As portfolio teleworkers, freelance translators compose a relatively elusive class of worker within the industry. The temporal structure of freelance translators, as defined by the time, timing, and tempo of their work, is a framework comprising much breadth, and although the entire picture may not yet be in focus, the scaffolding seems to be in view. This study attempted to break down the duration of the working period, the arrangement of working time, and the utilization of work time for freelance translators, and found that some distinct qualities emerge.
Freelance translators fit into a number of different categories of worker, but the two that best describe them are portfolio worker and teleworker. As portfolio workers they are independent from a fixed employer, meaning they have to be proactive in finding their own work. Once they have found work, and negotiated the terms however, they are essentially free from any employer related constraints. Adding the role of teleworker to this employer-free position, meaning that translators work via ICT, provides two more layers of freedom: time and space. Portfolio teleworkers are thus able to work where and when they want without the supervision of an employer. The deadline that comes along with an assignment is the only aspect that ties them down to time and an employer, and is thus an important aspect of their temporal structure.
The data of this study was collected by interviewing 13 freelance translators (8 male, 5 female). Questions asked covered the areas of their working life that relate to time, and the results were based on an analysis of the interview transcriptions. After the analysis it became very clear that the participants could be separated into three groups:
book translators, book and document translators, and document translators. The results
also showed that the average daily amount of time spent working, or duration of working period, was 5.69 hours for all translators. There were no major differences from one group of translators to the next, document or book, on the average amount of time spent working per day. There were differences in the ‘timing’, or the arrangement of working time, among some of the translators, but just like with ‘time’ none of them were group specific. Preference for working during the morning, afternoon, evening, and middle of the night were all expressed, with no clear pattern as to which type of translator preferred working when.
The biggest differences between the translators occurred in the utilization of work time, or ‘tempo’. Book translators have better control over volume of work, scheduling, and client management, and as so experience seasons of feast and famine less than the other translators. In fact, under normal working conditions time, timing, and tempo do not differ much among translators, but as soon as the issue of deadlines is introduced, change in temporal structure becomes conspicuous. It was found that deadlines pervade almost every aspect of the translator’s working life. Book translators have work planned for half a year into the future on average, which equates to only two deadlines per year, each that can be foreseen well in advance. Document translators face a deadline every two weeks on average, often times sooner. Deadlines affect the way that the translator works, and so exacerbates all issues of temporal structure, including dictators of working time and duration of work. Under a tight deadline, a translator may work 12 hours or more in a day (time), making the working day last from morning until night (timing), and at a furious pace (tempo).
This study did not start out anticipating that there would be major differences between book and document translators, and merely attempted to find out the general temporal structure experienced by all freelance translators. To that end, temporal
structure for the freelance translator is not directly a time-measured construct, rather it is subject to deadlines, and influenced by task, emotion, and physical condition. This was made evident by the fact all translators agreed upon the principal constituents for the beginning and ending of their working day in the face of a normal deadline. Neither are based on a specific time, rather the day’s commence is contingent upon volition, which is often accompanied by an emotional component, and the day’s denouement is sounded when physical limits are reached and fatigue takes over, or a quota filled.
Bibliography
Bailey, D. E., & Kurland, N. B. (2002). A review of telework research: Findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(4), 383-400.
Bidwell, M. J., & Briscoe, F. (2009). Who contracts? Determinants of the decision to work as an independent contractor among information technology workers.
Academy of Management Journal, 52(6), 1148-1168.
Blanchflower, D. G. (2000). Self-employment in OECD countries. Labour economics, 7(5), 471-505.
Briscoe, F., Wardell, M., & Sawyer, S. (2011). Membership has its privileges?
Contracting and access to jobs that accommodate work-life needs. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 258-282.
Clinton, M., Totterdell, P., & Wood, S. (2006). A grounded theory of portfolio working experiencing the smallest of small businesses. International small business journal, 24(2), 179-203.
Cohen, L., & Mallon, M. (1999). The transition from organisational employment to portfolio working: Perceptions ofboundarylessness'. Work, Employment &
Society, 13(2), 329-352.
DeVoe, S. E., & House, J. (2012). Time, money, and happiness: How does putting a price on time affect our ability to smell the roses? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(2), 466-474.
DeVoe, S. E., & Pfeffer, J. (2007). When time is money: The effect of hourly payment on the evaluation of time. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104(1), 1-13.
Dex, S., Willis, J., Paterson, R., & Sheppard, E. (2000). Freelance workers and contract uncertainty: the effects of contractual changes in the television industry. Work, Employment & Society, 14(2), 283-305.
Durban, C. (2010). The Prosperous Translator: FA&WB Press.
Eichhorst, W. B., Michela; Famira-Mühlberger, Ulrike; Gerard, Maarten; Horvath, Thomas; Kahanec, Martin; Kahancová, Marta; Kendzia, Michael; Martišková, Monika; Monti, Paola; Pedersen, Jakob Louis; Stanley, Julian; Vandeweghe, Barbara; Wehner, Caroline; White, Caroline. (2013). Social protection rights of economically dependent self-employed workers.
Evans, J. A., Kunda, G., & Barley, S. R. (2004). Beach time, bridge time, and billable hours: The temporal structure of technical contracting. Administrative Science
Felstead, A. (1996). Homeworking in Britain: the national picture in the mid-1990s.
Industrial Relations Journal, 27(3), 225-238.
Fenwick, T. J. (2006). Contradictions in portfolio careers: work design and client relations. Career Development International, 11(1), 65-79.
Fernandez-Mateo, I. (2007). Who pays the price of brokerage? Transferring constraint through price setting in the staffing sector. American Sociological Review, 72(2), 291-317.
Fraser, J., & Gold, M. (2001). Portfolio workers': Autonomy and control amongst freelance translators. Work, Employment & Society, 15(4), 679-697.
Gold, M., & Fraser, J. (2002). Managing self-management: successful transitions to portfolio careers. Work, Employment & Society, 16(4), 579-597.
Gold, M., & Mustafa, M. (2013). ‘Work always wins’: client colonisation, time
management and the anxieties of connected freelancers. New Technology, Work and Employment, 28(3), 197-211.
Golden, L. (2001). Flexible Work Schedules Which Workers Get Them? American Behavioral Scientist, 44(7), 1157-1178.
Granger, B., Stanworth, J., & Stanworth, C. (1995). Self-employment career dynamics:
the case ofunemployment push'in UK book publishing. Work, Employment &
Society, 9(3), 499-516.
Handy, C. (1995). The Empty Raincoat: Random House UK.
Harris, L. (2003). Home-based teleworking and the employment relationship: Managerial challenges and dilemmas. Personnel Review, 32(4), 422-437.
Hill, E. J., Hawkins, A. J., Ferris, M., & Weitzman, M. (2001). Finding an Extra Day a Week: The Positive Influence of Perceived Job Flexibility on Work and Family Life Balance*. Family Relations, 50(1), 49-58.
Katan, D. (2009). Occupation or profession A survey of the translators' world.
Translation and Interpreting Studies, 4(2), 187-209.
Kelliher, C., & Anderson, D. (2010). Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Human Relations, 63(1), 83-106.
Kitching, J., & Smallbone, D. (2012). Are freelancers a neglected form of small
business? Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 19(1), 74-91.
Kunda, G., Barley, S. R., & Evans, J. (2002). Why do contractors contract? The
experience of highly skilled technical professionals in a contingent labor market.
Mallon, M. (1998). The portfolio career: pushed or pulled to it? Personnel Review, 27(5), 361-377.
Margolis, D. N. (2014). By Choice and by Necessity: Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment in the Developing World. European Journal of Development Research, 26(4), 419-436.
Marler, J. H., Woodard Barringer, M., & Milkovich, G. T. (2002). Boundaryless and traditional contingent employees: worlds apart. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(4), 425-453.
Mirchandani, K. (2000). “The best of both worlds” and “cutting my own throat”:
contradictory images of home-based work. Qualitative sociology, 23(2), 159-182.
Mustafa, M., & Gold, M. (2013). ‘Chained to my work'? Strategies to manage temporal and physical boundaries among self-employed teleworkers. Human Resource Management Journal, 23(4), 413-429.
Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002). The concept of flow. Handbook of positive psychology, 89-105.
Nansen, B., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., & Davis, H. (2010). Time, space and technology in the working-home: an unsettled nexus. New Technology, Work and Employment, 25(2), 136-153.
Platman, K. (2004). ‘Portfolio careers’ and the search for flexibility in later life. Work, Employment & Society, 18(3), 573-599.
Polivka, A. E., & Nardone, T. (1989). On the definition of contingent work. Monthly Lab.
Rev., 112, 9.
PricewaterhouseCoopers. (2012). Translation Bureau Benchmarking and Comparative Analysis (pp. 43). Canada.
Prottas, D. (2008). Do the self-employed value autonomy more than employees?
Research across four samples. Career Development International, 13(1), 33-45.
Prottas, D. J. (2007). Attitudes towards occupation, job, life, and family: Translators as independent contractors, owners, and employees. Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, 19(2), 16.
Rassuli, A. (2005). Evolution of the professional contingent workforce. Journal of Labor research, 26(4), 689-710.
Sayah, S. (2013). Managing work–life boundaries with information and communication technologies: the case of independent contractors. New Technology, Work and
Stanworth, C., & Stanworth, J. (1995). The self-employed without employees—
autonomous or atypical? Industrial Relations Journal, 26(3), 221-229.
Stevenson, A. (2010). Oxford Dictionary of English: OUP Oxford.
Steward, B. (2000). Changing Times The meaning, measurement and use of time in teleworking. Time & Society, 9(1), 57-74.
Sullivan, C., & Lewis, S. (2001). Home-based Telework, Gender, and the
Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co -residents. Gender, Work & Organization, 8(2), 123-145.
Tausig, M., & Fenwick, R. (2001). Unbinding time: Alternate work schedules and work-life balance. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 22(2), 101-119.
Tietze, S., & Musson, G. (2003). The times and temporalities of home-based telework.
Personnel Review, 32(4), 438-455.
Tremblay, D. G., & Genin, E. (2010). IT self-employed workers between constraint and flexibility. New Technology, Work and Employment, 25(1), 34-48.
Waller, M. J., Zellmer-Bruhn, M. E., & Giambatista, R. C. (2002). Watching the clock:
Group pacing behavior under dynamic deadlines. Academy of Management Journal, 45(5), 1046-1055.
Warren, T. (2004). Working part-time: achieving a successful ‘work-life’balance? 1. The British journal of sociology, 55(1), 99-122.
Wheatley, D. (2012). Good to be home? Time-use and satisfaction levels among home-based teleworkers. New Technology, Work and Employment, 27(3), 224-241.
Wight, V. R., & Raley, S. B. (2009). When home becomes work: Work and family time among workers at home. Social indicators research, 93(1), 197-202.
Wu, D. (2009). Temporal Structures in Individual Time Management: Practices to
Enhance Calendar Tool Design: Practices to Enhance Calendar Tool Design: IGI Global.
Appendix
Interview transcripts Respondent #1
What dictates the beginning of your workday?
When I wake up, then when I really wake up, mentally speaking.
What happens after you wake up and before you start working?
I’ll wash up, then leave the house, like I’m heading to work.
Do you ever work at home?
Sometimes, not often though, maybe one or two days of the week.
What dictates the end of your workday?
Once I’ve finished the day’s work, or once it gets too late.
What’s too late?
I’ll work until 9:00 or 10:00 pm.
What part of the day do you prefer to work?
These days, I prefer working from 1:00-7:00 or 8:00pm, ideally speaking though, I’d like it to be working from 9:00am to about 3:00 in the afternoon.
How often do you take a break from translating?
Once an hour.
How long do you break for?
5-10 minutes.
What does an ideal day of work look like?
Wake up, work from 9-3.
What does an ideal month of work look like?
Outside of the ideal work time, I’d like to have a few days off in between. Work 20 days a month.
What is your average contract length?
Two months.
What type of contracts do you take?
Books.
How do you react to seasons of feast?
Sometimes it’s not so much a season of feast as just a singular feast, or perhaps it is an entire season, but I just don’t feel it as such, like in the case of a book exhibition or some event like that, publishers sign on to a book and then right away need to find a translator.
They have their season, but it’s less salient for the translator, they just might all be looking for translators right around the same time. Every publishing house has their own schedule for books as well too, but if you can separate the deadlines that takes care of this problem. As long as the publisher is willing to cooperate, the translator has total control over working time.
So then, the question about control over deadlines, you said about 40%, but most of the time you have enough time to figure out your schedule, even if you don’t have control over your deadline you do have control over your working schedules?
Yes, the publisher sets the deadline most of the time, but it’s negotiable, and you can set your own tempo.
Do you ever have downtime, time in between assignments?
Sometimes.
Do you ever plan for this downtime? Or if it happens, then OK it happens, or do you try to makes sure there is as little downtime as possible.
I’m not preparing for downtime much these days, it’s never been that serious, if I have downtime, I don’t know, I’d just try to adjust my lifestyle or attitude, and when it’s nearing the deadline pick up the pace, that’s normal. I have heard of one translator who had serious downtime. He just dropped the two books he was working on, stopped translating, forfeited the money as well, he just couldn’t do it anymore, it’s not because he didn’t like the books.
The downtime I’m talking about it, the end of one contract, and the beginning of the other, the time in between. Do you ever experience that kind of a downtime?
You mean a gap in between?
Yeah.
Once.
Only once? So it’s fair to say you have pretty strong control over the overall tempo of your work.
Yeah.
Do you ever plan for breaks in your working schedule? So downtime sort of just happens, but this question is, do you ever plan and make sure you have time off.
Not really. I would like to plan for that though, I’m just sort of going with the flow right now, if I want to take a break I just take one.
How far in the future do you usually have work lined up for?
About half a year.
Why did you choose to freelance in the first place?
I’m not cut out for in house work. I think it has to do with character too, I don’t like people telling me what to do, I like the freedom to spend my time how I want, I want a very measurable sense of achievement, and room for creative input.
Is there anything else you would like to add that I have not asked about?
I often work on the weekends, because everyone is out and about, but I work then, I think that’s different from most people. It can be tough to adjust your routine, sometimes if you go out the night before and come home really late, it can be hard to adjust. I think you have to be very disciplined. Some people have to clock in at 9:00 Monday morning, that’s the way it is, but for a freelancer, if you were out late last night, it takes a while to get motivated the next day, it’s easy to sleep in, and I think that effects productivity.
Before you start translating you have to get into working mode, or for example, I’ll set aside two months to work, but the first week I won’t get much done, but the more I get into it the faster I go, I think it has to do with productivity.
Respondent #2
What dictates the beginning of your workday?
When I’m sent a pdf file.
So when you get an e-mail?
Yeah, but we might e-mail back and forth for a while, so it’s not just the one.
So then, how do you know when to start?
Once we’ve decided on a deadline and price, then once I get the file I start on it.
What happens between when you wake up and start working?
You mean everything else is in place?
You have a case in hand, how do you know, that day, when to start working?
You mean like, I’m moved to work by my conscience?
Sort of, because you don’t have to start at a particular time, what acts as your
‘9’oclock’ buzzer?
I’ll arrange my workload beforehand, if I’m ahead of schedule I won’t feel like working that day, but if I’m behind I’ll try to catch up. My conscience tells me when to work, but I always keep track of my progress, I have a timeline.
What dictates the end of your workday?
I’ll finish a translation and then look it over a second time, that’s good enough.
So whenever you have finished whatever section?
I’ll try to finish before the deadline, around the deadline anyway.
Let’s say your deadline is months away, but you spend the whole day translating, how do you know when to stop for that day?
I’ve measured that I can do about 10-12 pages a day, any more than that and I don’t have the energy to keep going.
So when you get tired?
Yeah, my workday is comprised of three parts, morning, afternoon, and night. Each part I’ll translate 3-4 hours, so I will never do more than 12 hours in a day.
What part of the day do you prefer to work?
Afternoon or evening, sometimes late at night.
How often do you take a break from translating?
That’s tough to say, for example I might look something up and then get side tracked, it’s easy to get distracted, but if I’m working on a tight deadline I’ll break once every 3-4 hours, if time is not of the essence, maybe once an hour.
What does an ideal day of work look like?
Wake up at 9:00 am, work until noon, break until 2, go from 2-6. That’s ideal, and do something else in the evening, other work, non-translation stuff.
What does an ideal month of work look like?
I don’t place lots of importance on the weekend, it doesn’t matter if I have a weekend or not. I could work everyday, but not more than 9 hours, 30 days at 5 hours a day is good.
Sounds like you translate books primarily?
Yes.
What is your average contract length?
2-3 months.
How do you react to seasons of feast?
It’s happened, I’ll look at the files and see which ones I can do in a short amount of time, see how hard it is, if I really like it I’ll take it on.
What about emotionally?
I’m happy, it means they like my work, but sometimes you still have to turn down a contract or two, so that’s too bad.
How do you react to seasons of famine?
It’s only happened once, my first year as a master’s student, but I wasn’t worried because I was still a student, by the second year I was stable. In the first year I started looking for books to do, that’s what I prefer to work on, so I looked, it was hard, I looked for about a
year, but in the second year it was fine. So only that one stretch of time, otherwise no famines.
Let’s talk about downtime. Do you plan for it? Try to minimize it? Or embrace it?
Let’s talk about downtime. Do you plan for it? Try to minimize it? Or embrace it?