I recently needed to have some documents translated from German to English and it had to be done by an official translator so I couldn't do it myself with the help of google and my little bit of German knowledge. After google didn't give me many translators to use I emailed the British embassy here in Switzerland. They were very helpful and sent me a long list of translators in the UK and here in Switzerland. I emailed about 13 of them for quotes! I didn't mean to get that many quotes but was just going down the list and sending each the same email. When I stopped to count I figured 13 quotes would be more than enough!
The Swiss translators all came back with about the same price. Then one in the UK emailed me with a quote at least half of what the Swiss wanted to charge. I mailed back to check that he is sure this is the price. Is this the total price? For all the documents? Not the price per document? You sure? Okay, then I'll definitely use your company to do my translations thank you very much!
I mailed the others again to say thank you for their quotes, but no thank you. I thought I'd just let them know why I'm not choosing them- that I found someone in the UK who can do it for so much cheaper. A couple of them replied:
"Thank you for your comment. Of course, we are a Hochpreisinsel (English: expensive -high price- island). That's why everybody loves to come here, as salaries are higher. Or do you hear anyone - inclusive political parties - to beg for lower salaries?"
"Thanks for your kind feedback! Obviously, prices are much lower in UK than
any prices for any thing in Switzerland....I do wish it was not so! So, your
decision is the right one, of course."
I thought it was quite nice of them to reply and also admit to how expensive everything here is. We have not complained about the price of anything here, because as the one person above says, the salaries are so good. We have nothing to complain about.
But then we haven't lived in any other European countries to compare. After spending a bit more time in Germany over Christmas we did notice the difference in price when eating out... And I guess once you know how much less you can pay somewhere else it does make it more difficult to have to spend so much more here.
We've tried not to complain too, for the same reason. Wages are high here, and coming from a place where millions of people aren't able to make a living wage working a full-time job, I'm all for high wages.
ReplyDeleteBut(!) there's always seems to be that one thing that tips the balance. You find something that just costs *too* much. And it annoys. For me it was wine imported from such distant lands like France and Italy, and also paperback books (from anywhere).
Oh yes the books!! I find it so hard to buy books here. To pay so much and I only read it once! I've bought quite a lot from one of the Brocki stores in Zurich.
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