Sunday, August 06, 2006

ASET update: "Just discard that contract"

ASET's Kevin Hendzel intervened in the ongoing chain of e-mails, stating that he didn't know about the contract, that it had been sent without his knowledge, and that it should be discarded, while ASET drafts something much more appropriate.

Some translators suggested that ASET should take into consideration the opinions expressed in the current exchange of opinions in drafting the new contract.
Also, several translators who know Kevin Hendzel wrote about his contributions to our profession and to ATA, so perhaps the current fracas could indeed be ascribed to internal miscommunications at ASET.

All the same, several aspects of the proposed contract were disturbing. We'll have to see what the new contract looks like.

In the meantime, I'm inclined to give ASET the benefit of the doubt.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

ASET puts their foot in

ASET, a translation company who boasts of the quality of their work, seems to have just put their foot in: they sent to their existing suppliers a "new supplier package": W-9, W-8, and an 18-page contract.

For some reason, e-mails from translators who are answering to this rollout are forwarded to all other translators to whom the package was sent: so far I've received 16 of these e-mails, most very critical of the way ASET behaved (among other things, the e-mails complain of unreasonable demands and extended payment terms), with more than a few translators demanding to be removed from ASET's list of suppliers.

I've not had time to study the new contract myself, but this looks like a medium-sized PR fiasco for an otherwise fairly well-regarded translation company: they seem to have alienated at a stroke a number of good translators.

Update

Probably more like a major fiasco: 48 messages and counting, not a single one of them positive, and many of them from excellent translators that no good agency could afford to lose.