What’s The Best Size For You?
I haven’t shown up a lot recently, as I was coming to the realization that I might not be able to deliver a fairly big translation project on time.
From an operational point of view, I prefer one big or medium project to a host of small ones. Small projects involve a lot of interruptions, red tape with estimates, PO’s, bills, keeping track of small things that are always liable to creep into holes and be left there forever, despite my ‘foolproof’ double checking system, bookkeeping. I am not even mentioning the trips to the bank to cash small individual checks. For these, I like to go to a branch that provides much faster processing than high-street ones. Unfortunately, it is located right in the middle of a large shopping mall (hence their productivity), and walking through a shopping-mall with your eyes shut to temptations is also a very painful experience!
Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that what fits me best, in terms of attention span, red tape, deadlines, and research optimization, are 5,000 word long projects. I feel I own that size (4,000 or 6,000 are equally good, I just picked a round figure).
By the old standards, 5,000 English words used to mean about 15-16 pages. In those days, when you were painfully typing 5,000 + extra words (as the French translation is always longer than the English source), plus corrections, retyping, etc. it could be considered a fair-sized project. It is not anymore, while many projects are much smaller than that, especially web content that is often very concise, but with totally different style requirements, etc.
The project I was working on these last few days was several times bigger, but I am a believer of ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ and I also accept smaller projects in between. Not only do they allow me to retain those clients who depend on me for instant availability, they add diversity and take my mind off the main project for well-earned breathers. They also allow me to spread my sources of income, always a good strategy when a client (as is happening this week) fails to pay on time a sizable bill for projects that you delivered up to 2 months ago. Argh! Lastly, last-minute interpretation assignments have become the norm, and that can upset your best laid-out agenda.
So this size of project may account, among other things, for my personal issue with automation. There is not much point in automating such a short project, although it can work fairly well with very technical stuff. But as I like to own the project, to keep visibility into its architecture and most importantly, its logical flow, lack of automation doesn’t bother me.
That is also probably the reason why I generally do best in the translation of advocacy, or marketing material, when the emphasis is on finding the words to convince people of the qualities of a concept or a product. I might be adverse to the product in question, so it can be an intellectual challenge at times, but I am comfortable with that.
I also pick the advocacy themes very carefully. I would probably love to wallow in money for a couple of days, but how could I forget the plight of those who barely survive on one US dollar per day?
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