January will soon be here and it’ll be time to make yet another New Year’s Resolution to declutter. But sometimes it pays to be selective about what you throw out.
I submitted a bid recently for a contract to translate “documents relating to the policies and administration of the European Union”. To take part, you had to demonstrate your experience through “Letters of reference from customers, invoices, book covers, contracts clearly indicating the subject, language combination and number of pages or specimens of translations carried out by the tenderer”.
I’ve been translating for various Italian Government organisations on EU affairs since the 1980s (I know, that really dates me!). But how to prove it? Thankfully, my annual decluttering exercises are anything but successful and amongst my old papers I found an old invoice book. It contained an invoice from February 1996 (not quite the 1980s, but better than nothing) addressed to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for “The translation from Italian to English of an article on Information, Communication and Culture during the Italian EU Presidency”. (I can’t believe I was still writing invoices by hand at that time).
I’ve no idea how I’ll get on with the tender but at least I had some evidence of long-standing experience to back up my bid. Phew!
By Marian Dougan
2 Responses
Hello Marian. I couldn’t help but giggle a bit as I went through the same process, for the same thing (different language combination), at the same time, and with exactly the same problem, although I wasn’t bidding directly but through 2 of my favourite agencies. Still, actually proving over 10 years of experience in that particular field was no mean feat. What I learnt from it, as well as the need for caution when decluttering, was the even greater need for detailed invoices and for filing said invoices together with the corresponding purchase order. All too often, I have been going the easy route and just putting the customer reference number on an invoice with no description of the actual job. Did I indeed live to regret it! Hundreds of pages of speeches, reports etc. and no way to prove it. Thankfully, I have some lovely clients who were prepared to write letters to confirm it. I wouldn’t want to come knocking on their door time and time again so one of my new year’s resolutions is all to do with carefully thought out cluttering rather than decluttering!
Good luck with your bid and a very happy Christmas to you and yours
Anne
Hello Anne. This was one time Italian bureaucracy and the need for detailed invoices came in handy!
Good luck to you too with your bid, and a Happy Christmas and Wonderful New Year to you and all the family.
Marian