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Under the best of conditions, we get copies of conference papers only 20% of the time, one or two days in advance. When they come in earlier than that, as some scientific congresses require, rest assured that SOMETHING will have changed by the time of delivery. The best we can hope for in that case is for the organizers to send the abstracts selected for presentation. The keynote speech, simple as it seems, is treated like the bride's wedding gown -- nay, a military secret -- and usually appears a bare 24 hours beforehand, if at all. As a result, most of the time, this leaves us with nothing but the Conference Schedule to start with. Take a deep breath and DON'T PANIC.
A translator's profile is not a static configuration, but one that evolves over time and changing circumstances. This is a practical approach to self-assessment and language service provider assessment, and was initially presented at the ProZ.com Krakow Conference.
One of our biggest stumbling-blocks as freelancers is putting a price on our time. Based on the market and the competition, we are all probably capable of comparatively pricing our products more or less "scientifically", but do we know what this implies with regards to the greatest resource we share in common -- time? I do not expect this article to be an iron standard -- technology is much too progressive for any such imposition -- but in writing it, I do hope to demonstrate how we all sell irretrievable bits and pieces of our lives that are not beyond relatively objective costing, even in translation and interpretation.