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bktheirregularMust be Murphy's Law at work.
I agree to do the editing job for the law journal in my spare time, and promptly get hit with a pile of work from the office that basically assures that I won't have any spare time to do that job.
Thursday night, while I'm struggling to finish a "need this now now now" translation, I get hit with another one from one of the Senior Partners: two legal decisions, total of thirty pages, from photocopies bordering on the utterly illegible in places.
"How soon is this needed?" I ask.
"As soon as possible," is the answer. Which is not at all helpful. If I've got conflicting tasks coming in, I need something to figure out how to prioritize them, and "as soon as possible" is worthless in that regard.
I take one look at them and announce, "There's no way this will be done by the end of tomorrow."
"Can it be done by Tuesday?"
Thirty pages. Between close-of-business Thursday and close-of-business Tuesday. And that other priority task is still not complete when the question is asked, mind.
"I'll have to see," I answer. "If I take this with me--"
"You're going somewhere?"
"No, but I'll have to work on this over the weekend, I can already see."
Fast-forward to Monday, after a weekend beating my head against the first (and the more illegible, natch) of the court documents. On page three (it's slow going), I hit a point where something is utterly illegible, and the only thing I can do is ask the Senior Partner who gave me the documents (and who's just finished yelling at a secretary over some percieved incompetence over procuring a ticket for a boat or an airplane or something) whether she can figure out the illegible bit based on better knowledge of the matter in question.
So I politely knock on the doorframe (this is also the Senior Partner who doesn't seem to understand the concept of closing one's door when yelling at people).
"Hi, I've got a question about this translation."
"Is it almost done?"
Monday (minus) Thursday (plus) thirty pages (plus) illegible (plus) senior partner (plus) hair-trigger temper (minus) grasp of reality = oh crap this is gonna be a bad couple of weeks.
I agree to do the editing job for the law journal in my spare time, and promptly get hit with a pile of work from the office that basically assures that I won't have any spare time to do that job.
Thursday night, while I'm struggling to finish a "need this now now now" translation, I get hit with another one from one of the Senior Partners: two legal decisions, total of thirty pages, from photocopies bordering on the utterly illegible in places.
"How soon is this needed?" I ask.
"As soon as possible," is the answer. Which is not at all helpful. If I've got conflicting tasks coming in, I need something to figure out how to prioritize them, and "as soon as possible" is worthless in that regard.
I take one look at them and announce, "There's no way this will be done by the end of tomorrow."
"Can it be done by Tuesday?"
Thirty pages. Between close-of-business Thursday and close-of-business Tuesday. And that other priority task is still not complete when the question is asked, mind.
"I'll have to see," I answer. "If I take this with me--"
"You're going somewhere?"
"No, but I'll have to work on this over the weekend, I can already see."
Fast-forward to Monday, after a weekend beating my head against the first (and the more illegible, natch) of the court documents. On page three (it's slow going), I hit a point where something is utterly illegible, and the only thing I can do is ask the Senior Partner who gave me the documents (and who's just finished yelling at a secretary over some percieved incompetence over procuring a ticket for a boat or an airplane or something) whether she can figure out the illegible bit based on better knowledge of the matter in question.
So I politely knock on the doorframe (this is also the Senior Partner who doesn't seem to understand the concept of closing one's door when yelling at people).
"Hi, I've got a question about this translation."
"Is it almost done?"
Monday (minus) Thursday (plus) thirty pages (plus) illegible (plus) senior partner (plus) hair-trigger temper (minus) grasp of reality = oh crap this is gonna be a bad couple of weeks.
