Mervyn Henderson wrote:
I'm in a bar in Bilbao. Never been here before. I gave the barman to understand that today it was only me, but explained that I'd be coming regularly with truckloads of thirsty patrons in the foreseeable future, and that I'd like a few glasses and maybe a pintxo or two in lieu of that at his most bestest price. When he demurred, I mentioned Greece, flipping burgers, cleaners and translators, and he's just told me to get the frig out. Actually, he wasn't even that polite. Voices and baseball bats were raised. What's wrong with these people?
[Edited at 2017-05-19 17:31 GMT]
[Edited at 2017-05-19 17:50 GMT]
A typical approach (in jobs posted here, in mass-e-mails, pseudo-personal e-mails) from an agency is along the lines of, "Well, we are not oblivious to the fact that $0.03 per word for overnight weekend work involving translation of poorly drafted and impenetrable legal text is indeed rather low, but we are hoping that you will consider the fact that, if your work meets the end client's exacting quality standards, we will be able to offer you an abundance of similar work for the foreseeable future as part of our VIP team of valued vendors...."