| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: If one of your good clients offered to hire you as a full-time employee, would you accept? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "If one of your good clients offered to hire you as a full-time employee, would you accept?".
View the poll results »
| | | | Alex Lichanow
Germany
Local time: 23:35
Member (2020)
English to German
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Freelancing definitely has its ups and downs, but I would not give up the (perceived) freedom and above-average income I have achieved over the years in favor of a guaranteed and steady, but ridiculously low income (let's face it, translation companies pay their employees absolute peanuts) and 9-to-5 drudgery.
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At my age, no client of mine will hire me as a full-time employee. I learned my trade working in-house for 20 years, so I know well both worlds and at my age I prefer by far being a freelancer…
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Alex Lichanow wrote:
Freelancing definitely has its ups and downs, but I would not give up the (perceived) freedom and above-average income I have achieved over the years in favor of a guaranteed and steady, but ridiculously low income (let's face it, translation companies pay their employees absolute peanuts) and 9-to-5 drudgery.
Full-time job opportunities are not limited to translation agencies. There are translators working in international institutions and they are generally very well paid...
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Maja_K 
Germany
Local time: 23:35
Member (2013)
English to Macedonian
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I would quite like to be hired as the governor of a central bank.
Imagine the power trip you get from lowering/raising interest rates by a quarter of a point… or not…
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:35
Member (2008)
Italian to English
ProZ.com Staff wrote: This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "If one of your good clients offered to hire you as a full-time employee, would you accept?". View the poll results »
Y IWA
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As ever, it depends. Show me the money!
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...so many colleagues would then wonder why they had to move to Chişinău instead of moving to the City of London...
| | | | Alex Lichanow
Germany
Local time: 23:35
Member (2020)
English to German
+ ...
| Peanuts and other allergens | Dec 29, 2023 |
Maja_K wrote: Alex Lichanow wrote:
Freelancing definitely has its ups and downs, but I would not give up the (perceived) freedom and above-average income I have achieved over the years in favor of a guaranteed and steady, but ridiculously low income (let's face it, translation companies pay their employees absolute peanuts) and 9-to-5 drudgery. Peanuts you say? How about fellow freelance translators who work for 0.04 Eu/source word --> https://www.vgsd.de/wie-viel-verdient-eigentlich-eine-uebersetzerin-tina-f-ich-wuerde-gern-einen-hoeheren-stundensatz-berechnen/ I can't imagine the "peanuts" for employees, when freelancers work at such rates
Those ridiculous rates definitely are a problem that is a part of what I have been lamenting for years: Freelance translators have always been and still are way too accepting of all the abuse and bullshit (sorry, not sorry) thrown at them by agencies and end clients. "We" never should have started accepting deductions for pre-translations, deductions for machine translations and now also deductions for reviewing "AI"-generated nonsense. "We" did and now those of us who are trying to make a living have to live with it.
Personally, I have been able to steer clear of the EUR 0.04/word mentioned on the page you linked, but that is because I have established myself as an extremely quality-minded professional with my existing customers. With any new customers, every tenth of a cent is a struggle, as they have grown used to freelancers accepting peanuts for payment.
| | | | | It depends on... | Dec 29, 2023 |
money.
Good salary.. cool
Peanuts... bye bye
I actually had this opportunity, but we did not find an agreement about salary
| | | | | I know they don't know .... | Dec 29, 2023 |
.... what they are talking about. I have had such offers, but believe me, they don't want me, I simply just don't fit in, that is why I started out working for myself.
Self-knowledge.:-)
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:35
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| It's hard to go back | Dec 30, 2023 |
I've worked for several multinationals, and I suspect that many freelancers forget or simply don't understand what it is like to be employed by a large organisation.
My experience was that the amount of bureaucracy grew every year, and the number of box-ticking exercises unrelated to the substance of my work (irrelevant training, for example) also increased steadily over time.
... See more I've worked for several multinationals, and I suspect that many freelancers forget or simply don't understand what it is like to be employed by a large organisation.
My experience was that the amount of bureaucracy grew every year, and the number of box-ticking exercises unrelated to the substance of my work (irrelevant training, for example) also increased steadily over time.
Surprisingly for a chatty person like myself, communications also became a burden. I had already been using email for several years when I started my first proper job in 1993, and over the next two decades messages went from being a rare event - for a long time I knew nobody else with an email address - to a swelling torrent that swept through my inbox every day and that required growing amounts of my time. And then there was the seemingly endless string of conference calls and meetings.
On top of this, while working at those companies I had to deal with the thorny issue of maintaining cordial relations with dozens of colleagues and managers both in Tokyo and around the world. Some of them were neither pleasant nor reasonable people.
When I started working I thought the Dilbert comic strip was an embittered, cynical, and unfairly negative representation of the workplace. By the time I quit corporate life twenty years later I hadn't changed my mind about the bitterness and cynicism, but I had grudgingly come to admit that the strip was an accurate depiction of many aspects of life in a large corporation. While one should never say never, I would be loath to go back to work in one.
However, the poll question does not specify a large company, just "a good client". Working at a small company (not necessarily in translation) with a tighter focus on business, and in a role where one could make a difference, might be absorbing. On the other hand, personality clashes in smaller organisations are even worse than in their larger counterparts, because people cannot easily avoid each other. The same goes for incompetent workers - one problem employee is probably less of an issue in a team of thirty than it is in a team of five.
Another crucial issue is whether such a firm could offer a competitive package and enough stability to compensate for you surrendering control over your working life. It's all very well to give up your clients and go back to regular employment, but if your new corporate master runs into difficulties a couple of years later and fires a third of its employees, starting with those hired most recently, you're likely in big trouble. This poll question is okay as a thought experiment, but in real life it wouldn't be an easy decision.
Regards,
Dan ▲ Collapse
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If a good client hired me, it would certainly make my situation better. I can barely make a living with translation and fills my future with uncertainty but... despite all that, I could never go employee.
Being a freelancer gives you so much more leeway, it's hard to let that go, and I would say it's good (for some, including myself, necessary even) for self-morale as well. I could never bear a strict schedule, maybe having to go work physically at another location, hierarchy, colleagues..... See more If a good client hired me, it would certainly make my situation better. I can barely make a living with translation and fills my future with uncertainty but... despite all that, I could never go employee.
Being a freelancer gives you so much more leeway, it's hard to let that go, and I would say it's good (for some, including myself, necessary even) for self-morale as well. I could never bear a strict schedule, maybe having to go work physically at another location, hierarchy, colleagues... Freedom, albeit relative, of freelancing holds more weight in the balance for me. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:35
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Absolutely not | Dec 30, 2023 |
ProZ.com Staff wrote: This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "If one of your good clients offered to hire you as a full-time employee, would you accept?". View the poll results »
Absolutely not. Over more years than I care to remember, my experience of the employer-employee relationship has been one of superior-inferior, controller-controlled, success-failure, freedom-imprisonment, pretend you like me and laugh at my jokes gratefully, do what I say, enable me to realise my dreams whilst preventing you from realising yours or even thinking about them - that sort of thing. Oh- and I'll fire you whenever I feel like it.
[Edited at 2023-12-30 10:31 GMT]
| | | | | Pages in topic: [1 2] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Poll: If one of your good clients offered to hire you as a full-time employee, would you accept? | Trados Business Manager Lite | Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio
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