Having difficulty understanding a speaker in transcription job. Don't know what to do

[chris_hecker]

I have had an Upwork account open since 2015 but have only been active on Upwork with actual projects for a week or two.

My first three projects, all transcription jobs, went wonderful, with glowing reviews from the clients.

I am now on my fourth project transcribing a short 40-minute research interview and having a terrible time understanding the interviewee (African accent, speaks fast and very softly on top of technical terms I'm not familiar with). I've been working on it probably for a good three hours today and have only transcribed 17 minutes out of the 40 minutes (normally I transcribe at a rate of 4-5 hours for one hour of audio).

I have a tremendous amount of inaudibles and am getting so discouraged and frustrated I'm almost in tears.

How should I procceed with this? Should I contact the client and let her know the dificulty I'm having?

At the rate I'm going it's going to take me another six hours to get a short 40-minute interview transcribed with a poor quality inaccurate transcript full of inaudibles to show for nine hours of work.

Any advice would really be appreciated at this point in time.

Thank you so much.

[pudingstudio]

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Chris H wrote:

I have had an Upwork account open since 2015 but have only been active on Upwork with actual projects for a week or two.

My first three projects, all transcription jobs, went wonderful, with glowing reviews from the clients.

I am now on my fourth project transcribing a short 40-minute research interview and having a terrible time understanding the interviewee (African accent, speaks fast and very softly on top of technical terms I'm not familiar with). I've been working on it probably for a good three hours today and have only transcribed 17 minutes out of the 40 minutes (normally I transcribe at a rate of 4-5 hours for one hour of audio).

I have a tremendous amount of inaudibles and am getting so discouraged and frustrated I'm almost in tears.

How should I procceed with this? Should I contact the client and let her know the dificulty I'm having?

At the rate I'm going it's going to take me another six hours to get a short 40-minute interview transcribed with a poor quality inaccurate transcript full of inaudibles to show for nine hours of work.

Any advice would really be appreciated at this point in time.

Thank you so much.

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Not all jobs are easy.

If you are supposed to transcribe, you client most probably expects you to.

Yes, you can convey your thought to your client. You are working with them, you should be comfortable chatting/talking with them.

Not sure if they would care about you problem, though ones with awesome people skills are able to "make" clients to revise (increase) payment/accept more hours for whatever reasons.

[abinadab-agbo]

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Chris H wrote:

How should I procceed with this? Should I contact the client and let her know the dificulty I'm having?

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Freelancers are encouraged to have open communication with their client.

But you should take care to not come across as incompetent or unqualified for the task.

You have accepted the task and you must finish it if you don't want your JSS to tank.

Consider grabbing a short break and some coffee at midnight.

Maybe that can open up your sixth hearing sense and help you understand african accents better.

Or stress less? Cos you previously posted that you have a lot of committments and almost abandonned this very project you're doing now, if not for a few nudges from community members. Trust me, stress doesn't help the sense of hearing one bit.

[chris_hecker]

Thanks! I'll get up early tomorrow and try another "go" at it.

Yes, stress indeed does not help with the "hearing," that's for sure.

[prestonhunter]

This is a learning experience for you.

Now you know that not all transcription jobs are created equal.

In the future, you will be more careful about the jobs you accept.

You will obtain the audio file and listen to it BEFORE you accept or price  the contract. If you preview the file and hear all these types of problems, you will decline the job. Or you will price it such that it is worth your time.

Or you will set it up as an hourly contract. That is fair. If you don't have a chance to listen to the file beforehand then you must make it an hourly contract. If it is easy to transcribe, the client pays less. If it is difficult, the client pays more. Very fair.

[colettelewis]

I am wondering why this thread has been resurrected. Am I missing something? 

[jr-translation]

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Nichola L wrote:

I am wondering why this thread has been resurrected. Am I missing something? 

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Probably a new Upwork feature. Threads, that have not been marked as answered, are moved to the top so we offer more solutions for the OP to choose from until he is finally satisfied. This will go into your FSS calculation.

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