| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Timezone? What's a timezone? Thread poster: philgoddard
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philgoddard
United States
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER | José Enrique | Jun 10, 2016 |
You made some good points there - and yes, timezones can be an advantage as well as an inconvenience.
When I moved from the UK to the US eight years ago, I thought I'd have to start all over again and find new customers here. But the majority are still in Europe, six or seven hours ahead of me, and seem perfectly happy to wait until their lunchtime for a reply. I'm not sure I'd be that patient.
Sometimes the difference is so great that it's impossible to communicate in ... See more You made some good points there - and yes, timezones can be an advantage as well as an inconvenience.
When I moved from the UK to the US eight years ago, I thought I'd have to start all over again and find new customers here. But the majority are still in Europe, six or seven hours ahead of me, and seem perfectly happy to wait until their lunchtime for a reply. I'm not sure I'd be that patient.
Sometimes the difference is so great that it's impossible to communicate in real time. I recently acquired a direct customer in Singapore, so far ahead that we both just launch emails into the ether and wait a long time for a reply. And again, this works perfectly well.
You talked about Googling "time" plus the name of the city. Yes, that is the 21st-century equivalent of having a row of clocks on the wall showing the time in different cities, and I wish people would use it more. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Presumed availability hours | Jun 10, 2016 |
philgoddard wrote:
You talked about Googling "time" plus the name of the city. Yes, that is the 21st-century equivalent of having a row of clocks on the wall showing the time in different cities, and I wish people would use it more.
It's not always enough just to look up the time zone, as there is no guarantee that a freelance translator works the same hours as if he or she had to get up with the sun to milk the cows, working hours that for some reason have become dogmatic in offices even without cows.
There are oddballs like me who have delayed circadian rhythms and who therefore work best in the afternoons and evenings. I only start at 1 a.m. local time (Germany), and it's only after 5 p.m. that I get to my most productive hours. So my working hours correspond to what would be 'normal' in Newfoundland.
My Proz profile and my website list my working hours in various time zones, but I guess not many get around to reading them. Some outsourcers can accept these hours, others not. That's just how it is. It enables me to cover both European and American time zones partially.
As for Skype, my gripe is that one cannot be logged in to a private account and a business account on the same computer at the same time, and I don't necessarily want all business connections to know when I'm at the computer and when I'm not – around the clock. And I don't want to be pinged by an "are you there?" message at 2 a.m. There is a privacy issue. If everybody had good manners, it would be less of a problem, but the world is not perfect.
| | | | 2GT 
Italy
Local time: 05:28
English to Italian
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| Running 2 Skype accounts simultaneously | Jun 10, 2016 |
Thomas T. Frost:
As for Skype, my gripe is that one cannot be logged in to a private account and a business account on the same computer at the same time
Actually, you can connect simultaneously to 2 Skype accounts.
Cheers
Gianni
| | | | Tina Vonhof (X)
Canada
Local time: 21:28
Dutch to English
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| Same experience | Jun 10, 2016 |
I've had the same thing happen to me and it wasn't even about a potential job but about something trivial. Because of the time zone differences and the sometimes poor sound quality of international calls, I ask all my clients to communicate with me by email only.
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| Yes, it works | Jun 10, 2016 |
Thanks. It works. Last time I looked into it, I found an article saying it wasn't possible.
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 23:28
Spanish to English
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| I was once contacted by a... | Jun 10, 2016 |
...translation portal that requires translators to keep their phone by their bedside and accept / reject jobs in the middle of the night. If a job is assigned to you (because you did a previous job from the same client), you are required to get up at 3:00 a.m. and work. Of course, I said no, but there are "apparently" 7,800 other translators working for them who have no problem doing this.
Of course, sometimes the timezone works in our favor. If clients on the west coast need a tra... See more ...translation portal that requires translators to keep their phone by their bedside and accept / reject jobs in the middle of the night. If a job is assigned to you (because you did a previous job from the same client), you are required to get up at 3:00 a.m. and work. Of course, I said no, but there are "apparently" 7,800 other translators working for them who have no problem doing this.
Of course, sometimes the timezone works in our favor. If clients on the west coast need a translation at nine in the morning, I have three additional hours the next morning to proofread my work with a fresh and well-rested mind.
[Edited at 2016-06-10 18:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | S_G_C (X)
Romania
Local time: 06:28
English to Romanian
philgoddard wrote:
Ours is an international business, and we have to be flexible. But is it too much to expect eight hours of uninterrupted sleep now and then?
I've recently mentioned the same in the Romanian section of the forum. I receive job emails (luckily, nobody calls me over night, I would have been pissed off and made sure that didn't happen again) at impossible hours, 2 a.m., 5 a.m. my time. By the time I reply (8 or 9 a.m.), the job has already been assigned. To whom, I wonder.
| | | | MK2010
United States
Local time: 23:28
Member (2017)
French to English
+ ...
LegalTransform wrote:
Of course, sometimes the timezone works in our favor. If clients on the west coast need a translation at nine in the morning, I have three additional hours the next morning to proofread my work with a fresh and well-rested mind.
[Edited at 2016-06-10 18:03 GMT]
I love working for clients on the west coast! I'm on mountain time so it's only an hour difference, but even that helps. One of my agency clients is on the east coast and the deadlines are often start of business, i.e. pretty early in the morning for me. I sometimes ask them to push the deadline back a couple of hours if it's no inconvenience to them, and more often than not, it's not a problem. A lot of times I do my rereading in the early morning, so a couple of extra hours are a big help.
As for my main gig at the moment, the client is in Paris. It goes without saying that we have a smaller window when both sides are available by email at the same time, and that's no problem. Sometimes I'll get up super early just to check for any urgent emails, and if there aren't any, I go back to sleep for a couple of hours (sometimes the best sleep ever) and then still have 2-3 hours to catch them during business hours after I get out of bed the second time.
The most frequently missed opportunities for me are with clients from Asia. If they send an urgent request during the night and have left the office by the time I respond, well it's on them for not remembering the time difference.
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| 2 Skype accounts - works - then doesn't - then you have do reconfigure from scratch | Jun 14, 2016 |
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
Thanks. It works. Last time I looked into it, I found an article saying it wasn't possible.
In case others try this:
It worked for a few days, and then Skype shut itself down without warning to update itself, as Microsoft always know better than the user when to shut down software. "What we are doing with your computer is more important than what you are doing," is what they mean. After the update, it refused to sign in to the second account. After some searching, I found this:
https://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-archive/Secondary-Skype-stopped-working/td-p/4221470
One basically has to delete the entire configuration, profile photo and options and start from scratch. Then it works. Until they break it again with something else, I suppose. It's a typical Microsoft experience: "Yes, you may use this feature, but we have designed it in such a way that if you use it, it will mess up your settings so much that they become useless, and we'll make you do the entire configuration again from scratch because your time doesn't matter."
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 23:28
Member (2008)
French to English
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| Personal vs business | Jun 14, 2016 |
I have never given out my personal phone number for business purposes. I have always had a separate business phone number. Even if it costs a small amount, it's much more professional and businesslike. Any client that wants to contact me outside of my business hours can leave a message or send an email. I don't think I have ever lost a client for this policy and, that being so, I have no reason to give clients access to my personal phone number.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:28
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| The US is behind. | Jun 14, 2016 |
If anyone over there in the US wants to know what's going to happen in the next 6 hours - be warned, it's bad.
[Edited at 2016-06-14 15:39 GMT]
| | | | 2GT
Italy
Local time: 05:28
English to Italian
+ ...
| 2 Skype accounts: opening order | Jun 14, 2016 |
Thomas T. Frost:
Thomas T. Frost:
Thanks. It works. Last time I looked into it, I found an article saying it wasn't possible.
In case others try this:
It worked for a few days, and then Skype shut itself down without warning to update itself, as Microsoft always know better than the user when to shut down software. "What we are doing with your computer is more important than what you are doing," is what they mean. After the update, it refused to sign in to the second account. After some searching, I found this:
https://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-archive/Secondary-Skype-stopped-working/td-p/4221470
One basically has to delete the entire configuration, profile photo and options and start from scratch. Then it works. Until they break it again with something else, I suppose. It's a typical Microsoft experience: "Yes, you may use this feature, but we have designed it in such a way that if you use it, it will mess up your settings so much that they become useless, and we'll make you do the entire configuration again from scratch because your time doesn't matter."
To get both accounts work together I do the following:
- Open primary account
- Open secondary account
Hope this helps
Gianni
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philgoddard
United States
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Tom in London wrote:
If anyone over there in the US wants to know what's going to happen in the next 6 hours - be warned, it's bad.
Six hours except in health care and guns, where it's fifty years.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:28
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| What is time? | Jun 14, 2016 |
philgoddard wrote:
Tom in London wrote:
If anyone over there in the US wants to know what's going to happen in the next 6 hours - be warned, it's bad.
Six hours except in health care and guns, where it's fifty years.
Seriously though - I have always had difficulty working with US- based agencies because just as I'm packing up for the day, about to turn off my computer and go out for the evening or just do something non work-related, ping! In come the emails from America asking me to work on something immediately whereas I have no intention of working on anything for at least the next 12 hours- by which time my American (northern or southern) interlocutor will have finished their day and gone to bed. The only way to make this work is to leave plenty of time, reciprocally.
If it's any consolation, time adjustment is a relatively recent innovation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
[Edited at 2016-06-14 15:42 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, but that was not the problem | Jun 14, 2016 |
2G Trad wrote:
Thomas T. Frost:
Thomas T. Frost:
Thanks. It works. Last time I looked into it, I found an article saying it wasn't possible.
In case others try this:
It worked for a few days, and then Skype shut itself down without warning to update itself, as Microsoft always know better than the user when to shut down software. "What we are doing with your computer is more important than what you are doing," is what they mean. After the update, it refused to sign in to the second account. After some searching, I found this:
https://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-archive/Secondary-Skype-stopped-working/td-p/4221470
One basically has to delete the entire configuration, profile photo and options and start from scratch. Then it works. Until they break it again with something else, I suppose. It's a typical Microsoft experience: "Yes, you may use this feature, but we have designed it in such a way that if you use it, it will mess up your settings so much that they become useless, and we'll make you do the entire configuration again from scratch because your time doesn't matter."
To get both accounts work together I do the following:
- Open primary account
- Open secondary account
Hope this helps
Gianni
So did I, but that was not enough to make it work, after it had messed up its own configuration files. I have explained what went wrong and how to fix it already.
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