The Empire Writes Back: A Response to Lionbridge’s “Alan Walsh”

Today, my blog received a comment to the post in which I replied to Didier Hélin’s ukase to freelance translators about reducing their rates. It is written by someone who claims to be called “Alan Walsh.” He submitted a reasoned rebuttal of the shellacking Lionbridge has received over the blogosphere during the past week. Crucially, it is the only full-throated defense of Lionbridge, which has been universally decried as a subpar corporate citizen. I released “Alan Walsh’s” contribution immediately in the spirit of fairness, even though the email is clearly a fake address created for the sole purpose of enlightening me (rk45214@yahoo.com). (Although it could be a real name; perhaps “rk45214″ is how they spell “Walsh” in ye olde country, which is presumably Mars.) However, when I looked up the sender’s IP address out of curiosity: Lo and behold! I copy the results for your viewing pleasure:
(Look it up yourselves if you so desire: http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/iplocation.asp or at http://whois.domaintools.com/)

IP Address Location
IP Address 65.219.216.10
City Framingham
State or Region Massachusetts
Country United States
ISP Lionbridge Technologies.

Really, Lionbridge? Are you seriously that stupid? Lionbridge Technologies didn’t even take the trouble to disguise its IP address. (Dude, are you aware that the Whole Foods guy lost his job because of shenanigans like this and that it prompted an SEC investigation?)
I now proceed to copy the entire message:

Hello,

Peekaboo!

I thought that the initial post was entertaining, but I don’t understand the need to stigmatize a translation company that keeps several thousand translators busy full time. Although the tone of the request could have been improved, there is nothing wrong with asking providers to make an effort during difficult times:
=> the announcement preceded the company’s Q3 results, which were quite poor. Why refer to the Q2 results, irrelevant at this time?
=> although the company receives revenue in USD and EUR, it outsources mostly in EUR, so the weakening dollar will have a huge impact on its bottom line during Q4
=> large software companies are asking for 10% discounts to all its providers. There is nothing wrong with asking translators that receive work on a regular basis if not full time to temporarily make an effort (this is only a 2 month initiative!). Companies across many other industries are doing the same thing. Lionbridge invests huge amounts to secure business that keeps thousands of translators working.

Granted, the tone of the email could have been improved, but translators can simply choose not to accept the discount…
(Signed: Alan Walsh)

And herewith my reply:
Dear faceless corporate stooge:
May I call you “Alan Walsh”? I’m on a first-name-last-name basis with your colleague Didier Hélin and I think that is how you address each other over at Lionbridge. First of all, thank you for reading my doofy little blog, “Alan Walsh.” I know that it has been very popular in your company, judging from the hundreds of hits from your servers worldwide and the depressing reports about what it is like to work for you.
Permit me also to commend you on your courage, “Alan Walsh.” Anonymity in a person who has nothing to lose by defending his own company certainly highlights the pride you take in working at Lionbridge.
To begin, you ask why there is “the need to stigmatize a translation company that keeps several thousand translators busy full time”?
The stigmatization is partly due to your style, the style in which you both manage your collaborators and the style in which you communicate with them. This style is indicative of a certain way of viewing the entire profession of translation and the industry at large. The communications from your company, of which your anonymous literary exertions are just another shining example, are all of a piece, “Alan Walsh.” They are both impersonal and gauche (you have conceded that somewhat grudgingly). Taken to an extreme, they evince an almost Keystonian degree of incompetence for a company to which major corporations outsource their communications in other languages. When viewed with a more critical eye, however, a far more disturbing issue than simple imbecility rears its ugly head: dishonesty and cynicism.
Let me recap the salient facts of the Didier Hélin Sandwich. It is an astoundingly long series of dick moves which you have just compounded:
1.- A distressing message was sent from a dummy email entitled “IMPORTANT – DO NOT RESPOND.” (Dick move number One.)
2.- It was sent on a Friday afternoon in the Western hemisphere to ensure the longest amount of lag time between its sending and Monday morning, when your Asian collaborators would wake up to find that they had been slimed. (Dick move number Two.)
3.- It was sent during the ATA conference, when a lot of spokespeople would be distracted. (Dick move number Three.)
4.- It clumsily adduced two or three random economic data points that Didier Hélin or his assistant lazily fished out of The Economist to justify a completely arbitrary redefinition of the terms of the labor relationship between you and your contributors. The entire message denotes sloppiness (borne of, again, contempt) in a message that probably made a lot of people feel really bad. (Dick move number Four.)
5.-. A demand of a discount was phrased as a fait accompli. So, yes, it was an offer, as you claim, “Alan Walsh.” An offer like Michael Corleone used to make right before you got the bullet in the eye during a Swedish massage. (Dick move number Five.)
6.- You sent that obscenity to everybody, “Alan Walsh.” Your entire database, which is a massive dark hole encompassing happy freelancers, zombies, mythical creatures, half-real half-imaginary “Alan Walshes” and unsympathetic former providers. You did not even invest the modicum of care necessary to limit the unpleasantness to only the poor souls who actually have to put [up] with you. Not only do you make your own people feel miserable, you were generous enough to share the misery with many other thousands of colleagues, thus instantly becoming the poster child for an industry-wide problem. (Dick move number Six.)
7.- You sent it in 2010. (Dick move number Seven.) While your senior management is spewing hot air about the Web 2.0 and collaboration infrastructure, you’re still handling your corporate communications with the ineffable tact of a nineteenth-century robber baron. You basically got up on a soapbox on Friday while the steelworkers were clocking out and shouted through an old timey blowhorn: “From now on we pay you 5% less! Suck it! See you all on Monday. That is all.” Except now a few dozen of the hapless victims in your database have blogs and several thousand have Facebook accounts. So, this is basically the brave new world of social networking telling you to suck it, “Alan Walsh.”
Now, to reply to your specific objections:
1.- You complain that “this is only a 2 month initiative!”. But the quotes from your CEO clearly state that this is only the beginning. Moreover, how can anyone trust you to make it only a temporary move? The Valentine from Didier Hélin certainly didn’t promise it was temporary. You have no credibility left, “Alan Walsh.”
2.- You allege “that translators can simply choose not to accept the discount.” Call me crazy, but the Didier Hélin candygram was less accommodating. Textually: “we require all our partners to provide a 5% discount on all Lionbridge projects.” To me, that doesn’t sound like an invitation to a square dance. Was Czechoslovakia free to refuse Hitler’s Sudetenland ultimatum? And yes, the freelancers can choose to not accept and cease working from Friday to Monday. But many will inevitably be too scared or at the very least unprepared to object. So it falls upon people who are not dependent upon Lionbridge for its tardy payments to express their feelings openly.
3.- You roll out the tired nostrum about the declining dollar: “Although the company receives revenue in USD and EUR, it outsources mostly in EUR, so the weakening dollar will have a huge impact on its bottom line during Q4.” Once and for all, I would like to ask a few questions: Haven’t you idiots heard of something called currency hedging, “Alan Walsh”? You’re basically saying, “we are completely and utterly unprepared for anything but a rising dollar.” Heard of a thing called strategic planning? OK, OK. You’re not the sharpest crayon in the box (believe me, we’ve established that beyond the shadow of a doubt), but, come on, why should the translators pay for your incompetence?
This leads me to another, nay, THE question: if the dollar rallies versus the euro next year when Greece or Ireland explode like H-Bombs, will you share the proceeds with the translators? “Uh, no way in hell! Papa needs his forex gains!” So, basically, your translators have to share the losses due to your mismanagement but not the windfall profits from random world events.
4.- Which brings me to your final whine: Large software companies are asking for 10% discounts to all its providers. That is the final and ultimate dishonesty. Number one, you are not a software company. You are a monstrously bloated translation agency with a sales department and a handful of software engineers. Rolling out a second-rate CAT tool from the cloud does not make you one. Just as a kid who puts firecrackers on a dog’s tail is not an engineer. I know you want to fool investors into believing that, but you’re not. And a translator is not a vendor. He or she is a freelance provider of services. What you really mean is that your gynormous clients are squeezing you to give them a discount. And you’ve already cut expenses down to the bone, so the only place to keep cutting is the massive expenditure on freelancers. The response from your freelancers should be: And how is that my problem, “Alan Walsh”? Has Didier Hélin taken any pay cuts since this economic thunderstorm began? For that matter, have you, “Alan Walsh”? Of course not.
Reports indicate that you have relentlessly driven down rates since the global meltdown began. The latest slap in the face is only one more chapter in this saga. There is no end in sight to the “new normal.” You think that this is a bottomless well. You want to keep pushing down on that baby. Well, if you’re surprised at the backlash, might I suggest that this is reality telling you that you can’t push down on that lever any further, “Alan Walsh”? That the pebble thrown in the well finally hit rock bottom? In other words, the dreaded time has come when you may actually have to employ people who are not computer literate. Or, alternatively, you may actually have to become more efficient. Or do crazy stuff like adopting better project management practices. Or stop going for the lowest bidder all the time. Or start nurturing your freelance staff and agency partners rather than viewing them as potential cash cows. You know, insane, wacko, out-of-the-box stuff like that.
Which finally brings me to you, “Alan Walsh,” or, to call you by your real name, Dick Move Number Eight. Your anonymous message, your fake email, your lame pseudonym, your brain-dead arguments. Leaving aside the dishonesty of a large corporation using free email accounts to leave positive feedback on itself, there is a more important issue at stake. The common denominator to Didier Hélin’s October surprise, your CEO’s disingenuous replies to analysts and your clumsy comment on my blog is the same: ice cold contempt. You have such a low opinion of other human beings that you didn’t even bother to, at the very least, send this asinine attempt at damage control from your home PC. Because you think someone else wouldn’t know enough to monitor the visitors to his own website. Because you think I don’t know that a “trademark protection” company has been downloading anything and everything from my website and blog. Or that your law firm is sniffing around. (And if you think I’m the least bit intimidated, dude, you are sooooo wrong.) The problem is you think you’re smarter than the rest of humanity. But, believe me, “Alan Walsh,” you’re patently not.
When you’re finally ready to act like a man and use your own name to defend your company, you will be completely welcome to post your ramblings free of censorship.
So, anyway, thank you for your comment. Feel free to drop by at any time (not that I can actually stop you). Wardrobe suggestion: Next time, come as Batgirl or Catwoman. Since you’re into disguises…

Yours truly,
Miguel Llorens

Miguel Llorens is a freelance financial translator based in Madrid who works from Spanish into English. He is specialized in equity research, economics, accounting, and investment strategy. He has worked as a translator for Goldman Sachs, the US Government's Open Source Center and H.B.O. International, as well as many small-and-medium-sized brokerages and asset management companies operating in Spain. To contact him, visit his website and write to the address listed there. Feel free to join his LinkedIn network or to follow him on Twitter.