I recently had the embarrassing experience of sending the wrong file to the wrong client. Fortunately it was a magazine article and not very confidential, but I am wondering what people are doing to prevent this type of thing from occurring.
It wouldn't take more than one or two errors of a seriously confidential nature to wreck your reputation.
FWIW, every translation that I do gets a file name containing a reference to the client; thus for example a translation for Japanese Chemical Facilitators would have a file name containing JCF, etc. Then when I am attaching the file to email it to the client any mismatch should warn me in time.
Laurie Berman (Sekiguchi) wrote: > There are online file exchange services, of course, which also allows > one to send very large files.
...to the wrong person. ;)
I think just as resumes or completed translation projects have been mistakenly sent to the list, the wrong files may occasionally be sent to the wrong clients. Tim's idea for client-specific file names is a good one. I don't do that (preferring to keep the same file name as the original, plus an _en footer to denote the translated version), but you can bet I double- and triple-check my mail just before I hit that Send button. The original file names themselves point rather specifically to a particular client anyway.
Used to have a client who was so concerned with this for some texts that they would not email or even fax me the source text. The brought it over or I went and got it. And when it was done, they came and picked it up (or I delivered it) rather than have me fax or email it.
Depending upon how serious a concern this is, perhaps location matters after all?
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 7:27 AM, Richard Thieme <rdthi...@gol.com> wrote:
> I recently had the embarrassing experience of sending the wrong file to the > wrong client. Fortunately it was a magazine article and not very > confidential, but I am wondering what people are doing to prevent this type > of thing from occurring.
I think there are email applications that you can program to ask you if the attachment is really the one you wanted to attach, whether the recipient is really the right recipient, if you might not want to wait a couple of hours before sending a particular message (based on the occurrence of swear words, etc. in the text), and so on.
Might the "Bat" be able to do these things? There are some email experts on the list that might be more helpful in this regard. (I know zilch about email programs).
I have a separate folder for each client, and a separate folder for each job (named so that it appears last in the client's folder). Then I always attach the file to a reply to the original message instead of creating a new message.
Several times I've still managed to send the wrong file, or no file. But at least it always goes to the right client.
Fred Uleman writes: > they would not email or even fax me the source text.
I can understand that. It's surprising how much confidential information comes to our fax machine. Somewhere out there we must be registered in the 短縮ダイヤル buttons next to a number of end clients.
> I can understand that. It's surprising how much confidential > information comes to our fax machine. Somewhere out there > we must be registered in the 短縮ダイヤル buttons next to a > number of end clients.
Yeah, no kidding. I keep getting people's lab reports, intended for some doctor with a number similar to mine. Not cool!
-On [20080726 16:29], Richard Thieme (rdthi...@gol.com) wrote:
>I recently had the embarrassing experience of sending the wrong file to the >wrong client. Fortunately it was a magazine article and not very >confidential, but I am wondering what people are doing to prevent this type >of thing from occurring.
PGP/GPG and encrypt said email/file with the public key of the appropriate client. If you send it to the wrong person, they cannot open it. Bit of an overhead, but if it is truly confidential then this is peanuts in order to safeguard your client's data and your reputation.
-- Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(-at-)in-nomine.org> / asmodai イェルーン ラウフロック ヴァン デル ウェルヴェン http://www.in-nomine.org/ | http://www.rangaku.org/ | GPG: 2EAC625B A liar needs a good memory...
