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10400 words in 24 hours
Thread poster: Nicole Coati
Nicole Coati
Nicole Coati  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:34
Spanish to German
+ ...
Jul 7, 2017

Dear all,

I have been contacted with a job offer of 10.400 words and the deadline is the following day (24 hours). It's a medical document. I replied that this turnaround is not feasible for me and the reply was "yes, it is."

Am I so far off the point and are there really medical translators that do 10.000 words in 24 hours?

Thanks for your replies.
Nicole.


 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 23:34
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
I'm with you! Jul 7, 2017

I don't. I must say also that I rarely accept rush jobs, whatever the subject...

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 00:34
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Depends on the file Jul 7, 2017

Nicole Coati wrote:
Am I so far off the point and are there really medical translators that do 10.000 words in 24 hours?


If it's material that I'm familiar with, and very few new terms, and you allow me to use machine translation, then I can do the 10 000 words in about 12 hours. Without machine translation (but I'm familiar with the subject), it'll take me at least 3 whole days.



[Edited at 2017-07-07 13:14 GMT]


 
Lianne van de Ven
Lianne van de Ven  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:34
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
+ ...
No Jul 7, 2017

Nicole Coati wrote:

Dear all,

I have been contacted with a job offer of 10.400 words and the deadline is the following day (24 hours). It's a medical document. I replied that this turnaround is not feasible for me and the reply was "yes, it is."

Am I so far off the point and are there really medical translators that do 10.000 words in 24 hours?

Thanks for your replies.
Nicole.


Unless you have a team, the answer is no. It's rather rude to reply with "yes, it is." Who are they? I mean: is that a known client or just someone?

I have had requests for a turnaround of 2 or 3 days for 10K and I usually still can't take that. I have heard of some people who can push 600-800 words an hour or 5-6K a day but the standard speed is somewhere between 1800 and 2400 daily. I have occasionally done 4K on a day, but that means sitting at my desk for long hours.


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 00:34
Member
English to Italian
Feasible for you Jul 7, 2017

Nicole Coati wrote:

I replied that this turnaround is not feasible for me and the reply was "yes, it is."


Basically, they're saying they know better than you what you are able or not able to do...

Personally, I find that irksome and disrespectful, and the 10k in 1 day thing... 'outlandish'.

Sounds like a problem client...


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 23:34
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Some say they do that much Jul 7, 2017

I can't imagine how you could be confident of delivering 10,000 words of equal quality, all sufficiently carefully proofread.

Have you worked with this client before? It sounds as though they're probably desperate, having committed to a crazy deadline themselves and now wanting some mug to take the blame.


 
Dylan J Hartmann
Dylan J Hartmann  Identity Verified
Australia
Member (2014)
Thai to English
+ ...

MODERATOR
GS Financial Statements Jul 7, 2017

I did 25k GS Financial Statements in 22 hours last Xmas Eve. When there is an task that needed finishing yesterday, you might feel proud that they chose you. Quote your highest rate, work your butt off, pray for plenty of repetitions and fuzzy matches (like I was fortunate to have!) and plan sleep the following day! If you can do it, do it!

[Edited at 2017-07-07 13:40 GMT]


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:34
Spanish to English
+ ...
Really rude and disrespectful Jul 7, 2017

If the material in question were highly familiar to me and involved no (or minimal) formatting, then I could handle 10,800 words in a day, but it would probably represent a 13-16 hour workday with limited breaks.

I would also require some kind of premium fee for doing this work (i.e., a rate beyond what I would typically accept for the same job with a 2-3 day deadline).

I agree with others here that it was disrespectful of the outsourcer to insist that you could handle
... See more
If the material in question were highly familiar to me and involved no (or minimal) formatting, then I could handle 10,800 words in a day, but it would probably represent a 13-16 hour workday with limited breaks.

I would also require some kind of premium fee for doing this work (i.e., a rate beyond what I would typically accept for the same job with a 2-3 day deadline).

I agree with others here that it was disrespectful of the outsourcer to insist that you could handle such a rush job. (And if the party who said this doesn't know you, then it was also stupid.)

And my guess is that you were not being offered a particularly good rate for the job.

The thing to keep in mind about rush jobs is the possibility that you will not do your best work (because there may not be time to do even "quick and dirty" research on terms, that the project manager will contact you with urgent mails if you don't meet the deadline, and maybe even as the deadline approaches (which doesn't exactly make for ideal work conditions), and that you are likely to be fully blamed for any problems identified by the end client. In addition (and especially if you have had to stay up all night to complete such a job) you are probably not going to be in very good shape to do work (or much of anything else) the following day.

Given all these factors, I fully expect premium compensation for such jobs.
Collapse


 
Walter Landesman
Walter Landesman  Identity Verified
Uruguay
Local time: 20:34
English to Spanish
+ ...
Agree with you Jul 7, 2017

Dear Nicole,

10,000 words in 24 hours? If you look for quality, accuracy, no grammar issues, that's not possible at all.
And it is not just a plain chit chat letter. It's on the medical field, where accuracy and detail should be the main focus.

The only thing the client may receive in that framework is a very GT lousy job.

I'd would certainly keep away from this job proposal.


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
Be careful with this outsourcer Jul 7, 2017

It seems to me they want you to miss the deadline, which would be a good reason for not paying you. From which country is this outsourcer?

[Modifié le 2017-07-07 14:02 GMT]

[Modifié le 2017-07-07 14:08 GMT]


 
Andrzej Mierzejewski
Andrzej Mierzejewski  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 00:34
Polish to English
+ ...
Financial, not medical Jul 7, 2017

DJHartmann wrote:
pray for plenty of repetitions and fuzzy matches (like I was fortunate to have!)


You were really fortunate.

I wouldn't accept such a job that large a size. Please consider that a medical translation of 10,400 words is more than 40 standard pages. Translating that amount in 24 hours is a very heavy task: more than 1.5 page an hour, proofreading included. Medical translations are really requiring in terms of knowledge and responsibility for someone's health and life.

Compared to that, financial statements are much easier. In fact, they include lots of standard terminology that can be easily processed by machine translation. That's why you succeeded.

And finally, there is a possibility that Nicole would hear: Sorry, you have missed the deadline by 15 minutes, so we can not pay you.



[Zmieniono 2017-07-07 14:07 GMT]


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
Wrong strategy Jul 7, 2017

DJHartmann wrote:

I did 25k GS Financial Statements in 22 hours last Xmas Eve. When there is an task that needed finishing yesterday, you might feel proud that they chose you. Quote your highest rate, work your butt off, pray for plenty of repetitions and fuzzy matches (like I was fortunate to have!) and plan sleep the following day! If you can do it, do it!

[Edited at 2017-07-07 13:40 GMT]

Financial statements are sensitive material. It's very risky and repetitions are factored in the price anyway.


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
You're a newbie Jul 7, 2017

and they know it. They're just trying to fool you

 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:34
Spanish to English
+ ...
Apples and oranges Jul 7, 2017

DJHartmann wrote:

I did 25k GS Financial Statements in 22 hours last Xmas Eve. When there is an task that needed finishing yesterday, you might feel proud that they chose you. Quote your highest rate, work your butt off, pray for plenty of repetitions and fuzzy matches (like I was fortunate to have!) and plan sleep the following day! If you can do it, do it!

[Edited at 2017-07-07 13:40 GMT]


Come now!

This sounds like you needed to create a template of perhaps 2000 words, after which only 200 words needed to be changed in 10-12 subsequent documents/forms.

I am glad you made good money on this work but, all the same, it is misleading to characterize such a scenario as a 25k job.


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
Superman Jul 7, 2017

DJHartmann wrote:

I did 25k GS Financial Statements in 22 hours last Xmas Eve. When there is an task that needed finishing yesterday, you might feel proud that they chose you. Quote your highest rate, work your butt off, pray for plenty of repetitions and fuzzy matches (like I was fortunate to have!) and plan sleep the following day! If you can do it, do it!

[Edited at 2017-07-07 13:40 GMT]

The average capacity is 2500 words per day, so you must be Superman.


 
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