美語情景對話 第973期:Outsourcing 外包

Julia: Hey Todd, just talking about your website. Do you do everything on that site, all the recordings, the editing, everything?

朱莉婭：嘿，託德，我們來談談你的網站吧。網站上的一切都是你自己負責嗎，比如錄音、編輯這些事情？

Todd: I used to. Yeah, I think up till the first, for the first six years I did everything. I did, I would record the audio that's step one. And then I would edit the audio and then I would transcribe it and then after I would transcribe it, I would write the quiz and then I would find photos for the audio and then I would make the multimedia which was usually Flash, then I would organise it and upload it on to a web server. So, yeah, I used to do everything.

託德：以前是。前六年一切都是我自己來處理。第一步是錄製音頻。然後要對音頻進行編輯，接下來把錄音內容整理成文本，然後要寫問題，找和音頻內容搭配的圖片，製作多媒體課件，通常是製作成動畫的形式，然後我會把這些統一上傳到網站服務器上。以前一切都是我自己來做。

Julia: Ah, you're multi-skilled.

朱莉婭：你真是多技能人才。

Todd: Yeah, well I learned from it. I learned how to do a little of everything so it was good. But now I actually outsource a lot.

託德：嗯，我也是一點一點在學習。我學會了如何做這些事，這挺好的。不過現在我把大部分工作外包了出去。

Julia: What does that mean? You have other people do those parts for you?

朱莉婭：那是什麼意思？你讓其他人來做這些事？

Todd: Yeah. Like usually I have now around six to seven people around the world that help me out. So I just find people, like digital assistants online, and they specialize in one thing and then I hire them through different agencies and then they do the work for me. So it's great.

託德：對。我在世界各地找了六七個人來幫我。我在網上找數字助理，這些人在某件事上很擅長，我通過不同的機構僱傭他們，他們爲我工作。這非常不錯。

Julia: And how do you choose who you are going to use for those tasks?

朱莉婭：那你如何選擇做這些工作的人？

Todd: Well usually what you do is you post a job on a site, you place a bid or you just post a job and then different contractors post a bid and you can look at their experience and then if you find somebody that's say an audio editor or a transcriptionist or a photo editor then you hire them and you could either pay them one set fee for like one job or you can pay them by the hour and I usually pay people by the hour. So like right now I have a transcriptionist who works from Spain, she's a retired secretary and she does all the transcriptions for me now so there's fewer mistakes. There's a student in America who's Chinese who finds my images and she crops them now. It's like a part time job. There's a guy in India who edits a lot of my audio now so he's a professional sound engineer.

託德：通常是在網站上發佈職位，你可以在網上招標或是發佈職位，然後不同的承包商會投標，你可以比較他們的經驗，然後確定一名音頻編輯、一名轉錄員或是一名圖片編輯，然後僱傭他們，你可以在工作結束後支付他們固定的費用也可以按小時結算工資，通常我是按小時支付工資。現在我僱了一名轉錄員，她在西班牙工作，她是一名退休的祕書，現在我所有的轉錄工作都交給她來做，她很少犯錯。還有一名在美國的中國留學生，她幫我找圖片然後對圖片進行編輯。她是做兼職。還有一名印度人幫我編輯音頻，他是職業音響師。

Julia: Wow.

朱莉婭：哇哦。

Todd: Yeah, and I send him the audio and he does that.

託德：我把音頻發給他，然後他進行編輯工作。

Julia: So these people are all working like freelancers in their specific field?

朱莉婭：那這些人是專業領域的自由工作者嗎？

Todd: Yeah, usually what they do is they are professional and maybe they moonlight at night, they do a little extra work or in some cases they just have a part time job and they want to make a little extra money working online or it's their career actually and they work for many people so they'll cobble together many contracts with different people. Like for example the transcriptionist, I know that she does transcription work for five or six contractors or companies so she's always busy. And actually everybody who works for me has contracted work with other people, so yeah, so it's great.

託德：對，他們都是專業人員，可能他們是在晚上做一些兼職，或是做一些額外的工作，有些人就是做兼職，他們想在網上工作多掙些錢，這就是他們的工作，他們通常會爲很多人工作，他們從不同的人那裏接工作。比如那名轉錄員，我知道她爲五六個承包人或公司工作，所以她一直很忙。實際上，所有爲我工作的人也爲其他人工作，這很好。

Julia: And you have direct contact with these people or do you just deal with them via the agencies?

朱莉婭：那你是直接和這些人聯繫還是通過一些機構和他們聯繫？

Todd: You can. Well it's an online agency. I use a company called oDesk and I also use another company called Freelancer and they can contact me through there. They usually don't like you to email directly but usually you have to give them your email and then sometimes they email me and we just, you know, contact back and forth. And it's great, we have, we use DropBox so DropBox is a service where we can all share the same folder so we can just share files online and they do whatever work I need done and that's it.

託德：嗯，我通過網上的一家機構和他們聯繫。那家公司叫oDesk，我也使用Freelancer公司的服務，他們可以通過該公司聯繫我。通常他們不喜歡你直接用電子郵件聯繫他們，不過你必須要把你的電郵地址給他們，有時他們也會給我發郵件，就這樣互相聯繫。我覺得這很好，我們都用DropBox，我們可以在DropBox上分享相同的文件夾，在網上分享文件，然後他們就可以完成我需要他們做的工作。

Julia: Wow, it sounds great.

朱莉婭：哇哦，聽起來真不錯。

Todd: Yeah.

託德：對。

Julia: Convenient.

朱莉婭：很方便。

Todd: Yeah, it's great.

託德：沒錯，很好。

Julia: Are you always happy with the quality of the work you get then?

朱莉婭：那你對工作質量滿意嗎？

Todd: Usually most people are really good. I mean sometimes you get contractors that aren't the best but yeah it's good. And you know the thing is it doesn't cost that much money. You know you might have let's say somebody does ten hours of work one week and you know they make ten dollars an hour, I mean in some countries that's a lot of money, that's pretty good money so they get a pretty decent wage and you get really good value for your money and it's a real big help for me. I can do more with the website by outsourcing it.

託德：大多數人做的非常不錯。雖然有時承包人可能不是做的最好的，但做得還不錯。而且這樣不會花費太多錢。比如，有些人一週做10個小時的工作，每小時10美元，這在有些國家是一大筆錢，這樣他們可以拿到體面的薪水，而他們對我的幫助非常大，對我來說這很值得。通過把一些工作外包出去，我可以讓網站的內容更豐富。

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重點講解：
1. specialize in 專門從事；專門經營；專門研究；專攻；
例句：Many students specialize in engineering.
許多學生專攻工程學。
2. right now 現在；此時此刻；
例句：Right now, jeans are at a discount.
現在牛仔褲打折銷售。
3. cobble together 拼湊；迅速籌集；
例句：Analysts expect Japan to cobble together a workable energy grid in the next few weeks.
分析者預計日本將在接下來的幾周內迅速建成一個可用的能源網絡。
4. back and forth 來回；往返；
例句：The Spring Festival was approaching. A lot of people were travelling back and forth.
春節到了，來往的旅客很多。