Cajungal
Staff member
BUT WHAT OF YOUR JUICE?!
Cajungal
Staff member
Oh I read this ad "forgot my lunch today..." whups.
Yeah it was the excitement of Happy Suprises in my lunch followed by the daunting why am I surprised? I'm the one who packed it...
Ah, I reversed the reaction. I read the "I forgot..." first and thought it was negative because you were looking forward to eating out or something, then realized you were stuck with a lunch you brought. Then I read the "I got a juice box!" post and thought, "Well, he's got that going for him, which is nice."
Client comes to us with an English to Chinese translation. We receive the file from them. We open it up. It's in Italian.
"Uh, client dudes? This is Italian, not English. We're going to need a whole different translator for it, and our rates for translating from Italian are different from translating from English."
"No, this is English."
"What? No, this is Italian. Did you send the right file?"
"Yes, that's the right file, and just look at it. It's English."
"No, seriously, we're telling you, this is Italian."
"Prove it's not English."
"WTF???"
"Uh, client dudes? This is Italian, not English. We're going to need a whole different translator for it, and our rates for translating from Italian are different from translating from English."
"No, this is English."
"What? No, this is Italian. Did you send the right file?"
"Yes, that's the right file, and just look at it. It's English."
"No, seriously, we're telling you, this is Italian."
"Prove it's not English."
"WTF???"
Bud Spencer died today. I dont know if he was well known in the States, but in Germany he was huge.
Big part of my childhood and some of my fondest memories of my dad an me were watching Bud Spencers movies.
Big part of my childhood and some of my fondest memories of my dad an me were watching Bud Spencers movies.
My uncle just passed away. This leaves my parents as the last of their generation in both of their families.
That is slowly happening with my family. Two of my dad's brother-in-laws (my uncles) have passed within the last two years. That's the reason why I got a bit freaked when my dad has his micro-stroke a few weeks ago.
So here I am, trying to access a client's company website to look up some info, and I find that their website has an unskippable opening Flash animation that is, judging by the time taken to load it, approximately a zillion gigabytes in size.
Let me just repeat that. This Flash animation is freaking huge, and cannot be skipped. The site is inaccessible until the whole animation is played. I have been sitting here for at least five minutes, twiddling my thumbs. I cannot imagine any paying customer actually waiting this long to access their website, which suggests to me that this company is actually a front for a secret underground hentai porn smuggling operation.
Let me just repeat that. This Flash animation is freaking huge, and cannot be skipped. The site is inaccessible until the whole animation is played. I have been sitting here for at least five minutes, twiddling my thumbs. I cannot imagine any paying customer actually waiting this long to access their website, which suggests to me that this company is actually a front for a secret underground hentai porn smuggling operation.
Bug flew into my eye while I was in the parking lot at work.
So I had to spend 10-15min in my visor mirror trying to extract a drowned aphid from the corner of my eye with a folded-up square of paper towel.
So scratchy but ultimately satisfying once I managed to coax it out.
--Patrick
So I had to spend 10-15min in my visor mirror trying to extract a drowned aphid from the corner of my eye with a folded-up square of paper towel.
So scratchy but ultimately satisfying once I managed to coax it out.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm pretty sure one of our salepeople is showing early signs of Alzheimer's. I feel a little bit like a dick for griping about it, but it makes working with him extremely difficult. He often forgets things that are routine and remembers past events/conversations in a way incongruous with reality. I'll tell him I have a reservation already booked a client in production at 3pm, and he'll e-mail his client (thankfully CC'ing me so I can catch the goof) that there's an opening at 3pm, and that 1pm is already taken. He'll frequently say he has turned in paperwork that he has not. Often he'll be surprised that something is done a certain way when it has been done that way every month for over 10 years. I know that both his parents had it. It's a little sad, but a LOTTA frustration.
ARGH. In re-reading my recently re-published story, I noticed a few niggling little errors that will now drive me absolutely bonkers. I even have "It's" where "Its" was needed.
More than likely, they're stupid little mistakes that only I'll notice, but they're still there.
At least I can fix them on my blog.
More than likely, they're stupid little mistakes that only I'll notice, but they're still there.
At least I can fix them on my blog.
GasBandit
Staff member
GAH. Somebody fiddled with the voice processor's EQ settings and didn't tell anybody, or at least not me... So I have to completely recut the voice for a commercial from start to finish, because the new recordings of my voice won't sound the same as yesterday's recordings, and I don't remember exactly where the old settings were >_<
Stopped at Target on my way home to get dish soap for the family.
To get to the dish soap at this Target, you come in through the door, and then you walk by the beauty stuff and the pharmacy before you get to the laundry/floor wax/dish soap/toilet paper section. Being > 8:30pm, the pharmacy itself is of course closed.
On the way by the pharmacy, I pass by a woman who is holding her (2yr-old?) daughter up in her left arm and wiping off her arm, talking to her, and there is a box of cough syrup on the floor by her feet which has broken open and spilled all over the floor and the kid's arm.
Except that it's not a box of cough syrup. It's a box of Band-Aids with the top ripped open.
And it's not cough syrup.
It's everywhere. On the floor, on mom's leg, all down the kids arm, her hand is covered, there's even a little polka-dot trail heading back towards the grocery section.
"I have an owie, mommy," the kid says.
Mom does not look like she's having a good day. Seems the kid cut herself on something glass in the frozen food section, and the cut is clean and having a hard time closing. Mom is obviously having trouble keeping it together.
So I stick around a little bit to be a solid voice of reason. Don't remove the Band-Aid you've already put on. Hold her hand up higher than her heart. Have her keep her (wrapped) hand closed to keep some pressure on the wound. Some other Target staffers show up with a mop bucket and advice. I try hard not to interrupt unless I hear advice that doesn't sound promising, I also continue to speak in a calm, reassuring tone. Mom keeps apologizing profusely for the mess she's making, almost as profusely as the kid has decided to keep bleeding. We all try to reassure her that we know she has more important things to worry about, and we understand.
I try to guide the conversation toward more useful things...asking the location of the nearest urgent care clinic, for instance. I even make sure to offer transportation assistance to the harried mother, which she declines.
"I have an owie," the kid repeats. She sounds unhappy about the situation, but she does not sound like she is woozy or in a lot of pain, and she is not panicking. It might be that she's in shock, or it might be because she's only 2(ish) and has no context, but either way I'm liking it because it means mom is less likely to panic herself into fight-or-flight mode.
I again offer to help with transportation or other support but she repeats that she thinks she has it handled and heads out. I try to get my purchase completed quickly (3 bottles of dish soap) so I can at least tail her to the medical facility but she is out the door and in her car before I get out there, so I can only hope everything turns out for the best.
My minor rant(s)?
-I don't know how it turned out. I probably never will. I want closure, preferably the kind that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
-I don't know if my offers for support were refused because I was potentially viewed as a threat, that I might take advantage of the situation in some unmentionable way. Far from it, I'm the sort who would have happily given up getting home in time for dinner and spent 2hrs (or more!) making sure they got where they were going, made phone calls, whatever was necessary, but the idea that she might've turned me down solely because The Media have put scary ideas in her head makes me sad.
--Patrick
To get to the dish soap at this Target, you come in through the door, and then you walk by the beauty stuff and the pharmacy before you get to the laundry/floor wax/dish soap/toilet paper section. Being > 8:30pm, the pharmacy itself is of course closed.
On the way by the pharmacy, I pass by a woman who is holding her (2yr-old?) daughter up in her left arm and wiping off her arm, talking to her, and there is a box of cough syrup on the floor by her feet which has broken open and spilled all over the floor and the kid's arm.
Except that it's not a box of cough syrup. It's a box of Band-Aids with the top ripped open.
And it's not cough syrup.
It's everywhere. On the floor, on mom's leg, all down the kids arm, her hand is covered, there's even a little polka-dot trail heading back towards the grocery section.
"I have an owie, mommy," the kid says.
Mom does not look like she's having a good day. Seems the kid cut herself on something glass in the frozen food section, and the cut is clean and having a hard time closing. Mom is obviously having trouble keeping it together.
So I stick around a little bit to be a solid voice of reason. Don't remove the Band-Aid you've already put on. Hold her hand up higher than her heart. Have her keep her (wrapped) hand closed to keep some pressure on the wound. Some other Target staffers show up with a mop bucket and advice. I try hard not to interrupt unless I hear advice that doesn't sound promising, I also continue to speak in a calm, reassuring tone. Mom keeps apologizing profusely for the mess she's making, almost as profusely as the kid has decided to keep bleeding. We all try to reassure her that we know she has more important things to worry about, and we understand.
I try to guide the conversation toward more useful things...asking the location of the nearest urgent care clinic, for instance. I even make sure to offer transportation assistance to the harried mother, which she declines.
"I have an owie," the kid repeats. She sounds unhappy about the situation, but she does not sound like she is woozy or in a lot of pain, and she is not panicking. It might be that she's in shock, or it might be because she's only 2(ish) and has no context, but either way I'm liking it because it means mom is less likely to panic herself into fight-or-flight mode.
I again offer to help with transportation or other support but she repeats that she thinks she has it handled and heads out. I try to get my purchase completed quickly (3 bottles of dish soap) so I can at least tail her to the medical facility but she is out the door and in her car before I get out there, so I can only hope everything turns out for the best.
My minor rant(s)?
-I don't know how it turned out. I probably never will. I want closure, preferably the kind that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
-I don't know if my offers for support were refused because I was potentially viewed as a threat, that I might take advantage of the situation in some unmentionable way. Far from it, I'm the sort who would have happily given up getting home in time for dinner and spent 2hrs (or more!) making sure they got where they were going, made phone calls, whatever was necessary, but the idea that she might've turned me down solely because The Media have put scary ideas in her head makes me sad.
--Patrick
And in today's episode of moronic clients, we're working on a Chinese to English translation of something publicity-related.
"We'd like you to translate this using British English please."
"Really? Is it intended for a British audience?"
"No, but British English sounds better and more impressive."
At this point we're skeptical, but hey, they're the ones paying us, so we obey. Everything's translated using British English, with me doing most of the heavy lifting because I've lived in the UK. We send the translation back to them. They come back, quite upset.
"Why are there so many words spelled wrong in this translation? You're terrible translators!"
"We're sorry, sometimes errors can slip through. We'd be happy to fix it. What was spelled wrong?"
"What's this 'colour'? Or 'fibre'? Or 'aluminium'? 'Centre'? 'Tranquillity'? 'Recognise'? And what's a duvet? Or a jumper? And why are you talking about this building being flat?"
"No, in British English a flat is a... um... ok where do we start with this..."
Seriously, if I hadn't encountered these people myself I'd swear this story was made up. You read about people like this on sites like Notalwaysright, and they're funny, but actually working with them is more tragedy than comedy.
"We'd like you to translate this using British English please."
"Really? Is it intended for a British audience?"
"No, but British English sounds better and more impressive."
At this point we're skeptical, but hey, they're the ones paying us, so we obey. Everything's translated using British English, with me doing most of the heavy lifting because I've lived in the UK. We send the translation back to them. They come back, quite upset.
"Why are there so many words spelled wrong in this translation? You're terrible translators!"
"We're sorry, sometimes errors can slip through. We'd be happy to fix it. What was spelled wrong?"
"What's this 'colour'? Or 'fibre'? Or 'aluminium'? 'Centre'? 'Tranquillity'? 'Recognise'? And what's a duvet? Or a jumper? And why are you talking about this building being flat?"
"No, in British English a flat is a... um... ok where do we start with this..."
Seriously, if I hadn't encountered these people myself I'd swear this story was made up. You read about people like this on sites like Notalwaysright, and they're funny, but actually working with them is more tragedy than comedy.
He should've read it back to them with the accent: "I don't understand the problem. Here, let me...<starts reading with British accent>...see?"
--Patrick
I don't know, and I don't think they knew either. My guess is that someone in their company heard something along the lines of "British English makes things sound more impressive" and then decided, yeah, that's what we want for our company.
GasBandit
Staff member
"Cor blimey, guvna! Pip pip spot'o tea luv? U wot mate? I'll hook you roight in da gabba swer on me mum!"
People who think British English is "more impressive" haven't heard anyone British speak anywhere other than on telly.
Where did you learn your British accent?
(I'm willing to bet Bhamv's clients would have found his acceptable.)
GasBandit
Staff member
From Orks.
So someone turned off my deep freezer on accident. Got it turned back on but lost a lot of meat threw it in bags because trash was was the next day (tuesday) told the kids to take out the trash and they said they got it all. Well today I get off work and there is a horrendous smell in my house. Lo and behold there's a trash bag of rotten meat with flies and all around it that's been there for 3 days in 95 degree heat in my garage. I am not happy and my poor house smells like death.
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