“la parole exportée”

A recent conversation I had with a colleague inspired me to retrieve for her this very useful piece I had found some time ago in the New York Times’ Small Business section. I might as well share it here too.

Getting paid on time can be a nightmare for us freelancers. I have heard about every possible reason why a payment can be missing: a bunch of large bills was lost in the mail once, or a bill attached to an e-mail was lost with it, or the bill was mislaid, where, no-one knew and no-one knew where to look for it anyway, or the bill is somewhere in the pipeline, where? no-one knows, etc. etc. I would argue that the last proposition is probably the worst, because it discourages you to send a duplicate, since it’s there, somewhere.

In some instances, like some French government departments, bills can take up to 4 months (sometimes longer) to get finally settled, creating havoc in your accounts.

More recently though, I noticed that the situation was improving. I now have clients who have imposed themselves time limits, and all I need to do is send a gentle reminder if there is a delay. Much more comfortable than a letter of complaint.

But my attitude has changed, too. When I am inquiring about delayed payments, I am not an individual freelancer any more, I become “a business”, whatever the size of the business I’m trying to get my well-earned money from. There’s no point in pleading that my monthly standing orders -social security (mandatory), retirement plan (mandatory), income tax (super-mandatory), credit card, telephone bill, electricity bill, car insurance, etc.- depend on this little (or large) check. The employee I am talking to may express sympathy, but they don’t usually understand my problem, because their situation and the pressures upon them are different. But telling them that they are trying to kill my business usually works, because it puts us, them and me, in a different relation.

I wonder how translation schools take this onboard nowadays. How many include some training about participating in the economy? I was taught to produce the best translations, period. Not to go hunting for what is, after all, the due reward of my work.

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… where French is one official language, even the only one?

If you thought that French was the language of France exclusively, you will have to reconsider. There is also:

• Belgium

• Switzerland

• Canada

• the tiny but immensely rich Monaco and Luxembourg

• Bénin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Centrafrique, Chad, Comores, Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Togo

• Haiti in the West Indies

• and even Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.

Because provincial governments (the French-speaking Wallon Community in Belgium, Quebec and New-Brunswick in Canada) are also full-fledged members of OIF, the total number is correct.

But French is also considered as a ’shared language’ in another 23 countries of the world, which brings the general total of OIF’s members to 55.

These include countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in South-East Asia, Marocco and Tunisia in Northern Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, etc.

The source is the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF in short). Its present, very active, Secretary General is Mr. Abdou Diouf. Students interested in exercising their skills in translation and/or interpreting can find his beautifully-written speeches here. The map is also taken from their website and can be downloaded as a pdf.

As I was navigating the site, I found that OIF has a fund that can offer grants to NGOs mainly, to cover some of the costs of translation/interpretation in the field of francophony.

Out of curiosity more than anything else, I was a member of ProZ for a couple of years. Ironically, it did one thing for me that social networks are meant to do: I became reunited with one long-lost friend.

I joined ProZ in order to have a bird’s eye view of what is going on in the translation industry on a global scale. Yes, I mean ‘industry’ in the literal sense. And I was amazed -an understatement. Because I am in the fairly privileged position of having a “slash career“, being both a translator and a conference interpreter, I can afford to be fairly selective. New genuine opportunities are what I am always on the lookout for, not jobs that pay 0.02 US dollars per word (yes, that’s true!). I can volunteer to translate for nothing, and it will get me more personal gratification, and gratitude, than such impossibly low rates.

The questions section of ProZ was addictive. But once I made it to Page 1 of the list of best technical translators, that was it. I knew who my ‘friends’ were, I knew who was friends with whom, the dynamics behind all that striving to be #1 (impossible in my language combination, the position is taken forever: he’s still up there), but being on Page 1 didn’t prove anything. If I got the point, it just meant that those who had developed a liking for my style of translation were 1) online, 2) paying attention, 3) quick enough. But it never gave me any visibility, although, if you google me, you will find a trace left. You would think that when you cease to be a member, all your data and contributions disappear. Well, that’s not true – these things have a strange staying power in cyberspace.

However, ProZ was an eye-opener in this sense too: it reinforced me in the way I define my own performance. I want to give my clients the highest quality I can provide, to have with them professional, clear and cordial exchanges. And I want to be paid in proportion, and on time. And that order sums up the nature of my business relations.