I have seen/experienced the following so many times, it makes me sick.
The following is a summary of mail communications. Since the first message was in Japanese, I take the liberty of summarizing its contents in English.
Here I refrain from naming the company or involved person.
I am called a “rude, impoliteperson, giving inappropriate answers”.
Gratitude Dime (Photo credit: InaFrenzy)
Is that really the case???
I wonder if someone not involved here could provide some feedback, since I don’t like to be rude, but am tired of being “requested” to go to all sorts of trouble, only to be told later: “this won’t work”.
First message:
We are a newly established company in Japan. Having a look at your profile on a translators directory, we would very much like to establish a business relationship with you.
First of all, please register with us, by clicking on the following link. Our coordinators will provide support with the registration process.
My response: (also English transcript of Japanese message)
Good morning
Thank you for the invitation.
However, I checked your website and tried the “instant quote” function.
This shows, that your customers would have to pay 50% of my usual rate, meaning that you would most likely offer me something like 30% (maybe less) of my usual rate.
Working for so low rates would make me homeless, even during fulltime occupation.
Unless there is some room for negotiations about the rate, I believe, registering would be a futile effort.
Since the company in question did not respond at all,
I sent a second short message:
Good afternoon
No response to my mail …
I presume this means, my assumption about the rate(s) was correct.
Pity.
But I have to survive too …
Second message from that company:
After receiving your second mail I checked the first message once again and hardly could find any questions there that I should answer. You refused to register in quite impolite manner, which is not very appropriate in business world and I understood your position.
As per German language rates, we are in the process of reviewing our rates because as you probably noticed the company is very new and we empirically learn how to match the market in Japan.
Thank you for informing us your opinion and we wish you all the best in your translation activity.
My response to that message:
Good evening
Thank you for your feedback.
With all due respect, but I do not think there was anything “rude” in my first mail. It was also not intended to be impolite, offensive etc.
Since I am working in this “business world” for over 27 years already, I believe, I have had sufficienct chance to learn a few things, including “appropriate” answers to mails.
In my long experience the following has happend MANY times:
1) I get a mail offering me work / collaboration
2) This mail requests (often demands) that I “first of all” register.
3) I take the trouble (trouble it often is; sometimes also very time consuming) to register.
4) Later I get a mail: “you are too expensive” (stated often in a language you would consider (to put it mildly) impolite )
-> All the (my) effort was in vain.
Here is the exact same scenario.
I just took the liberty of checking the information listed on your website before registering – based on above mentioned experience.
The results showed, that the effort of registering would most likel y be in vain.
Then I informed you of that result. There was not anything impolite or inappropriate.
I can assure you, I have seen MANY(!) VERY rude mails in my time.
Mine was not one of those.
Thank you.
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A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein
Related articles
- Is the fear of being impolite stronger than doing what is best for you? (dailymuse.spiritlightinsight.com)
- How Rude! (aprovinciallife.wordpress.com)
German acupuncturist in Japan 
Hello Thomas,
An interesting post again. I think being direct about things can easily be interpreted as being overly direct, pushy or even rude, especially in a culture like Japan’s, where politeness seems to be a virtue that is still well-regarded by many (as it is in Europe as well). The interesting thing is that people in different cultures see politeness in different ways, so what one person feels is perfectly polite may be seen as rather rude by someone from another cultural background. That happens whenever British people move to Germany, for example, until they start to acclimatise and learn how to say things “the German way”, which is perfectly natural here, of course.
I expect you’ll actually have a good idea about whether your reply was “impolite” or not, seeing as you have lived in Japan for so long – you’ll know how people talk to one another and what they regard as polite and rude, so you are probably in a position to judge this for yourself in this case.
Perhaps the staff at the Japanese agency that contacted you are all fairly young and inexperienced. The agency’s supposed to be a new one, after all. In which case they may not have much experience of recruiting professional translators and interacting with potential suppliers from various parts of the world. Setting up a database and then asking translators to add their details to it is something I’ve experienced, too. (That was a new agency in Germany.) It’s a quick way of filling up the supplier database, but I pity the people who then have to go through all the data and sort it out to tailor it to their own needs. What a waste of time and energy getting translators to enter their details and then deleting them from the database later when the staff realise that they are “too expensive” or don’t match the profiles they’re actually looking for; they won’t get much high-quality data that way, I don’t think.
If I were you, I’d simply ignore such requests from now on as you are probably fairly unlikely to get the sort of well-paid work you are looking for this way. There are plenty of other opportunities for self-marketing that could be tapped instead (like joining a translators’ association and getting yourself added to a list of members that is kept on the internet so any potential customer can view it).
Regards
Carl
Amper Translation Service
Fürstenfeldbruck
Germany
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