Originally Posted by Interpretrator

1. By taking a job, an interpreter cannot take another job at the same time.
2. In metropolitan areas, freelance interpreters have to drive all over the place, for hours at a time in my area, to get to their jobs.
3. Often they show up and the job has been cancelled.
4. If you want an interpreter to be available for you, he or she has to eat and pay rent, otherwise you get a starving homeless interpreter.
5. Therefore, interpreters usually have a 2-hour minimum to ensure that by taking a job that only ends up taking 5 minutes (or is cancelled without enough warning to get another job), they don't get paid a grand total of six dollars (or zero) for having accepted the job instead of one that really did go for two hours and would have paid for gas, food, rent, and all the other things that most freelancers struggle to pay for.

I'm heartily sick of this stereotype that interpreters are SWIMMING in money for doing very little work and leeching off the deaf community. I have never once met a single interpreter like this. Possibly they exist but never in any of the conventions or workshops or workplaces I have ever been to.