A strange request came through today.

Ordinarily those of us in this industry bill for our services based on the word count of the document provided, in the case of outright translation, or else on the time spent, in cases such as editing or proofreading.  Most people are familiar with and understand that kind of measurement, and we all have charges correlated to what it will take us to serve our client well at a reasonable cost while still making a living for ourselves.

Most of us in general, and Eloquence Language Services in particular, seek to establish ourselves as professional providers of a service, not a product.  Translators and interpreters have spent years trying to educate the public about the importance of selecting a professional who can offer precisely that result.

So today a colleague just wrote a boatload of us in the business begging for anyone’s input on how to bill a job in GIGABYTES.  Gigabytes?  Talk about commodity pricing!  That’s a rather demeaning idea, considering that untold time and effort go into delivering a top-notch translation, and then to reduce it to no more than a bunch of ones and zeroes?  Geez, guys, give us a break!