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Nationality discrimination by British agency Thread poster: Carlos Sabena
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I have recently been contacted by a UK translation agency. They asked me to send my CV and my target language and locale in the subject Line.
I did so. I specified that my target language is Spanish, locale: Argentina.
To my surprise they did not even bother to read my mail and they simply deleted it.
Then, why ask for it in the first place? I wonder if it was because I am Argentinean? Why don't they just simply make it explicit they don't want translators ... See more I have recently been contacted by a UK translation agency. They asked me to send my CV and my target language and locale in the subject Line.
I did so. I specified that my target language is Spanish, locale: Argentina.
To my surprise they did not even bother to read my mail and they simply deleted it.
Then, why ask for it in the first place? I wonder if it was because I am Argentinean? Why don't they just simply make it explicit they don't want translators from specific nationalities?
Poor ethics and bad manners from those who should (supposedly) set the standards.
[Edited at 2012-01-13 16:35 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Sam Pinson 
United States
Local time: 20:38
Member (2011)
Russian to English
| How do you know? | Jan 12, 2012 |
I'm curious how you know they did not read your mail and simply deleted it.
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| It may be bad manners | Jan 12, 2012 |
however I would be very careful about saying they are discriminating against you because you are from Argentina. There could be any number of reasons for what happened but I would be very surprised if your nationality came into it why should it matter that you are Argentinean?
Have you emailed them to ask?
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Carlos Sabena
Argentina
Local time: 23:38
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
I got the following message from my mailing system:
Your message
To: Project Manager
Subject: Spanish (Argentina) – GeoProQoL
Sent: 12 January 2012 17:53:49 (UTC) Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
was deleted without being read on 12 January 2012 18:02:14 (UTC) Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 04:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| No response is normal | Jan 12, 2012 |
Carlos Sabena wrote:
I have recently been contacted by G.L. (a UK translation agency). They asked me to send my CV and my target language and locale in the subject Line. ... To my surprise they did not even bother to read my mail and they simply deleted it.
When an agency asks for a résumé or other details, they may be simply building their database of translators, and I often find that such agencies do not reply (although they may send me work later).
[Edited at 2012-01-12 21:26 GMT]
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Carlos Sabena
Argentina
Local time: 23:38
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER |
| still doesn't mean anything | Jan 12, 2012 |
Carlos Sabena wrote:
I got the following message from my mailing system:
Your message
To: Project Manager
Subject: Spanish (Argentina) – GeoProQoL
Sent: 12 January 2012 17:53:49 (UTC) Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
was deleted without being read on 12 January 2012 18:02:14 (UTC) Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.
Let's say they are using Outlook and they have the reading pane set to 'mark item as read when the selection changes'.
They read the email, save the attached CV in the relevant file and click delete as they no longer need the email. Their system then sends a deleted without being read message as when the item was deleted it was still marked as not read.
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Carlos Sabena
Argentina
Local time: 23:38
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Let's assume that. Then, it means they still know the sender will receive that information: Not read and deleted, even if they store that info for the future.
Why do that?
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 04:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Did you ask them if they deleted it? | Jan 12, 2012 |
Carlos Sabena wrote:
I got the following message from my mailing system:
Your message ... was deleted without being read on 12 January 2012 18:02:14 (UTC)
I googled for this, and found some interesting things. Like all read receipts, things can go wrong. Some versions of Outlook actually have a bug that causes these erroneous deletion receipts to be sent.
If I understand correctly, the message is considered deleted without being read if it is marked as "unread" and then deleted. But it is possible to mark a read message as "unread" even if you've read it (e.g. in my mail program, if I want to see how many messages there are in a folder, I mark them all as unread, so that the count shows up).
Also, if the recipient had copied the message and then deleted the original, it would also be indicated as having been deleted, even though a copy was made. For example, there might be a filtering rule that does not move incoming messages into subfolders but copies it.
Also, if the "mark as read after X seconds" is set to a long period, and the recipient reads his mails only in the preview pane (and then deletes it, or copies and deletes it) the message might also be marked as having been deleted without having been read.
Finally, if a recipient mail server delivers a mail to more than one mailbox (e.g both the PM and his boss gets a copy of the message), and one of them deletes it without reading it, then the receipt will indicate that the message was deleted without having been read.
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Carlos Sabena
Argentina
Local time: 23:38
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the info Samuel.
It was sent via Windows Live Mail. Updated version. To only one recipient.
What are the odds?
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the odds of it being a genuine error by the user or a glitch in the system are far higher than it being deleted because you are Argentinean. Obviously there is still a chance that the person may be harbouring a grudge against all Argentineans for something that happened nearly 30 years ago but I would say it is unlikely.
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Carlos Sabena
Argentina
Local time: 23:38
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
The odds are not higher.
I never mentioned anything that happened 30 years ago.
Still, I hope you are right.
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| Why all the noise? | Jan 12, 2012 |
Accusation of discrimination and unjust deletion, complaining about people you have never worked with and therefore you don't know...
An agency asked for your CV. They might have read it by many methods (with a preview even before downloading it from the server) and could then have deleted your email if you did not match the profile they were looking for. End of the story! Happens all the time considering the very varied markets agencies target.
Go on with your life!... See more Accusation of discrimination and unjust deletion, complaining about people you have never worked with and therefore you don't know...
An agency asked for your CV. They might have read it by many methods (with a preview even before downloading it from the server) and could then have deleted your email if you did not match the profile they were looking for. End of the story! Happens all the time considering the very varied markets agencies target.
Go on with your life! ▲ Collapse
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Carlos Sabena wrote:
The odds are not higher.
I never mentioned anything that happened 30 years ago.
Still, I hope you are right.
Carlos,
Forgive if that's not what you were thinking but you did suggest that the reason it was deleted was because of your nationality. So that was the obvious conclusion. Of course there is another possible reason they could have bore a grudge, but even that was over 25 years ago.
I still say the odds of it being a mistake are far higher than it being discrimination against you.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 04:38
Spanish to English
+ ...
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: Accusation of discrimination and unjust deletion, complaining about people you have never worked with and therefore you don't know... An agency asked for your CV. They might have read it by many methods (with a preview even before downloading it from the server) and could then have deleted your email if you did not match the profile they were looking for. End of the story! Happens all the time considering the very varied markets agencies target. Go on with your life!
While it is possible that some in the UK may still harbour resentment (stoked by certain sections of the tabloid press) over the "Malvinas issue" - which I assume is the same suspicion harboured by our colleague - I don't think it is the only possible reason, so would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.
IMHO it is more likely to be just another case of a widespread and irritating practice - which I often complain about myself - of agencies spreading their nets wide to "recruit" possible translators for their "database", who may subsequently never contact you, or will even simply delete all the emails that reach them once they have the chosen the handful of drones they currently need from the larger corpus of unwary punters who trustingly take the bait.
[Edited at 2012-01-13 07:03 GMT]
It is also possible that after making the initial offer, they found that Castilian Spanish rather than L. AM variants were what was required (most English speakers are unaware of the many differences between the several countries where Spanish is spoken).
[Edited at 2012-01-13 08:31 GMT]
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