And it came to pass...

I was just doing an electronic "rummage" through some document files in PaperPort, when my eye ran across one item, something commonly called an "attaboy," written by one of the ILS managers during a past campaign.

The general rule of thumb for freelancers is: The more 'attaboys', the better. (Heck, the same rule applies to anyone who works, though I suppose women collect 'attagirls'.)

Why are more better? Because the other general rule of thumb is: One screwup cancels 100 attaboys.

The reason I bring this up at all is that during a later campaign, when a different ILS manager was waxing eloquent about what a great job we interpreters were doing, I gently hinted that it would be really cool if he'd put what he'd just said down on paper and give us a copy. He turned his gaze on me, all businesslike now, and said, "You don't need a copy of what I just said," adding that the person who did need it was the ILS interpretation manager back in McLean, who was the person that made campaign assignments. This was, I suppose, his way of assuring us that said manager would be duly informed of our stellar effort. I understood the subject to be closed.

Since then, Lockheed has sold its share in ILS, and some changes have been made at the new ILS. For one thing, U.S.-based interpreters are not being used any more for launch campaigns; for another, in-house staff has been trimmed. Indeed, one of the first people to go was... that very same interpretation manager.

Cheers...

The fax machine is your friend...

Despite all the nice words said about "paperless" this and "electronic" that, there comes a time where nothing short of printing a file is going to get the job done. And printing is one perennial problem faced by road warriors.

Ages ago, I recall Jerry Pournelle pointing out that, if you were on the road and had a fax modem in your laptop, you could "print" files to your hotel's fax machine pretty easily, a technique that got only better when most hotels began to offer incoming faxes for free, and sweeter still when you could make use of services such as eFax.

The inkjet I bought a couple of years ago and kept at my parents' place probably needs a new set of cartridges, though I am not sure I want to spend $70 or so to find out if my diagnosis is correct. Some time ago, however, my folks did buy a Compaq laptop (long dead) and an HP printer/scanner/fax.

Unfortunately, the HP is equipped with a parallel port and my VAIO... isn't. So, the only alternative I was left with was to send myself the documents that I must translate for Monday morning. (Not to work from directly, but to refer to when working with the OCR that I finally was able to coax out of my machine.)

In other news, one of my new French clients offered more work, which I had to respectfully decline. I despise having to do that... sort of, as the reason for doing so is a plate piled high with stuff due Monday.

Cheers...

Finding one's way...

The references supplied with the job that's going to consume today (which is half gone) and this weekend consist of a 626-page document, the Russian version of which is provided as a PDF, and the English version of which has been provided as a Word file.

This sounds like a job for... The Sleuthhound!

There are times I am mildly surprised by the resources one must acquire to deal with situations like this, where people seem almost perversely intent on handicapping you despite having engaged you to do something important for them.

* * *I've been outside on and off from time to time these past couple of days scraping ice off the driveway. Unlike our driveway in Pagosa, which is long but gradual, my dad's driveway is short and steep.

But a whole lot less icy than it was when I arrived. :^)

Cheers...

UPDATE: Oops! I spoke too soon. I forgot that the end client likes to "protect" his PDFs so they can only be opened in Acrobat or printed. Opening them in any other application is apparently taboo. I think I will drop a note to my client informing them that my use of the reference will be limited, but I'm sure such a thought will get more of a hearing here than in the real world.