Is this a sign of the times or are conditions about to get even tougher?

Of the times, I`m afraid. Now they seem to want discounts for good translations...

Maybe the day is getting closer when we will read:"lowbudget zahnbehandlungen" will soon be active on the German market and is looking for students or beginners who do cheap dental work. If you are interested, send your CV to infode@lowbudgetdentalwork.com."

Would you buy the cheap dental work? As a patient, I mean?

Sign of the times? (this is a job posted today) for En/Fr (that's actually received 10 'bids' already

[During this recession times the price we can offer is 0.02 USD.
...Required software: PowerPoint. Job place: Delhi, Delhi, India]

Can't check... but we could probably bet that their "pre-recession times" rates weren't much higher! How can you even pay for your Trados at 1.5 eurocent/word, much less pay the rent??

Re. the topic of this thread: I've never had any problem payments with direct clients in more than 2 decades (only with a few colleagues and agencies long since deleted out of my address book). But then, I never look for and would never accept to work for direct clients at the end of the world via translation web sites - that's just asking for it (and this is true also for outsourcing agencies/ intermediaries, e.g. the offer posted above)...

df

As per agencies and direct job offers, and to go on with what I said before - by accepting either low rates, or impossible delivery dates, or long long payment deadlines, or a combination of those three, or... etc., we just feed the hollow and greedy green-eyed monster of non-payment, recession and the like!

Laurent K.

Originally written by Laurent J. Krauland on January 6, 2009 3:42 PM ... - by accepting either low rates, or impossible delivery dates, or long long payment deadlines, or a combination of those three, or... etc., we just feed the hollow and greedy green-eyed monster of non-payment, recession and the like!

Right, but as far as the impossible delivery dates are concerned, we are the weakest link in the chain. There is a belief in the catalog industry, for example, that translators are the most easy to compress. And if it is too much for one to do in the available time then you just get another one and split the work between them. You cannot do that with a printer, have one do one half of a catalog and the other printer do the other half and then stick them together, even if it would work the printers would not go along with it but translators always seem to be willing to, or at least it is always possible to find some who will.

I have had that happen to me. I agreed to do a job by a certain date (4 weeks) and shortly after I had started they told me that due to the printer's other commitments, I would have to be finished in 3 weeks, the printer had told them to go find another printer if that was not convenient. I told them that I was going to finish in the 4 weeks originally promised so they just took half the job away from me and gave it to another translator.

I don't see any way around that tactic.

Derek

My current belief is that, deep down inside us, we know what is right and what is wrong - call it angelism, optimism or idealism...

And when we have tactics such as those you describe appearing in a global process, we know that someone has played foul elsewhere. Maybe nothing to really worry about, but something to take into account for a potential future co-operation with such clients.

I had a potential client who asked me to give them 20% rebate even before the first job. When I completed it and received their "feedback and corrections", I knew why I never should have accepted their one-off offer in the first place: they were just looking for some new ideas and phrasings they could build upon in their own way. 

Laurent K.  

As has been pointed out, business-wise it doesn't make sense for an outsourcer to pay $00.04 per word when s/he can get the job done for less. If it works, it works.

Even TDC (Tele Denmark Communication) a giant in telecommunications is feeling the recession - they keep overcharging me and when I complain and refuse to pay the bill unless they remove the overcharge, I am told that they will deduct the overcharge on the next bill, which is paid quarterly. No, I will not lend TDC my hard earned money for the next quarter. "That's just the way it is," I'm told. "I must pay or risk a surcharge."

My thoughts on the matter are that TDC is seen as so big and so powerful that no one complains, and thus they can get away with it. If it works, it works! I have complained! It's stressful and tiring writing all those letters but it works.

Why should I allow TDC, whose chairman earns millions of kroner per year, to borrow my money without interest (of course) and against my will. 

By allowing outsourcers and other 'godtfolk' to behave as though they are above reproach, I am consenting to behaviour which in my view is fuelled by greed.

I will NOT!

Nanna

Surely your client was not legally entitled to unilaterally amend the agreement you initially had entered into?

Exactly!

Laurent K.