We appreciate that other professional opportunities and personal events surface. The vast majority of our requests for non-attendance are not emergencies and are a result of honest mistakes, double-bookings, accepting cases directly or with other agencies that are viewed as more favorable, a spontaneous vacation, needing a mental health day, wanting to help out a colleague or family member, and a lot of other reasons. Many of these are last minute.

Interpreters having a conversation by phone and seeing how we can work together as a team in finding a replacement goes a long way. Unfortunately, that rarely happens in today’s fast-paced & electronic culture. After-hour texts and emails are common, and often no explanation is given for the non-attendance. Fortunately, we have recently seen a drop in the daily volume of non-attendance requests as we’ve been honest with interpreters about the concerns for customers, consumers, teammates, and how stressful it has been for the agency.

Our shared customers and consumers rely on interpreters following through on their commitments. The serious shortage of interpreters nationally is a crisis. No fill rates continue to rise in Minnesota. The days of finding an interpreter easily and quickly are mostly gone. It’s now exceptionally more challenging, stressful, and time consuming. We now have a new phenomenon- no fill rates on cases that were previously confirmed, but the interpreter cancelled their commitment, and no other interpreter was found. Customers are asking agencies to have contract terms of a 48-hour cancellation with interpreters. The fees interpreters pay would be shared with the customer and agency.