Ann Brings Home the Bacon   

May 22, 2002 -- Princeton, NJ -- Ann launched her translating career by creating a profile page at Proz.com, a site for professional translators. Beginning by participating in community activities (like answering translating questions which are then validated by other members of the community), she quickly established herself as a Dutch/English translator with credibility.

Of course, none of this web tomfoolery could have prepared her for that first email offering to pay for a translation:

"Can you translate the word 'welcome' for us into Dutch? You can invoice us if you want..."

That invoice would have been for $0.10.

But it was really the SECOND email that started the whole thing off. A gentleman with the handle "HebrewTranslator" asked Ann to double check the chapter titles in his Dutch translation of a technical manual for some piece of machinery whose name escapes me.

Ann agreed, and an hour and a half later created her first invoice. The Excel spreadsheet proudly demanding $39.00 is just the start of what we hope will be a long and profitable career in translation for our little Belgian girl.

Good job honey. I'm proud of you.