analysis of the challenges
facing us in a proposal for localizing a client's docset and software.

Now, this sales guy was one of those technology enthusiasts who always
knew what was hot but never knew why--learning anything about the nuts
and bolts of technology was completely beneath him. And "challenges" was
putting it mildly--client-to-be's documentation was all over the map,
the software strings were inconsistently coded (my main job at that
point was writing data parsers, so I knew what a headache this would
be), and the website--oh, don't get me started. Having it done in
FrontPage would have been a welcome change. I spent half a day that I
couldn't spare doing a detailed analysis, and wrote it up in language
that a even sales rep could relate to. Emailed it to him, and moved on.

Half a month later I get an email from him--labeled "Urgent", of
course--saying that client liked my analysis, we'd won the job, and it
was "hot, hot, hot!" Like most sales folks on the go, he had left the
entire email chain intact in his forward--some 14 electronic volleys.
Thinking I should remind myself of the issues, I looked at my original
email, quoted verbatim, next to last, except... well... it wasn't what I
had written. *Everything* the rep had construed as a "challenge" had
been deleted, everything where I'd expressed doubt that we could do it
within budget had been rounded up to "no problem", and then the bastard
had sent it out under my name as if I'd written it that way.

I left a number of furious voicemails asking him to call me. He did,
half a day later, and defended his actions--"Be reasonable--if I'd
quoted you directly, we'd have never gotten the job." I completely lost
it, read him the riot act, and said that if he wanted engineering
support, he'd have to use some of the cowboys in our Rocky Mountain
site--a group that at the time had a reputation of being completely out
of control. I never spoke to him again and he was laid off a few months
later. Part of the reason that I only work as a contractor nowadays.
Health insurance costs are killing me, but at least I can say no to the
bozos.


Chet, awesome story. BTW, your email has been deleted from the servers along with the reply.

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The linguistic tester who couldn't

So we have a project where we are localizing Flash movies. They aren't very complex - just some simple animations that have some voice over and text. Luckily the developers of these Flash movies were smart so they externalized the localizable text into a XML file. Smart people these developer folks. The XML file is in UTF-8 format, even! Really smart developer folks. Plus! You'll never believe this, but the localizable material is between <loc>,<\loc> tags. Pretty slick overall.

So, we translate the docs and send the movie, along with the XML file out for testing and ask the tester to make the necessary edits to the XML file. No problem, right? Easy to test and your fixes are immediately regressable. Well, our friend the Spanish tester apparently does not believe in testing his/her own work. I get the files back as "completed" and send it out for a QA pass. The QA person, after about 2 minutes realizes that ALL the extended characters are corrupt. How the hell did this get by the LINGUISTIC tester who was supposed to be checking his/her work?

Turns out the idiot saved the files in ANSI and didn't leave the files in UTF-8 as specifically requested. This is what I deal with *every* day.

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Three weeks wasted

Ok so get this.

The sales guy, we'll call him Mr. K. comes running over to my desk saying "I just got the tentative ok, I need this analyzed and prepared today". I can understand this, sometimes, but looking at the project its complicated. And I means complexities beyond normal experience.

First off, the project includes: translation, editing, engineering, proofing, recording, QA, more recording, and signoff. Alright, I have 2 hours to get the entire project setup and budgetted. WHAT!?

So within the two hours the wordcounts are made. Project is started according to client's instructions and lo-and-behold, the instructions are wrong. They're designed for recording first whereas we needed to translate first. Time lost, money cost and client annoyed.

Blame gets thrown around when I find out that the request was on the sales guy's desk for THREE WHOLE WEEKS before being sent for preparation. Three weeks wasted and boiled down into 2 hours.

Seriously, its like waiting on the IRS. Makes you want to strangle someone.

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Localization Pay? What Pay?

We all know that if you work in the localization industry, you must hate money. Well, nobody hates money per se, but it's common knowledge that the localization industry pays about as well as... well, I can't really think of a white-collar industry that pays less.

Every localization company I've worked for has tried to get away with an annualized hourly rate of less than $20/hr (before tax) on the high-end. How do I come up with this number? Easy, let's assume that one earns $40,000/yr since this makes the math easy. Now, assume that this is your salaried (meaning you don't get paid for overtime). Next assume that on average you work 60hr/wk. This is not unusual since getting companies to hire new people is like squeezing water out of stone (or blood out of a turnip). Assuming 2 weeks of vacation per year (also not unheard of). This means 50 weeks*60 hr/wk per year worked. Total: 3000hrs/yr. $40,000/3000 = 13.33/hr.

Yes, 13.33/hr

Let's assume some other numbers
60,000/yr, 55hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $21.82/hr
60,000/yr, 50hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $24.00/hr
60,000/yr, 40hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $30.00/hr (this is what you should be doing)
50,000/yr, 55hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $18.18/hr
50,000/yr, 50hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $22.00/hr
50,000/yr, 40hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $25.00/hr (this is what you should be doing)
40,000/yr, 55hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $14.55/hr
40,000/yr, 50hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $16.00/hr
40,000/yr, 40hr work weeks, 2 weeks vacation: $20.00/hr (this is what you should be doing)

One last bit of math. Assume you are working on an hourly rate instead of salaried. At 40hrs/week which is what you should be doing, 60,000/yr translated to $30/hr and:
55hr work week (no 1.5x OT pay) = $82,500/yr (2750*30)
55hr work week (1.5x OT pay) = $93,750/yr ((2000*30) + (750*45))
50hr work week (no 1.5x OT pay) = $75,000/yr (2500*30)
50hr work week (no 1.5x OT pay) = $82,500/yr ((2000*30) + (500*45))

Now, the kicker:
According to Monster.com and the good people at Salary.com:
Designer III - Web - median salary: $86,829 in SF (87,840/yr if you include bonuses)
Engineer III - median salary: $85,705 in SF (87,535/yr if you include bonuses)

Like I said, if it's money you're after, Localization is not for you (unless you're the President/CEO/VP/etc. who earns all these bonuses and rewards off of the backs of the production crew).

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Blog Launch! Lunch too.

Ever type lunch when you mean launch?

Welcome to the Joys of Localization. This is about the industry where we pretend to know all about everything but really know little of anything.

This blog is meant to be a shared effort, so come on by, write a comment and let me know if you want to be added to the writers list. It will remain anonymous but not confidential, afterall anyone can read it. So watch out how you identify yourself in your posts.

It is a small world this industry of ours.

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Joys of Localization Launches!

Welcome to The Joys of Localization, the place to share your translation industry stories with the rest of the industry.

Read the posts, share the joy!

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