| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Is the default acceptance or refusal? Thread poster: Richard Bartholomew
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Fiona Stephenson
Біріккен Корольдік
Local time: 10:24
Portuguese to English
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| no confirmation, no deal | Nov 23, 2008 |
Richard Bartholomew wrote:
Today they sent me a message asking me to confirm acceptance of the job. Unfortunately the job is due today, and I'm still too booked up to take it on. I immediately sent a message apologizing for not having responded earlier. Question: Does a non-reply imply acceptance or refusal? Either way, I'm annoyed with myself for having forgotten to answer.
[Edited at 2008-09-23 15:44]
Richard
I realize this discussion was a couple of months ago, but I'd just like to throw in my opinion, for the record. I think only a very sloppy project manager would consider a job assigned without receiving any confirmation. As Tygru commented, you might be away from your computer for any number of reasons. You are not duty bound to sit by your computer, in case the company wishes to send you work (although that is, of course, the best place to be when the work does come in:) In my case, a possible exception to the "confirmation" rule might be if project manager sends a job for the next day, just before going home for the night. If I was away from my computer when she sent it, and therefore unable to confirm it in time, I would do the job anyway, on the basis that the project manager has gone home and won't have have assigned it to another translator either. This sometimes happens when there is a time difference involved.
I have a little query about your posting - you say that in the end you delivered the job a day early, but how? if you dropped everything on the same day the job was due? I couldn't understand that part. Incidentally what was the long-term outcome? is the company still sending you work? Did they appreciate your bending over backwards in the end?
Fiona
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Hello Fiona,
In the "got it done a day early" part, I forgot to mention that the agency and I agreed on a second, later, delivery date. It was on the day before this second delivery date that I submitted the translation.
Yes, the company did appreciate my effort and let me know it. They have continued to send work, although I have had to turn them down several times subsequently because I was busy with other assignments at the time. They are a good outfit; they send int... See more Hello Fiona,
In the "got it done a day early" part, I forgot to mention that the agency and I agreed on a second, later, delivery date. It was on the day before this second delivery date that I submitted the translation.
Yes, the company did appreciate my effort and let me know it. They have continued to send work, although I have had to turn them down several times subsequently because I was busy with other assignments at the time. They are a good outfit; they send interesting work, and they pay on time and in full.
Needless to say, I make sure to let them know whether or not I can take on a job. The misunderstanding discussed in this post has not reoccurred. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Fiona Stephenson
Біріккен Корольдік
Local time: 10:24
Portuguese to English
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| All's well that end's well | Dec 4, 2008 |
Richard,
I just saw your reply. Well, glad everything worked out well in the end. All part of the learning curve!
Fiona
| | | | Emma Gledhill
Швейцария
Local time: 11:24
German to English
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| Another two months late... | Feb 18, 2009 |
Oleg Rudavin wrote: Richard Bartholomew wrote: Question: Does a non-reply imply acceptance or refusal? I once forgot to confirm a job and a few days later, emailed the finished translation. The reply was, "As we go no confirmation on your part, the job was assigned to another translator".
I had this happen to me once when I outsourced a small urgent job. Owing to the urgency there was no time to wait for one translator to reply before asking another whether they could take it on: unfortunately a couple of translators failed to tell me they could do the job, didn't wait for my go-ahead and the first confirmation I got that they could take it on was a delivered translation. By which time, of course, I had officially assigned it elsewhere because my crystal ball isn't always in perfect working order. As someone (was it Kevin?) mentioned, it's a good idea never to start work until you have a purchase order in your grubby mitts, and if I'm outsourcing I now state in bald terms "please do not start work without a go-ahead from me". A policy of statin' the bleedin' obvious avoids ASSUME making an ass out of u and me (i.e. make sure all communication is crystal clear and cannot be misunderstood)
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| A similar thing happened to me | Feb 18, 2009 |
Emma Gledhill wrote: Oleg Rudavin wrote: Richard Bartholomew wrote: Question: Does a non-reply imply acceptance or refusal? I once forgot to confirm a job and a few days later, emailed the finished translation. The reply was, "As we go no confirmation on your part, the job was assigned to another translator". I had this happen to me once when I outsourced a small urgent job. Owing to the urgency there was no time to wait for one translator to reply before asking another whether they could take it on: unfortunately a couple of translators failed to tell me they could do the job, didn't wait for my go-ahead and the first confirmation I got that they could take it on was a delivered translation. By which time, of course, I had officially assigned it elsewhere because my crystal ball isn't always in perfect working order. As someone (was it Kevin?) mentioned, it's a good idea never to start work until you have a purchase order in your grubby mitts, and if I'm outsourcing I now state in bald terms "please do not start work without a go-ahead from me". A policy of statin' the bleedin' obvious avoids ASSUME making an ass out of u and me (i.e. make sure all communication is crystal clear and cannot be misunderstood)
A couple of weeks ago I had to outsource a very small job but it was very urgent. Everyone I knew was too busy to do it on a short notice, so I used the directory and emailed 3 or 4 people. One of the people I emailed asked me to send her the text so she can give me a quote. In the meantime, another translator send me her quote so I gave her the text, which she delivered in less than an hour. (Two translators never bothered to reply.) When I returned to my computer, the other translator had also sent her translation. I never gave her the 'go ahead' so she understood that I wasn't expecting her to do the translation.
| | | | conejo 
Америка Құрама Штаттары
Local time: 04:24
Japanese to English
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| No reply means you did NOT accept, and you may not have even gotten the email | May 22, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
As I see it you went above and beyond the call of duty and covered the agency for its negligence in project management. The PM should be sending you flowers or a box of chocolate. Seriously. A day EARLY with this screw-up and you think they're unhappy? The only thing I can imagine is that the PM must be my ex-wife....
I agree 100% with Kevin's statement here. Unless you have an agreement with the client that you accept every job they give you regardless of whether you reply or not, which you would have to be crazy to make an agreement like that, the agency is at fault.
Even if you have an agreement for ongoing work, there should still be a system where you reply and say yes or no to each job. I have had agreements for ongoing work before, where I was supposed to return the work within 24 hours of receiving it, and there were times they would send so many files in one day that it was not possible, and in fact might take a month to translate all of it. So yes sometimes I had to tell them it wasn't feasible, although I did my best to do all I could within the 24 hours.
I would make it clear to them that unless you reply to an email and say yes you accept, that it means you have not seen the email, or that you do not accept for whatever reason. In which case, if there is no answer, they should view this as being strange, and call you on the phone to see what the situation is.
| | | | | Problem solved | May 23, 2009 |
conejo wrote:
Even if you have an agreement for ongoing work, there should still be a system where you reply and say yes or no to each job.
We use a really simple, effective system now that solves this problem. They've been my favorite agency ever since.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Нидерланды
Local time: 11:24
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| I know what you mean... | May 23, 2009 |
Richard Bartholomew wrote:
Does a non-reply imply acceptance or refusal? Either way, I'm annoyed with myself for having forgotten to answer.
I don't know. But I have a similar relationship with a certain client who sends me stuff regularly (small jobs), and although he asks me to confirm, I don't always do that (because the time zone difference means that the client will probably receive both confirmation and translation at the same time). For this client, I tend to think that non-reply implies acceptance, because of the regularity of the relationship.
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