On-Time Updates

An On-Time Idea

I've been tossing a business idea around for a while now, and I'm finally considering moving on it.

Right now I'm only offering services in one language pair, and essentially in one direction (G>E). That's the area where I'm good at what I do and where I can provide good translations.

There are lots of languages out there, though, and lots of translators looking for work. Some of them I know fairly well. I think consolidating our efforts a bit and partnering up would be a good way to get more work flowing in.

I guess it would be sort of like a language agency, but I am thinking of more of a partnership of freelance translators, who are in it to promote themselves and get more work rather than to work for an agency. I think that would encourage better work, to be honest, because it would be more in line with the kind of business that freelance translators like to run for themselves. There could be an agreement of mutual "finder's fees" - if a French translator in the group landed a job for the German partner and passed it on, they would take a small percentage off the top perhaps. And the same in the other direction. That way we could have a whole group of translators on the lookout for work for everyone involved, which would potentially be more successful than individual efforts. It would also allow for the sharing of proofreading and editing duties (and might even facilitate that when it wouldn't otherwise be possible due to time and workload constraints).

My website could be tailored to this idea pretty easily, just by altering content a bit and adding some information. I would just need to get some committed partners who are interested in the idea...

I'm a Star!

Yay for me! I got a star!

As it the case with most discussion forums on the Net, after you have posted a certain number of times, your rank changes at Translator's Cafe. I, having posted the incredible number of 25 messages, have the pleasure and honor of receiving this glorious and illustrious designation of my rank:

Amazing, isn't it?

I've always been sort of fascinated by these little ranking systems. They really signify nothing at all besides an indication of how often you like to post messages. At most they are a symbol of seniority (in the Internet sense of the word, which is basically "having been around longer.")

Yet the initial impression is that they represent the expertise and knowledge a person has, especially when used on a site like the Cafe. If you see someone who's posted enough to receive 5 or 6 stars, you usually assume they know what they're talking about.

A lot of times they do, of course. But little stars are certainly no guarantee.

Communication Breakdown

I think one of the most important things in business are clear lines of communication.

This may sound obvious, but anyone who's worked in Corporate America knows that there are lots of people who don't get it, or who don't subscribe to that kind of thinking. At my old job, the communication was rarely effective in most cases, and there were plenty of people who actually went out of their way to hinder it. I guess they felt threatened by too much information being passed around the company.

I was always able to sort of laugh at this phenomenon since I was rarely directly involved, but now that I'm on my own, I'm seeing first-hand how important good communication really is, even in the simplest of business dealings. An example: just recently I realized a payment was overdue from one of my clients. I sent emails and left phone messages multiple times over a period of a few weeks. Finally the client got in touch with me and said they were going to send the money; they didn't. It took more badgering to finally get the check sent. By the time it actually got in the mail, I had no faith left whatsoever that it was ever going to reach me or that the client was even telling the truth (the payment was already six months overdue before this whole thing started).

All of that probably could have been avoided, though, if the client had just told me what was going on. For some reason they couldn't pay me on time - if they were having financial trouble, I probably would have understood that and allowed them more time without any bother. I like it when others are flexible for me, so I try to be for them as well. As it was, they kept me in the dark about whatever their reasons were for the delay, to the point where I was nearly ready to go to court over the matter.

Luckily, I seem to have pretty good clients for the most part, who respond to my emails immediately and are always happy to answer any questions I have or follow up on things for me. I hope that continues.

Timeline

For the first entry in my translation business blog, I thought that I'd put together an outline of the course of events that led up to my decision to embark on this whole adventure. Some of this is taken from emails I sent to friends and family while I was mulling the whole thing over in my mind.

Mid-August, 2003:
Things had gotten progressively worse where I was working, since the new management took over. I found myself in toxic moods every Sunday as the prospect of returning to work loomed over me. I realized that I did not care about my work anymore. This was not always the case – when I was translating, I did take pride in the work I did. But as a Project Manager, I couldn't care less about the reports I typed up for other people or the spreadsheets I scrounged together from random data for projects I knew little about overall.

At the same time, my workload at home with my part-time, private translations had been out of control compared with the last year. In 2002 I did a total of 21 translation jobs for 3 clients. As of August 2003, I had 61 translation jobs either completed or in progress, for 6 clients. My average income per job was far below the year previous, but the workload increased dramatically and my client base expanded, virtually on its own.

At some point on a Friday, I foundd myself sitting behind my desk, shifting uncomfortably in clothes that have never felt like they fit, and staring with absolute despair at the work in front of me. It seemed like all I did all week was pour coffee, stir coffee, drink coffee, talk about coffee. I was angry at myself for having lost my desire to rise above the status quo despite the bad morale, but I was also angry at my company for not caring about the loss of my desire.

The point, though, is that my mind, when not on coffee, was on the work that I could be doing at home. On the ideas I had for expanding my business. On the overwhelming number of people who already freelance full-time. And on the fact that here I was, twenty-five freaking years old and already a miserable corporate slave.

This, I decided, simply could not go on.

Later in August, 2003:
After laying my cards on the table with the VP and explaining that I wanted to make a go of it on my own, at least part-time, I was thrown a curve.

What happened was that the Vice President returned from a trip and offered me a new job.

He took me outside so he could have a smoke and then passed me the news in a rather nonchalant manner. “It’s just something to think about,” he said, “before you make any decisions.”

A vision of Odysseus strapped to the mast of his ship with wax in his ears, sailing past the sirens immediately popped into my head.

The sirens in this case were a job offer, whose song went something like this: pay increase, travel opportunities, extensive technical training opportunities, paid visits to company headquarters in Germany, cell phone, paid travel expenses, new title, status change. Perks a'plenty.

I discussed the matter with several people experienced in these sorts of situations, and the one thing almost all of them told me was that one should be extremely cautious about accepting an offer from a company one is trying to leave.

I decided to wait for a written offer before I made up my mind.

Early September, 2003:
My wife and I went away for a long weekend. Sarah and I drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and took a ferry out to the Isles of Shoals to visit her brother Jordan, who works on Star Island at a conference center. We spent a fabulous weekend in the middle of the ocean relaxing, exercising, catching up and hearing ghost and pirate stories.

I didn’t ponder the decision I had to make. It was never at the forefront of my brain. As is often the case when my brain decides something without my permission, the issue had already been resolved by my subconscious. My brain was just waiting for me to realize it.

The whole time I was on the island, the most obvious way that the issue rose to my conscious mind was to think, “I could be working right now. On an island, in the middle of the ocean, I could be working and supporting myself. In an Adirondack chair overlooking the Atlantic, I could be working. On a rocking chair on a deck with a view of an island where Captain Kidd reportedly buried some gold, I could be working.”

Eventually I found myself writing a list of all of the things I have to do after I quit my job. It’s a very long list.

It was not an “IF I quit my job” list. It was a “WHEN I quit my job list.”

At that point I realized that I had little choice. The decision was made.

A final, convincing stroke came in the fact that I never got a written offer. I was supposed to receive it on a Wednesday. There was nothing by that Friday. The VP promised to discuss it with the CEO while they were traveling together that weekend. That didn’t happen either.

So that was that. I handed in a letter of resignation. I also wrote a proposal for an extended agreement with my former employer. I was not going to burn bridges. I was going to build some of my own.

I knew I might be short on money for a while. But a wise friend told me “You cannot put a monetary value on Independence – freedom has no price tag. Freedom is the end goal.”

Another friend told me, “Potential poverty and insecurity are always better than having your spirit enslaved.” A wise woman once told me, “if you don't take
a chance when offered , you won't get anywhere.” These are true words.

By mid-September I was gone, and my new career had been launched.