Como convertirte en cliente consentido

1. Encargarme traducciones de textos interesantes, de temas interesantes, sean ésas:
   
   
   
   • de textos bien escritos, o bien
     
   • de textos mal escritos de manera que mejorarlos constituye un reto interesante y divertido.
     
   
   
2. Tener sexto sentido para mandarme trabajos voluminosos cuando me falta trabajo, y pequeños (o ninguno) cuando me encuentro ya muy atareada.
   
3. Felicitarme por la calidad de mis traducciones (sin dejar de llamarme la atención en caso de un posible error). ¡Gracias! Ya sabes quien eres, no hace falta especificar el nombre (ya que ésta es una bitácora anónima).
   
4. Remitir el pago en un plazo que se cuenta en ¡minutos! (Sí, no es una exageración. El acontecimiento que me motivó a redactar esta nota fue un pago que acabo de recibir en un plazo de 64 minutos después de la entrega del texto.) Si se trata de horas, eso no me cae mal tampoco. Acepto días, también. Semanas, si es que son pocas. Cuando ya se trata de meses, el trabajo afuerzas tiene que contar con otras cualidades muy favorables para compensar.
   
5. Recomendarme con otros amigos y conocidos como tú.
   

A Resolution To Be Broken

Does this ever happen to you? Translating publisher's blurbs or liner notes for music albums I generally become so taken with the product that I offer to be paid in kind instead of in cash.

Write 10 times:
Publishers are not good clients for book addict translators.
Publishers are not good clients for book addict translators.
Publishers are not good clients for...

Translators: Learning from architects

A common query and topic of discussion at translator forums and on translator lists is whether the customer is always right. How should a translator respond when the client insists that the translation must adhere to a faulty glossary, lets a reviewer who is non-native or unacquainted with the subject matter alter or add to the translation (thereby introducing errors), or insists that wrong terms are the right ones?

Perhaps we should take a cue from other professionals. This quote is from an interview with architect Frank Gehry:

"I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do," Mr. Gehry says. "Architects have to become parental. They have to learn to be parental." By this he means that an architect has to listen to his client but also remain firm about what the architect knows best, the aesthetics of a building. This, Mr. Gehry says, is what makes an architect relevant in the process that leads to a completed building. "I think a lot of my colleagues lose it, lose that relevance in the spirit of serving their client, so that no matter what, they are serving the client. Even if the building they produce, that they think serves the client, doesn't really serve the client because it's not very good."

In a similar way, I believe that a translator does not serve the client by bowing to pressure to introduce known errors.