Why No Peanuts! is not for me
OK, sooner or later it had to happen. I’m going to talk about the translation industry. Specifically, about No Peanuts!, a movement whose aim is to support translators in demanding and receiving a “living wage” for their work. There’s been a lot of talk about No Peanuts (sorry, it’s too irritating to include that exclamation mark every time) in both public and private forums since its launch about 18 months ago, and I’m not sure I have anything original to add. (So why am I writing, you ask? Good question… let’s see if I can crystallise something useful out of my random thoughts.)
First, many, many people have criticised that term “living wage”. The No Peanuts website discusses this objection. To paraphrase, they say that according to the various dictionaries, “wage” is “payment for labor or services to a worker” or “a payment to a person for service rendered,” and go on to say “We think it’s essential for translators and interpreters to understand that we are workers, first and foremost…”
Whoa! Stop right there. Sorry, I’m not a worker. I used to be, when I was working in a factory. But now I’m a freelance translator. That makes me a businesswoman, or an entrepreneur, or simply a freelancer – but not a worker. Yes, of course the simplest definition of worker is “one who works”, and I do indeed work, but in my culture I stopped being a worker and started being an employee when I got out of the factory and into the lab, and stopped being an employee and started being a freelancer when I began selling my services to a number of different clients. I am not a worker who is paid a wage, I am a businesswoman who sells a service.
I find it astounding that a movement by and for translators – people who work with words, let’s not forget, people who are inclined to agonise over every nuance – should persist with this reductive term even though it has come in for legitimate criticism from a number of well-respected peers.
However, that’s not the main reason I don’t endorse the movement. I did consider doing so, in fact, thinking that perhaps I, and others, were getting too hung up on an unfortunate term and failing to engage with the underlying principle.
So what is my problem? It’s basically a result of how my own business has developed. Apart from the first year or so, I have put astonishingly little effort into marketing. Sure, I did and do a lot of networking (AKA chatting away all day on translator forums), but not a lot else. Like most if not all translators, I started by accepting everything that came my way (albeit already marketing myself as a medical/chemical translator), got burned a couple of times in the process, learned more and more every day, gained a few clients, lost a couple of clients, and after about three or four years arrived at a point where I could afford to both drop my lower-paying clients and turn down everything that wasn’t in my specialist fields.
And it really wasn’t that difficult. I’m lazy: I’d far rather idle my time away doing a puzzle than send my résumé to a potential client. So if I managed to make a success of my business, I put it down to three basic things: delivering a good product on time; specialising; and word of mouth.
• Delivering a good product on time: this should be a no-brainer, although I’m sure we’ve all seen our fair share of dire translations supposedly produced by professional translators, and stories also abound of translators who “disappear” just before the deadline, never to be heard from again.
• Specialising just makes sense: doing what you know well means you’ll do a better job, faster. So you’re more productive and can earn more.
• And finally, word of mouth does your marketing for you. It goes hand in hand with specialising, in fact: you want to get to the point that yours is the name a potential client always hears when they ask someone to recommend a translator in your field. It’s a win-win situation – the client is reassured that you can do the job, and you’re reassured that the client is trustworthy, as they’ve already been “vetted” for you by whoever recommended you. (Assuming you haven’t made too many enemies, of course…)
The point of all this is I would never have believed that I was the kind of person who could become a successful freelancer. And yet, so far at least, I am. I honestly believe that if I can do it, anyone with a reasonable amount of skill and common sense can do the same. So if after years of unceasing toil you still find yourself being constrained to accept a pitiful rate because it’s that or nothing, perhaps rather than blaming the market or your clients it’s time to take a good, hard look at yourself and ask whether you’re really cut out to be a freelance translator. You’re running a business, you are not dependent on one source of income and none of your clients has any obligation to you other than to pay you the rate you both agree on and to pay it on time. If you can’t make a go of it, I would suggest that either your business skills or your translation skills leave something to be desired.
This is probably the point at which I should put in a disclaimer: I am not a hardnosed Tory capitalist. I was a union rep and head of the staff representative committee in my former job. I firmly believe in workers’ rights and the power and importance of organised labour. I just don’t believe that such a model is appropriate in a completely different business context.
Other interesting and relevant points on this topic have been amply discussed by others, and I don’t propose to go into them here. Instead, I’ll direct you to my esteemed colleague, Charlie Bavington.
12 Comments
Other links to this post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By Oliver Lawrence, 10/06/2011 @ 11:19 am
No Peanuts comes across to me as fundamentally defensive, the antithesis of the entrepreneurial potential that is built into the freelance model. As freelancers, if a client offers us a rate we consider unacceptable, we can simply decline it. Good rates are achieved by providing the product and service to justify them, and to do so, we need to invest in our knowledge and skills.
By Marie-Hélène Hayles, 10/06/2011 @ 2:48 pm
Thanks for commenting, Oliver. Yes, that’s about the size of it.
By Lisa, 10/06/2011 @ 4:51 pm
I think that’s what no peanuts is about Oliver, isn’t it? Encouraging translators as a group to reject ridiculous rates (because as freelancers we have the choice of whether we accept a rate or not)? My experiences have been very similar to Marie-Helene’s, but I know folks who accept rates that are waayyy lower than anything I’d ever take. For example, in Spain, English to Spanish translators are a dime a dozen, so a lot of translators in that combination take absurdly low paying jobs, because they think it’s better than nothing. But, you see,it’s not better than nothing. It’s an insult to their expertise and it drives the rates down in the industry as a whole.
By Charlie Bavington, 10/06/2011 @ 11:13 pm
I naturally couldn’t disagree with any of that
@Lisa – I think the point is that NP doesn’t really go any further than a “just say no” approach. Saying no needs to be justifiable, in the way Marie-Hélène describes. And there are, it must be said and as you imply, supply/demand factors at work in certain pairs and markets. There are sound economic principles behind the phrase “dime a dozen”. Maybe you just intended it as a way of saying “lots”, but it actually encapsulates part of the cause of the problem for Eng/Spa in Spain.
By Miriam Hurley, 10/17/2011 @ 6:59 pm
You really summed up well how I feel too. There’s a lot of things in No Peanuts with which I agree, but I can’t get wholesale behind the dogma. As you said, I feel like it applies ideas that I agree with to the wrong realm. Also, my impression is that the really cut-rate translators in IT>EN are not underselling themselves, but overcharging considering the quality. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’ve never seen them!
By Adele Oliveri, 11/23/2011 @ 10:16 am
Thank you for this post, Marie-Hélène. I couldn’t agree more. I myself have not endorsed No Peanuts! – as you say, if you are stuck with very low rates and can’t seem to get anything better, perhaps you should reconsider your business strategy… or indeed your job (hard as it may be to say that…).
By Marie-Hélène Hayles, 11/23/2011 @ 10:45 am
Quite, Adele! Of course with the current economic climate it’s very tempting for people with a smattering of a second language and a computer to try to get work as a freelance translator, as the alternative may be sweeping the streets or no job at all. But much as I sympathise with their plight, it’s no use blaming the client if they are unable to command a higher rate (or a “living wage”, as No Peanuts put it). And of course any of them that do turn out to be any good at translating and the business of translation, as some of them inevitably will, will progressively find their niche and distinguish themselves from the also-rans in any case.
By frauke, 11/23/2011 @ 11:21 am
Hello,
I endorsed the movement, but I also totally agree with your comment. I endorsed principally for collective reasons, as I am also convinced that in this particular industry, individuals have a big “power” on the collective behaviour, the “mean” direction of that behaviour. We all were individuals, closed in our own little business, till the internet era started. I myself recognise myself in your “carreer” but somewhere “I” made a mistake (or mistakes). As there are many “I’s” to sum in the translation industry, all these big or little mistakes have their weight on a collective behaviour wich create “unaspected” difficulties for individuals and so on. Ofcourse, only individual corrections of individual mistakes will have the same collective effect… but somewhere I stay convinced that collective information can help individuals to “clear” their own doubts or to understand and recognise their own mistakes. No Peanuts can do that, have a look to it’s own “evolution” and review or reset. I am ready to do that.
By Giusi, 11/23/2011 @ 8:10 pm
I completely agree with you and this is my experience too. Only this year, I have gained more than 10 new clients without any effort (they found me and not viceversa). Furthermore, I asked for my usual rate, which is not quite low, and it was accepted immediately. That tells me that the market is searching for quality and trusted professional, instead that low rates.
By Wendell Ricketts, 11/28/2011 @ 8:04 pm
What I find so notable about this post – and especially about the comments that have accumulated since – is the level of both simple-mindedness and selfishness that they display.
*First of all,* let’s trot out the hackneyed bromides: “If someone offers you a rate you don’t consider decent, all you have to do is refuse the job.”
Great idea. And how’s that working for us, by the way? That great, thoughtful, individualistic, every-man-for-himself strategy has clearly resulted in a universal increase in translators’ fees, hasn’t it?
Every time you refuse a job because the pay is too low, you’re really giving those agencies and clients pause, aren’t you? In fact, you’ve made them just so darned ashamed of themselves that they’ve gotten together and decided to raise their rates, haven’t they?
Wow. Great work, you guys. You’ve done a HUGE favor to the entire profession and you should certainly deserve all the credit for it!
*And second,* let’s play the capitalist game called “I Pulled Myself Up By My Bootstraps and Anyone Else Ought to Be Able to Do the Same!”
There are many great players in this game this days, especially since U.S. banks nearly failed and the euro is in crisis, including Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, oh … I could go on and on.
How you play is like this: You’ve got all the clients you need? You’re earning what you need or want to earn? Good for you! To hell with everyone else! You don’t belong to a profession and you don’t have the slightest obligation to other translators! Not even the ones in your own language combination (No! Especially not to them! They’re the friggin’ competition, after all!!)
No human or ethical obligations either! There. Don’t you feel a whole light freer and lighter?
Let’s say it with Herman Cain, that master of compassion: “If you’re not rich and you don’t have a job, it’s your own fault!”
Anyone who thinks otherwise is clearly an “enemy of the entrepreneurial spirit”!
I’d go on, but it’s time for my emetic.
No one has to endorse No Peanuts! (and I’m so doggone sorry that exclamation point “irritates” you, MH. Certainly, there are no more serious issues facing the profession than your punctuation allergies!). But if you’re not going to join us, at least get out of the way.
By Marie-Hélène Hayles, 01/12/2012 @ 11:42 pm
Wendell, my apologies for taking so long to approve your post – for some reason the system didn’t tell me it was there, and I’ve only just spotted it.
No comment on the content: everything I’d want to reply I already said in my original post anyway.
Just one question though – what on earth do you mean by “at least get out of the way”? I wasn’t aware that I was in your way in the first place…