In lieu of the I Hate Valentine's Day Rant
Gotta unload a bit about work.
Last week I got thrown a translation task - someone was entering into a lease agreement, our client wanted the draft contract in English, the counterparty drafted a contract in Greek. Translation of the contract - thirty-plus pages - fell to me. I asked when the client needed it done, and was told basically "take your time" - which was a good thing because I kept getting thrown other high-priority tasks in the meantime.
Until today.
I'm maybe halfway through the job when I get the call: "when do you think it'll be done?" I grind away for a bit and give my estimate: Monday or Tuesday, assuming I bring it home with me tonight, tomorrow night, and over the weekend.
"We'll divide the task up, then. The client wants it tomorrow."
Y'know, when I ask for a deadline for a task, I'm not making idle conversation. I need to know how to budget my time, how to prioritize various incoming tasks, and how to balance speed versus accuracy in my work - which is always a tradeoff.
Not to mention:
I hate rambling sentences that don't seem to follow grammatical rules.
I hate running into a single sentence that runs for a page and a half and turns out to be just a long list with no clear division between items.
I hate when the original I'm translating from apparently hasn't even been proofread. Even if I can dope out what they mean, laziness on their part converts to stress on my part.
I'm at the point where I seriously want to find the person ultimately responsible for turning my working day into an emergency, grab my heaviest dictionary, and turn their skull concave.
Grr.
This entry is cross-posted from http://bktheirregular.dreamwidth.org/590932.html. Feel free to comment here, or on Dreamwidth using OpenID (
comments).
Last week I got thrown a translation task - someone was entering into a lease agreement, our client wanted the draft contract in English, the counterparty drafted a contract in Greek. Translation of the contract - thirty-plus pages - fell to me. I asked when the client needed it done, and was told basically "take your time" - which was a good thing because I kept getting thrown other high-priority tasks in the meantime.
Until today.
I'm maybe halfway through the job when I get the call: "when do you think it'll be done?" I grind away for a bit and give my estimate: Monday or Tuesday, assuming I bring it home with me tonight, tomorrow night, and over the weekend.
"We'll divide the task up, then. The client wants it tomorrow."
Y'know, when I ask for a deadline for a task, I'm not making idle conversation. I need to know how to budget my time, how to prioritize various incoming tasks, and how to balance speed versus accuracy in my work - which is always a tradeoff.
Not to mention:
I hate rambling sentences that don't seem to follow grammatical rules.
I hate running into a single sentence that runs for a page and a half and turns out to be just a long list with no clear division between items.
I hate when the original I'm translating from apparently hasn't even been proofread. Even if I can dope out what they mean, laziness on their part converts to stress on my part.
I'm at the point where I seriously want to find the person ultimately responsible for turning my working day into an emergency, grab my heaviest dictionary, and turn their skull concave.
Grr.
This entry is cross-posted from http://bktheirregular.dreamwidth.org/590932.html. Feel free to comment here, or on Dreamwidth using OpenID (
comments).