Articles and Stories

June 17, 2014

Holiday: possibly one of my favorite words for obvious reasons. Everybody needs it, holidays are the perfect excuse to see the world, rest, spend quality time with friends and family or simply do anything you don’t get to do the rest of the year.

For the most part, humans have no memory problems when it comes to remembering dates related to vacation or time off. They are intimately connected to positive experiences, so why should it be hard to remember those dates? I could agree with that, but I must have the memory of a fish seeing that I have difficulty staying on top of certain dates and remembering to call relatives or schedule my time accordingly.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day in the US and as a friend of mine asked if I had called my father in Spain, I had this thought about how many times I’ve forgotten, during the 11 years I’ve lived in the US,  that Father’s day is on a different day in Spain. Luckily, this year I did well and called my father on the right date for him, on March 19th (Saint Joseph’s Day). In previous years, I simply called my father on the American date for Father’s Day. Thank goodness my dad forgives my bad memory and knows about my cultural holidays and celebration mix-ups; otherwise, I’d feel like the worst daughter on planet Earth.

So what does this have anything to do with a translation and localization business? Actually… a lot! Translation projects often times require global teams working in different time zones and, depending on the size of the project and the steps required to accomplish it, scheduling is critical between the different teams. How often do you find yourself feeling pressured to complete certain tasks at a higher pace because there is a holiday approaching and you know you won’t make much progress during that time? I’d guess that probably a few times out of the year.

Now imagine having to remember the holidays in the country where you live as well as those of other parts of the globe.  The complexity in scheduling the different steps for a translation request is that you have to consider the holidays of your local country and those of the different locations where your different international teams are located. The level of orchestration can be intense and should always be considered setting realistic expectations for project completion.

So consider this, if you think that you’ll get work done after your Spring Break, think again when dealing with Spanish speaking countries. Upon your return, you might find that your Spanish speaking team is off the grid enjoying their “Holy Week”.