what goes around, comes around...

Until about a year ago I did a repeat job for one particular end-client through an agency. The client was happy with our work on the handful of occasions we worked for them, and my booth colleague in particular went out of her way to secure this client for the agency.

Then there were a few problems, like the client confirming dates and at very short notice postponing them indefinitely but refusing to pay a cancellation fee. We were placed in a difficult position as most of us had turned down other work that coincided with the initial AND confirmed dates. Confirmed in the interpreting world is like a gentlemen's agreement, and if confirmed dates are cancelled, the cancellation fee is still usually paid without any argument. However, it's the agency's job to make sure the client understands this and is aware of the tiered cancellations fees that apply.

The norm is 50% of the agreed daily fee if the cancellation is announced less than 90 days but more than 30 days before the beginning of the assignment, 75% if 30 days or less but more than 15 days, and 100% if cancelled within 15 days of the beginning of the assignment.

This agency had obviously not done this and now wanted to avoid the wrath of the client being faced with this unexpected bill by nicely asking the interpreters to waive the cancellation fee (which we did not do, needless to say). Finally some dates came in for the postponed event which luckily the team was available for, only to have them postponed again! The third lot of dates conflicted with bookings of some of us, and eventually we stopped hearing from the agency, and the client was gone.

Throughout the year since then I gleaned from conversations with colleagues that the end-client was still having the same events, just through a different agency, and the team of interpreters had consequently been changed completely (one agency doesn't know who was on the job for another agency before, which can work both ways for the interpreters involved, as you will see...). This was a little disappointing as the delegates had reassured us on several occasions that they liked our work, that they would like to keep the same team etc.

Recently I was offered a job over several days (we interpreters love those for various reasons!), and after finding I was free on the dates in question and some initial instructions, I found out who the end-client was - let's just say, I am looking forward to the reunion!

So sometimes there is poetic justice, and interpreters who through no fault of their own lose work, sometimes get it back from someone else. Or maybe it's just that the pool of interpreters IS finite, so in the end it HAS to come back...