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Warp drive!
Apr. 20th, 2005 10:31 pmI'm looking at the email that put a real wrench in my plans for this week. It was sent a little over 8 hours ago. In that time, I managed not only to do the translation that was sent via that email, but also to do some grocery shopping, file the store's Q1 sales tax return, eat lunch (takeout Chinese) and dinner (microwaved leftovers), and translate nearly 5000 words of a fascinating text that makes me think that I wouldn't want to be in certain people's shoes in a certain other part of the world.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a thing accomplished with respect to the geology item due Friday, and there's yet one bump in the road to steamroll before I can devote my full attention to geology: that "non-job" from yesterday, which has become a full-fledged job as of today.
It turns out that an end client has tweaked a job I did just about a month ago, and now the agency wants me to proofread the text to make sure nothing's been, um, fubared in the tweaking process. I initially had concerns that the agency might expect this to be done as part of the originally quoted price, but they seem to have their heads on straight.
However, I've run across people in the past who have had no qualms at all asking for such additional service, after the job is done, proofed, and invoiced.
What is particularly galling is that such folk are either feigning ignorance or are truly ignorant of the fact that if you want someone to check a 100-page document for errors that might result from "a few corrections," that someone is actually going to have to look at every sentence on every page (unless, heaven forfend, you tell them where those corrections might have been made).
Anyway, I figure the check will take between 2-4 hours, and probably the messiest part is having to print all the documents, since comparing two documents of different format on a screen - even an LCD screen - is just a little too ambitious for me.
For now, I will bask - briefly - in the glow of a job well done.
And, frankly, well paid for as well.
I remember, back in the early days of my return to translation, most companies had something called a "rush rate" for translations that needed immediate attention. Over the years, more and more agencies stopped distinguishing normal work from rush work, I suspect on the basis that all jobs are "rush" jobs, all the time, not to mention the more mundane aspect of pure cost. (It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw posted on the side of a cash register in a print shop. In the frame, an inexperienced counter clerk is turning away from having taken an order from a customer and asking The Boss, "I'm not sure how to handle this job... the customer said it's not a 'rush.'")
To my boss' credit on this one, she offered a solid rush rate for an all-out, drop-all-else, ASAP-if-not-sooner result, which I delivered.
On top of it all, more work has arrived and more work is promised (though it's editing). It would appear the "no-work" horizon has definitely been pushed into the weekend, and perhaps as far as Monday or Tuesday.
Let's hear it for work.
Enough!
I'm going to have to do close to 4,000 source words tomorrow to get myself back on track. Even devoting a couple-three hours to proofing, that oughta be doable... if I get a good night's sleep.
Cheers...
Unfortunately, I didn't get a thing accomplished with respect to the geology item due Friday, and there's yet one bump in the road to steamroll before I can devote my full attention to geology: that "non-job" from yesterday, which has become a full-fledged job as of today.
It turns out that an end client has tweaked a job I did just about a month ago, and now the agency wants me to proofread the text to make sure nothing's been, um, fubared in the tweaking process. I initially had concerns that the agency might expect this to be done as part of the originally quoted price, but they seem to have their heads on straight.
However, I've run across people in the past who have had no qualms at all asking for such additional service, after the job is done, proofed, and invoiced.
What is particularly galling is that such folk are either feigning ignorance or are truly ignorant of the fact that if you want someone to check a 100-page document for errors that might result from "a few corrections," that someone is actually going to have to look at every sentence on every page (unless, heaven forfend, you tell them where those corrections might have been made).
Anyway, I figure the check will take between 2-4 hours, and probably the messiest part is having to print all the documents, since comparing two documents of different format on a screen - even an LCD screen - is just a little too ambitious for me.
For now, I will bask - briefly - in the glow of a job well done.
And, frankly, well paid for as well.
I remember, back in the early days of my return to translation, most companies had something called a "rush rate" for translations that needed immediate attention. Over the years, more and more agencies stopped distinguishing normal work from rush work, I suspect on the basis that all jobs are "rush" jobs, all the time, not to mention the more mundane aspect of pure cost. (It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw posted on the side of a cash register in a print shop. In the frame, an inexperienced counter clerk is turning away from having taken an order from a customer and asking The Boss, "I'm not sure how to handle this job... the customer said it's not a 'rush.'")
To my boss' credit on this one, she offered a solid rush rate for an all-out, drop-all-else, ASAP-if-not-sooner result, which I delivered.
On top of it all, more work has arrived and more work is promised (though it's editing). It would appear the "no-work" horizon has definitely been pushed into the weekend, and perhaps as far as Monday or Tuesday.
Let's hear it for work.
Enough!
I'm going to have to do close to 4,000 source words tomorrow to get myself back on track. Even devoting a couple-three hours to proofing, that oughta be doable... if I get a good night's sleep.
Cheers...
