Company refuses to give its English name

KathyT wrote:

Aaah, Casey, I sympathize.

But objectively, I could see why she might think it was a little suss.
You (understandably) didn't want to reveal which employee you were doing the translation for ( - can you not ask that person directly, btw?) and she might have panicked to hear that a translation "about the company" (for all she knows, even if in reality it's just a mention) was taking place without her/their knowledge.

I assume you already checked the bottom of their webpage (if they have one) to see if there were any hints there(?)
Is there a reliable PM or someone else that you could ask?
Failing that, how about just romanizing the name and adding KK or whatever on the end.

Kathy in beautiful, sunny spring Sydney

Droz wrote:

The company must not have an English name

[Edited at 2007-09-28 03:21]

[Edited at 2007-09-28 03:24]

casey wrote:

I called a company just now and asked them to tell me their official company name in English. The operator told me she wasn't at liberty to divulge the information!!! What on earth? She asked me who I was and I told her I was a translator. I told her I was translating a document for one of the company's employees and she asked who. I told her that was personal information and I couldn't say, but could she please just tell me what the name of the company is? She simply refused. Is that bizarre or what?

Just in case you're wondering, no, I did not call the wrong number. They answered the phone with the Japanese company name.

[Edited at 2007-09-28 02:37]

[Edited at 2007-09-28 02:52]

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

I would suggest to use the romanized name of the company and put KK after it, as Kathy suggested. You did not say what the translation was, but if it is a resume, this may be enough, especially if the job description says something about what kind of company that is. This is what is important for the person you are doing the resume for.

As for your phonecall, I have a slightly different view than some of the others responded here.
First of all, I don't think it was a very good idea for you to call the company, because you are probably in breach of your confidentiality agreement with the agency, which normally prohibits the translator to directly contact the client. Now, in this case, as it was only about the company name, this may be hard to prove, but you made it worse by telling them that you are working on a translation for one of their employees. It sounds like it is a small company (as they don't even have a website) so they may easily find out whom you are doing the work for, and the person can get into all sorts of (justified or unjustified) trouble.

I also assume, when you called on the phone, even if your Japanese is perfectly correct in terms of grammar, you probably still sounded like a "gaijin", which frankly, freaks out many people, especially receptionists who are not used to dealing with non-Japanese callers. She simply panicked, because you asked something that she has never heard before, was not in her employee training, and because she was probably told to be careful about divulging information about the company. They may also want to avoid getting all sorts of junkmail, or other solicitation from non-Japanese companies (this would be another reason why somebody would want to know the company's name in English, so they could print labels and address envelopes without Japanese printing/writing capabilities).

I remember when I started working for a company in Japan, and the company was still small, but growing fast, sometimes we would get calls from people whose purpose was to find out certain things like how many engineers we have for tech support and such. Many of them were probably competitors, or their hired "researchers", and sometimes posed as somebody in need, so after we solved their technical problems (which may have been fictitious to begin with) they started asking these questions, or just posed them while we were working on their problems, casually, as part of the conversation. Some of these were obvious right away, but some of the "techniques" were more subtle. Later, when I was doing my MBA, I learned about these in great detail in my Business Intelligence class.

So, anyway, your seemingly innocent question probably triggered an overreaction on the part of the receptionist.

mulberryfield wrote:



Bizarre, bizarre. I don't guess what kind of situation you are in just by reading your post. If they don't have an English name, they should have instantly told you the fact. There must not be a reason for the operator to make it a secret. At the same time, I really don't guess why you should make the assigner's name a secret over the conversation. If you asked her to page him/her, it was just a simple matter, wasn't it? A few factors I think of are: their size (how big is the agency personnel?), organization (who is the real person/people in charge?), operator (what's her responsibility anyway? she's a new comer or a long-term 'responsible' project manager?) and so forth.

As far as I'm concerned in a similar situation, I once needed to negotiate a delayed-payment term with a domestic agency many years ago already, when one of their employees answered my phone, but she did not apparently belong to the core personnel in charge of the matter, and also seemingly she was not in the proper position to answer my questions correctly. She only vaguely (and yes, with reluctant voice tone) explained the project manager was not available and my payment would be 'possibly' settled in a short time. After hanging up, a sense of doubt naturally came over me, while later I realized it was needless fear when the payment arrived well within the time from their end. But after that, I have never accepted a new job from them to date.

My advice to you:
1. You may better mention the name of the first contact person with the operator to call for him/her.
2. Don't upset, but you may ask the operator about her position in the agency, and if you find she's not the right person to address your problem, you ask her whether or not there is any other one available to answer your questions.
3. Why not using email directly contacting the project manager instead of calling if he/she is not quickly available on the phone?

Well, good luck, casey.

Minoru

[Edited at 2007-09-28 14:35]

mulberryfield wrote:

Apprently Katalin-san may have referred me for those "some of the others responded here".

About her mentioned "gaijin"-associated reaction, I really doubt if any one at the company does not deal with callers, Japanese or non-Japanese, professionally enough, especially when (and if ) we are aware they are a translation agency.

casey wrote:

All is well. The agency is understanding. There's never a problem if I tell them that I couldn't find an official translation. They'll get it from their client, I'm sure. I was just shocked that a company would be so secretive about their name, which I would assume would be a matter of public record. I thought it would be a simple thing.
"Hi, can you tell me what the name of your company is in English?"
"Yes, it's blah, blah, blah."
"Thank you."
If I called a company in the US and asked them how to spell the company name I don't think they'd refuse to tell me.

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:



I did not refer to you, or anybody in particular, I was simply offering a different point of view that was not mentioned before.

It seems that you are misunderstanding the whole situation.
Casey was NOT calling the translation agency.
He called the company, whose Japanese name is part of the document he is translating.
The document came from a person that works for the company, not directly, but through an agency.

It went like this:
Tanaka-san works for "Himitsu-gijutsu kabushikigaisha". He has a document he wants to get translated into English, and he wants this to be done privately, not through the company (as it probably does not relate to his work). Therefore, Tanaka-san asked "Nandemo honyaku kabushikigaisha" to do the translation for him.
"Nandemo honyaku kabushikigaisha" assigned the task to Casey.
Casey found "Himitsu-gijutsu kabushikigaisha" in the text and wanted to find out the official English translation, so he called "Himitsu-gijutsu kabushikigaisha". What happened after, we know.