The mind is a funny thing...

...but it won't get you a gig at the Improv, at least not without a lot of honing.

I've been wondering why my client thinks I'm translating an entire specification when I don't have the whole thing.

Then it occurs to me, during my sleep, in that time when you're sort of drifting in and out and seeing glimpses of things you deal with on a day-to-day basis, that I've seen pages of that specification on my screen that have large chunks of white space on them.

I don't have any such pages printed out.

Now, it doesn't help matters at all that I have about six e-mails from my client, each with an attachment named, identically, 'image.tif'. A few minutes ago, I deliberately went through each e-mail and saved the attachment under a new name. I then opened each attachment using eFax Messenger and eventually found the missing pages.

All dozen or so of them.

This puts a definite crimp in my schedule. OTOH, there's nothing to be done but hunker down and get it done. Speaking of which...

Cheers...

Worse... then better... then worse... then...

The situation with the tank spec translation became worse than I thought for a few hours, and then suddenly became better when I realized that I'd exaggerated what needs to be done.

To be sure, I violated a primary rule of providing consulting services (and that's what I really see myself as: a consultant). And that rule is: make sure everyone is clear on what the job is before starting it, and that you have everything you need to do it.

The job description was pretty clear: do the whole specification, except for parts that had been translated already (some dozen pages). Checking to make sure I had everything was something I did not do, to my detriment.

So, after reviewing all of the client's e-mails - for a second time, since I kept "finding" more missing pages after I thought I caught them all - I came to the conclusion that I was well and truly hosed. I had 110 pages of text to do in 3 days (not counting the rest of today, which doesn't count... I'm bushed after laying 5100 words down on phosphor).

On the average (as a result of playing my silly keep-track-of-how-far-I-am games), I find it's taking me about 45 minutes to finish a page of source material. Simple arithmetic says that I'll need about 82 hours to finish what's left, which - spread out over three days - makes AlexPGP a sad brat, indeed.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to my steel-befuddled brain that my 110 pages of specification are actually housed on 55 physical pages (there are two spec pages per printed page, and it's taking me about 45 minutes to do a printed page of source material). Moreover, after deducting for truly missing pages (2 printed pages), and previously translated pages (6 printed pages), it turns out I have only 47 pages to do in 3 days, which works out to just about, ummm, 12 hours per day, which is no picnic, but a better result than I got with my initial estimate.

Moreover, there's a stretch of pages (I'm not going to look for them now) where, as I noted in my previous rock, there is a lot of white space, so they ought to go down with little resistance, but I'll take that as I meet it. Figure overall, it's an 8-10 hour day for the next three days. Then on Tuesday, about 4 hours to check and deliver.

Then I'm going to take off as much of the rest of Tuesday as I can, because starting on Wednesday, I'm going to be up to my neck in nuclear documents and I'm going to stay that way for most of the rest of the year.

Yikes, but that sounds intimidating!

Anyway, now that I've bored everyone (including myself, I think) completely beyond distraction with my never-ending work-related drivel...

I'm going to call it a night.

Cheers...