| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | What would you advise me? Thread poster: Korana Lasić
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I've had a very nice correspondence with a PM interested in my services but no actual project yet.
We negotiated the rates, and they offered fairly reasonable rates, but, there's a but!
I've now received a total of three contracts to sign. The NDA, the vendor service agreement, a guide for freelancers, that, yes, needs to be signed as well and is basically another legal contract.
All three are written in a typical ex-communist harsh language of penalties, p... See more I've had a very nice correspondence with a PM interested in my services but no actual project yet.
We negotiated the rates, and they offered fairly reasonable rates, but, there's a but!
I've now received a total of three contracts to sign. The NDA, the vendor service agreement, a guide for freelancers, that, yes, needs to be signed as well and is basically another legal contract.
All three are written in a typical ex-communist harsh language of penalties, punishments, and deterrents — the agency is from an ex-Soviet republic, and I was born in communist Yugoslavia and I'm very familiar with the mentality.
So basically, if...well..."anything at all", they can not pay me up to 100% and/or impose penalties.
I am very confident in my work, but I must say — and how to put it delicately — some of the agencies I tested with hire a monkey to check the test translation, and the monkey speaks modern Croatian and is painfully, borderline functional-illiterately unfamiliar with modern Serbian or pluricentric Serbo-Croatian these two emerged from, all whilst checking my English into Serbian translation. The monkey is also pompous and ridiculous, thinking pompous language is what makes a proofreader. Eventually calling a translation done by a bilingual person with 10 years of translation experience and content writing in both languages too literal. In reality, the test translation contains one typo that anyone who has ever checked a translation or two in the pair will understand is a simple typo.
You get the picture.
I do not know how this agency does business. I don't know if they have competent people proofreading and the three agreements I am asked to sign are all about penalising anything they feel like penalising and then not paying me. I am leaving myself very vulnerable to the whims and moods of perfect strangers I've never worked with and have no reason to trust.
Outside the freelancing Universe, I would never sign any agreement like that, least of all three of them, but I am a freelancer now and that's taught me I have to work with people I would probably never worked with or for as an in-house employee (because I dislike the way they do business) and I must be flexible. Each agency has its own way of doing things and my goal is to branch out and have my pick of projects if you will.
They do seem like a legitimate agency, their Blue Board record is short but stellar, but again, very heavy-handedly written contracts that do not leave any incentive for me to sign them.
They can pay me whatever they want based on any misunderstandings and/or errors and not just quality control. If their quality control is professional, great, if not — they can not pay me for my work and/or even impose penalties of a sort. Something in the language of one of the contracts about corrections after proofreading "at my own expense", whatever that is supposed to mean?
We all know many proofreaders opt for preferential language to justify what they charge and it especially happens in my language pair, the Slavic mentality is very prone to very rigid thinking, along the lines of mine is the only way to skin a cat.
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
I have signed some contracts already I would never have signed as an in-house translator but none were quite as heavy-handed as this one, split into three separate contracts and all about penalising the translator every which way the agency sees fit.
Edit: As I've written it all down, I've realised there is no upside to signing such contracts, but everyone's thoughts are still greatly appreciated.
[Edited at 2021-08-12 08:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | My advice is to give your thread a less tantalising title... | Aug 12, 2021 |
... and maybe type a shorter post.
Oh, and don't sign it if you don't like it.
| | | | | Do not sign... | Aug 12, 2021 |
...if you don't like their way of doing business.
Best wishes,
Tilmann
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| + legal paper = less work | Aug 12, 2021 |
I wouldn't worry too much about signing these documents. They are written by the lawyers who work for the agency and have to justify their existence.
In my (quite long) experience, the more legal agreements these agencies ask you to sign, the less work they give you.
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| OT: Ex-communist - capitalist | Aug 12, 2021 |
Korana Lasić wrote:
All three are written in a typical ex-communist harsh language of penalties, punishments, and deterrents — the agency is from an ex-Soviet republic, and I was born in communist Yugoslavia and I'm very familiar with the mentality.
So basically, if...well..."anything at all", they can not pay me up to 100% and/or impose penalties.
Just an aside: Contracts I have seen that fit your description were almost always from the US.
| | | | | California perhaps? :) | Aug 12, 2021 |
Dr. Matthias Schauen wrote: Korana Lasić wrote:
All three are written in a typical ex-communist harsh language of penalties, punishments, and deterrents — the agency is from an ex-Soviet republic, and I was born in communist Yugoslavia and I'm very familiar with the mentality.
So basically, if...well..."anything at all", they can not pay me up to 100% and/or impose penalties.
Just an aside: Contracts I have seen that fit your description were almost always from the US.
You haven't actually seen these contracts, so you are merely guessing, based on my short description, that these are anything like any US legal contracts you've seen. Also, I've never implied authoritarianism or even socialism is solely confined to the ex-communist places.
Let's not turn this into a socialism vs capitalism debate, I have no interest in it.
| | | | | My advice? Don’t sign it. | Aug 12, 2021 |
Most NDAs are harmless. Despite all that scary-looking legalese, there’s nothing that’s likely to hurt you, though some NDAs seem more sneaky (lots of penalties and non-compete and confidentiality clauses). What I don’t like about NDAs is the “one-fits-all” mentality.
This client of yours reminded me of an American translation agency (not in California) which first of all asked me if I was willing to do a short medical test. OK! No problem! After this was done and approve... See more Most NDAs are harmless. Despite all that scary-looking legalese, there’s nothing that’s likely to hurt you, though some NDAs seem more sneaky (lots of penalties and non-compete and confidentiality clauses). What I don’t like about NDAs is the “one-fits-all” mentality.
This client of yours reminded me of an American translation agency (not in California) which first of all asked me if I was willing to do a short medical test. OK! No problem! After this was done and approved, asked for a photo (?), a signed NDA and a long list of other requirements and to top it all emailed me a so-called welcome pack having 34 pages for me to read, sign and return. Some companies seem driven mad by bureaucracy… ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thank you Teresa | Aug 12, 2021 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
Most NDAs are harmless. Despite all that scary-looking legalese, there’s nothing that’s likely to hurt you, though some NDAs seem more sneaky (lots of penalties and non-compete and confidentiality clauses). What I don’t like about NDAs is the “one-fits-all” mentality.
This client of yours reminded me of an American translation agency (not in California) which first of all asked me if I was willing to do a short medical test. OK! No problem! After this was done and approved, asked for a photo (?), a signed NDA and a long list of other requirements and to top it all emailed me a so-called welcome pack having 34 pages for me to read, sign and return. Some companies seem driven mad by bureaucracy…
The California remark was a joke, I promise. I didn't mean to offend anyone who considers themselves socialist. I just would rather stick to freelancing and linguistics.
I hear you on the usual NDA. I also don't mind testing for a job/position or even that some people work with proofreaders who leave loads to be desired in the way they conduct themselves. In this case, it's the mad bureaucracy, and also the way their legal team and CEO don't understand that, ideally, a legal contract is there to protect both parties. What exactly is my incentive to sign a contract which stipulates that they can pay me but they don't have to over and over again?
I don't want to give too much away from the contracts, because there's no reason to be an ass about divulging their business practices just because I didn't sign anything, but they really go into detailed descriptions of some very common practices that they might and most probably will, penalise. Like, you get the project package, you must check if everything's there right away (is that two hours, what about a day?) or you will be at fault for not being able to complete the translation and you cannot get a missing file from the PM on a later date. I mean, we are freelancers. I do accept jobs from people I have a steady work relationship with without checking and then start working on it two days later, when I will've finished the project I was working on for someone else, and then sometimes there is a corrupt or missing file. There are at least ten things stated in the contracts that might even work if they were my only client but do not really work for a freelancer and a fairly new one, who is branching out.
I politely declined their offer. Which is a shame, I thought the PM was rather wonderful and professional, but their legal team/upper management are really doing them all a disservice.
Thank you for your input. I really do appreciate everything I've learned on this forum. Everyone's input is very valuable and especially some of the veteran translators with a lifetime of experience.
Again, maybe they don't really enforce any of these, but the point is they can.
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| Highly unlikely | Aug 12, 2021 |
Korana Lasić wrote:
maybe they don't really enforce any of these, but the point is they can.
Actually, it is highly unlikely they could enforce them. IANAL but they can't enforce anything unreasonable whatever you have agreed.
Unless you've caused massive problems and with demonstrable negligence, it will not be worth their time and money coming after you. And if you have, well then you deserve it!
| | | | Adieu 
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
| Just try a couple small jobs | Aug 12, 2021 |
See if they pay up or start nagging and whining.
Some agencies are scammy, but some penalty clauses surely exist solely because of the proliferation of ctrl-c-ctrl-v-submit-done MT bullsh!t artists and other clowns in our profession.
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 06:06
English to Finnish
+ ...
| Lawyers get paid by the word, just like us translators | Aug 12, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
I wouldn't worry too much about signing these documents. They are written by the lawyers who work for the agency and have to justify their existence.
In my (quite long) experience, the more legal agreements these agencies ask you to sign, the less work they give you.
Insofar as manifestations of functional deficiencies are agreed by any and all concerned parties to be imperceivable, and are so stipulated, it is incumbent upon said heretofore mentioned parties to exercise the deferment of otherwise pertinent maintenance procedures.
= If it's not broken, don't fix it
| | | | | Blue Board and Payment Practices | Aug 12, 2021 |
My advice for the future would be to vet any potential agency using the Blue Board (always to be taken with a grain of salt) and the independent site Payment Practices (http://www.paymentpractices.net). The latter is a paid site, but only costs around twenty dollars a year, and is well worth the investment.
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| Wait for real job | Aug 13, 2021 |
In cases like this I tell the agency, politely, that it is not my policy to read and sign large amounts of documentation unless there is an actual job on the table.
If there is such a job, we can discuss price and other terms, and assuming we come to an agreement, at that point I'll deal with their other bureaucratic stuff.
But that second part has never happened to me so far.
| | | | Eva Stoppa
Germany
Local time: 12:06
English to German
+ ...
| What is the point then | Aug 13, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
I wouldn't worry too much about signing these documents. They are written by the lawyers who work for the agency and have to justify their existence.
In my (quite long) experience, the more legal agreements these agencies ask you to sign, the less work they give you.
I wonder what is the Point then of making translators sign tons of Agreements if no work is to come anyway.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 13:06
Member
English to Turkish
Eva Stoppa wrote:
I wonder what is the Point then of making translators sign tons of Agreements if no work is to come anyway.
is to increase the sales of laser printers with scanner along with other accessories (toners, paper, software etc.)
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