Paying the Price: the paradox of outsourcing

Clients are only human.

They want quality, speed and cost-effectiveness, not necessarily in that order.

And so they outsource, the very same way that toy manufacturers outsource to China, clothing firms to Singapore, call centres to India. They do so for the very same reasons that everyone else is now doing so. In order to cut corners and to improve their ever more subterranean bottom line.

The fact that the toys are riddled with lead and contain chemicals that alchemize into the date rape drug the minute a toddler swallows a bead – the fact that the hot little shrug purchased on the high street was produced by exhausted children in an obscene sweat shop – the fact that the excruciatingly polite, incomprehensible “service” operator has nary a clue about the matter at hand – well, oops, outed.

It might appear to the world weary and cynical that the above referenced firms didn’t give a tinker’s dam about those facts until they came to general light and nipped them in the proverbial derriere. Not until the legal teams were sequestered, the media cleanup campaign began, the bottom line bottomed out.

But what about firms who outsource their translation work to translation agencies who further outsource to mini-agencies who then outsource to similarly far-flung, untested and often incompetent translators? Will those chickens come home to roost as well? Are there liability issues lurking in the shadows for those whose third world wage slaves happen to toil with words?

Of course there are, and the smarter and meaner are already inserting suitably impenetrable liability clauses – mostly of the disclaimer sort – in their contracts. In some fields, such as those of a medical, legal and political nature, the stance comes naturally and is more of a shell game. If no one is at fault, then there is no fault.

Most other entities, both for profit and not for profit, will find the chickens’ homeward journey a bit slower, but roost they will. The ludicrous website, the painful marketing brochure, the incomprehensible grant proposal, the unreadable novel will all have their consequences, and they will inevitably be monetary in nature. There is nothing more disastrous in today’s business environment than botched, bad communication. And, yes, the irony is delicious.

The usual point of having something translated is to broaden one’s base, expand markets, sell products, reach more customers, secure funding. A bad translation will not only not do that, it will, in fact, accomplish the opposite.

And if anyone has any doubts as to the ubiquity and widespread nature of this phenomena, I only have to point you once again to the major translator portals. There you will find translators asking for help with difficult words and phrases, where they are quickly met with a rush of responses [more on the “game” and its goals later]. The asker is often obviously not translating into his mother tongue, and the responses can be horrifying. They are frequently produced by idiots googling the precise phrase, with no accounting for, you know, actual meaning, usage, context or nuance. One is left with the firm conviction that none of these “translators” have ever actually read anything, studied anything or, god forbid, had a life.

And, thus, we can rest assured that the final product will be shoddy, useless, inexpedient and ultimately much more costly than if – heaven forbid! – the work had been done by a competent and fairly paid professional, regardless of where he might live.