Job cancellations memo v0.1 170921

Date: STAFF HANDBOOK MEMO Re: 04/10/2011 ‘On the job’ cancellation information Can I please take this opportunity to advise you that if you are told by a Deaf person that they will not be attending the next meeting/class/session, you must tell them that you can not accept the cancellation and that they need to advise the person/company who made the booking. To put this into some context: if a Deaf person tells you that they won’t be attending next weeks/months meeting, this throws up two main issues, i.e:  they may have no intention of telling the boss that they are ‘skiving off’, but because they like you, they want to save you the bother of turning up;  it may be that they can’t be bothered to tell the booker/boss and it’s easier for you to pass the message on. ISSUES FOR THE INTERPRETER Whichever of the two themes above, either way you are left in an invidious position, i.e. do you tell the office, or not? If, after having considered whether you would be ethically breaching your code of confidentiality, you decide NOT to tell the office, you are then in the invidious position of having to decide whether to bother turning up, or not.  If you don’t turn up, but unexpectedly Sam Smith does, what will happen then? What if the office finds out ... will you be in trouble??  If you decide to turn up, just in case, can you claim your travel expenses? Logically you should be able to claim because is still a ‘live’ job, but what if Sam Smith objects “because s/he told you that s/he wasn’t going!” If you decide that you WILL tell the office, that puts them in the equally invidious position, i.e. should they tell the booker, or not? ISSUES FOR THE PROJECT MANAGERS If they decide they WILL inform the booker that the job has been cancelled....  The bookers may say that it’s not for Sam Smith to decide whether to cancel the interpreter which THEY have paid for  If s/he is skiving off, there will be repercussions which Sign Solutions would not wish to be embroiled in!  they may take this to mean that he is skiving off ... but perhaps he has just decided to go to a different meeting? If the office decide NOT to inform the booker that the job has been cancelled.... V0.1 17/09/21

 We will raise an invoice which may be refused because they have since found out from Sam Smith that s/he informed us that s/he was cancelling the booking These questions and answers just skim the surface of what is potentially a minefield. After some discussion, we have agreed to make a clear statement which should serve as a general guideline to interpreters who find themselves in this position, i.e. as above: You must tell the client that you can not accept the cancellation and that they need to advise the person/company who made the booking. Some more reasons are that you are professionally compromised include: i Ethically, you are generally not allowed to disclose anything in relation to your interpreting assignment; ii You might forget to report it, and don’t want to be responsible; iii Sign Solutions needs authorisation from the person/company who made the booking before being able to cancel a booking. However, common sense should prevail. If it is clear that the ‘Sam Smith’ is asking you to make a cancellation, and s/he is clearly authorised to do, i.e. works for the company who made the booking, etc, you can of course phone the office, IN HIS/HER PRESENCE, so that your action has been explicit. If Sam Smith states that s/he doesn’t want to formally cancel the booking, you should advise them that as it is still a ‘live’ booking, you will have to turn up, if only to stay for a short while. As a general rule, you are NOT expected to notify the office, and you ARE expected to attend the assignment, at the right time, dressed for work, etc. There may be exceptional times, where you may wish to seek further advice. The above is not intended to be an exhaustive list of issues 2 of 2