LJ Idol - Week 5: Fear is the heart of love
This is an entry for the
therealljidol. If you'd like to read any of the other entries added during this Week and vote for any of them, you can do so here!
Journal entry.
These days I have a "real" corporate job, but my first love was translation and editing, and I started as a freelancer.
In the last few years, I have noticed I am better at editing/proofreading, but I hold my languages very dear.
One of my previous jobs was that of a project manager/coordinator. I was the person who contacts translators with jobs and makes sure they happen on time, the go-between for clients and translators.
The client's wishes are important, but I protect my translators first and foremost - and yes. They are my translators.
At a friend's bachelorette party weekend (or "hen do" as they're known here), I was introduced to a woman whose husband wanted to make board games for a living and had one he wanted to translate and sell.
At the wedding, I identified myself to them quckly, gave them my e-mail, and expected to hear nothing from them.
Well.
The husband contacted me about a board game. I contacted my translators and we produced three different language translations. He did not pay on time, but it was fine, we weren't in a rush. I remember there being issues, but cannot find anything damning in my e-mails now.
He also went behind my back and tried to contract one of my translators directly. Luckily, she's very loyal (and a little bit lazy), so she told him that she would only do work through me.
In October, he contacted me about another one. I was doubtful, remembering that there were issues, even if I could not remember what they were.
I should have said no.
We produced four different language versions of the game rules, and sent them along with an invoice (payable within 30 days) at the beginning of December.
He says he copy/pasted the translations into image files, which were sent to us for a quick once-over after he recieved the invoice. These files contained errors, changed names, ommitted accents and wrong endings - none of which appeared in the files I had sent him.
I let him know there would be an extra fee (but discounted, in good faith), and we fixed the mistakes. He took the corrections, but never mentioned anything about the extra fee.
32 days after we sent the invoice, he paid. But only the original fee.
So I politely let him know that we did extra work and should be payed for it.
You would have thought I had driven over both his puppy and his wife. He accused us of adding in errors on purpose, and not letting him know about the extra fee, and after all that, concluded his e-mail with my favourite patronising statement:
"I consider this matter closed."
That's lovely, dear, but I really do not. You owe my people money. Not me, which I could forgive, but my translators.
"I have taken advice on this and consider the matter over."
I have also taken advice, and I am in the right. He owes me my money and I can go through the Small Claims court to get it.
Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurence. Being any sort of freelancer should come with insurance and an army of lawyers.
People quite frequently try to rip you off, as if you haven't worked hard just because you didn't write the (error-riddled and frequently changed) original, given up your own time to argue with brick walls and bad deadlines, sometimes on top of a day-job. I feel like it might be even worse if it is your day-job, because you must spend an awful lot of time arguing with idiots.
The fear of not getting paid is definitely at the heart of freelancing in any capacity.
This is why collection agencies exist, why we have things like "payable within 30 days" written into our invoices, and why we all have people to ask for advice.
Fortunately, these days I have a "real" corporate job for a global economic powerhouse of a corporation, and can be backed by friends and clients who are corporate lawyers. Come Monday, we'll see how this works.
And, you know, I would feed bad for writing about his stupidity on LJ, but since he just released a statement on Facebook which includes blaming his personal delays, amongst other excuses, on "an array of massively unhelpful translators", I really don't.
If writing me lie-filled e-mails causes your entire operation to be delayed, you probaly should not be "running" a company.