Friday, November 16, 2012

9 Feast or famine

cartoon feast or famine for freelancers
Click image to enlarge

Based on an idea by Lorena Vicente. Lorena is a technical and scientific English>Spanish translator based in Buenos Aires. Since 2009, she serves as vice president of IAPTI and participates actively in several Chapters and Committees of the association. Thank you Lorena for your work for the translator community.

9 comments:

  1. This month: 14 days of famine,down, hopeless...just sending quotes and bidding... then yesterday: OVERLOADED (FEAST!!!)... money enough for my next 3 months.

    That´s our profession!

    Ana
    www.anaescaleira.com

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  2. This one is so nice ! But that's when you learn that you can dry your teabags and reuse them when famine times are here.
    Why not a little comic, one day maybe, about reviewers (that turn into back-up resources when all translators have declined a project, and have to translate in half a day what should have been translated in 3 days) ?
    Reviewers are sometimes evil, sometimes good, as unknown as insurance customer service agents :)

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  3. It doesn't have to be either feast or famine. I would take it as time for researching, training, networking... or doing whatever I cannot do when overloaded BUT not thinking about reducing my rates.

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  4. It is always feast or famine in our profession - but we should never have to short-change ourselves for the hard work we are doing. There is always plenty of other things to be done: your accounting, gardening, creative cooking, pro-bono translations, and just relaxing and waiting until the wave comes back!

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  5. Couldn't agree more. When it's raining, it pours, when it stops raining, it's a drought.
    It's our destiny...

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  6. And the worst thing is the timing: Feast always happens during a sunny week while famine strikes in a rainy week in November.

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  7. Thank you for this post, guys! Yesterday I was so desperate I did a job for half price to mute the voices in my head :D but today, I will enjoy myself without the slightest sense of fear :D

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  8. Ah, feast/famine... yes, our profession is not for the faint of heart. We actually long for some more quiet time these days, but everyone, no matter how successful, has experienced the fear of the phone that will never ring again (it will ring again)/inbox that will remain empty forever (it won't). In this business, you have to be prepared for the ups and downs, and as Andreas correctly points out, famine does tend to strike when it's rainy! Another spot-on cartoon as always.

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