Piece of Work

I had my introductory meeting with Trang this evening. What a piece of work she turned out to be.

Our meeting was planned for 11am. 

At 10:30 I received an sms saying "I am still doing things so how about later, like 4?"

At 10:35 I replied that, yes, 4pm is ok .

At 10:37 Trang responded with: "Thanks...! I will be there abt 4:30 and 5. See you then."

By 16:55 there was no sign of Trang. I call her phone and there as no answer. 

I recall Trang's website, which offers 30 minutes free with every lesson. I couldn't work out what happens in these 3o minutes  but now I know: she uses them to run late.

At 17:05 Trang turns up, rings the doorbell a few times too many, smiles briefly, leaves her heels on and shakes my hand quickly as she trots in. I admire her grooming and her pluck.

We sit down. I offer her the seat across from me at the dining room table but she says she prefers to sit next to me. I am about to offer her a glass of water when she bursts out of the blocks.

"So you want to just learn survival Vietnamese or you want to be perfect?"

Me: "Well, I am staying here a long time. 2 years. So I want to learn properly, with structure. Not just basic."

[She couldn't look more bored if she tried.]

Her: "So you want perfect? Reeeally?"

Me: "Ok. Umm. Yes. Perfect, I s'pose."

Her: "No it's too hard for you. Too difficult to learn perfect. Just basic Vietnamese is good ... [Then, get this] ...  "Anyway I only have 15 workbooks and I have to give you one if you learn proper Vietnamese. So you will do basic survival I think."

Me: Yes but I know how to learn a language--"

Her: "It will be fine. Survival and conversation. No problem."

She then tells me how she hates having to think up all the different scenarios for teaching survival Vietnamese so hopefully my homework can include me thinking up some scenarios for us to practice with, too. She then complains how tired she feels this afternoon.

I get the feeling that this is not quite her calling.

Trang: "When you would like your lessons?

Me: "Saturday if possible." [I notice she screws up her face.] "Is that OK? What's up? Not good?"

She starts to look like she's sulking.

Her: "Saturday..? Awww...! But I want to hang out with my friends!"

An awkward silence appears. I am not liking  Trang's tone at all: she's behaving like a hooker who turns on you the minute she's been paid ...  I automatically feel for my wallet to check it's still there.

Her: "OK then, Saturday."  [I notice a slight turning of the nose, as if she thinks someone has farted but is not quite sure.]  "When do you want to meet next?"

Me: "Umm ... next week please."

Her: "No. I'm too busy. We start in 2 weeks. OK?" [Fishes around in her bag.]  "Here. Take these papers and learn them. Your homework." [She thrusts some photocopies into my hand.]

Me: "OK. Thanks then. See you in two weeks."

Her: "I go now. First give me a glass of water."

[Stockholm kicks in and I start to nod and smile obsequiously as I head for the fridge.]

Despatching a currier

Sam: I need Edwina to focus on document XYZ because I don't have anyone else.

Me: Yes but that worries me. She needs supervision. Which is stupid I know, but she does.

Sam: Well I don't have anyone else to do it so we have to take the risk.

[2 hours later]

Me: Edwina can you please review document XYZ? We're running late here so I'd like you to focus on it, update the English and highlight anything that we need clarity from. Call them in to clarify once you have a list.

Ed: What? Oh. Yeah. Sure. I don't know if I will know what they mean but I can try.

[One day later]

Me: Have you finished? Can I see? How was it?

Ed: No I haven't finished it because I didn't understand it. It was impossible. Their English was everywhere.

Me: Just change it then.

Ed: But I don't know what they're saying half the time. It's impossible.

Me: Give me an example

Ed: Well I was reading one sentence that they wrote "send something through using a currier" -- I mean ... what's a currier?

Me: It's courier. Just change it. Obviously they mean courier. They are referring to sending documents from one location to another. Please don't turn it into a personal crusade.

Ed: Yes that's what I thought. Courier. But "currier" didn't come up in spellcheck in Word so then I checked it on google and it's an actual word, did you know?

Me: I don't care. It's not relevant. Make the changes please. Did you met with them to clarify other things which aren't clear?

Ed: No but I called them and said you were not happy with their progress.

Me: I'm actually more worried about your progress.

Ed: Yes, but a "currier" is certainly nothing to do with the process that they were writing about. It relates to someone who--"

Me: We don't have time to be pedantic. Please just change it and stop scoring points. We know their English is not good, so change it. We don't have time and we do know what they mean to say most of the time.

Ed: It actually has something to do with leather tanning--"

Me: Please. Stop. Now. Change it. Please."

[2 days pass] 

I'm doing a final review of Edwina's document. I come across a comment in the revised document ... "Please explain currier. Do you mean courier? Currier doesn't make sense in this sentence. Please outline what you mean." Fer fuck's sake.

Simultaneous Translation

The week before last I delivered a speech to a bunch of Hanoi bankers. The subject of my presentation was assigned to me 2 weeks earlier by someone in Marketing: "New Ideas in Customer Relationship Management". Of course, I had no new ideas. And no time to find any. So I grabbed a lot of other people's old ideas, tied them together with string and chewing gum, arrived 5 minutes early to load my PowerPoint file onto the central computer.

I was told the speech would be translated, simultaneously. I was also told that while I had 45 mins to speak, I would only to use 35 mins of material because of the speed of the translation so please go through the other material quickly. An interesting stage direction to say the least: "You will need to go slower than normal, so will not get through everything, so please go quicker through some parts."

I asked to meet the translator. I opened up my PowerPoint and showed him the sections where I would not be sticking to the written words on the screen and what I would say; how I would introduce myself in the beginning; checked that  he had good translations for obscure words such as advocacy, psycho-demographic and end-to-end multi-channel process architecture; asked how quickly he would like me to speak and whether there was anything else he needed to know or vice versa. Turns out he didn't want to know anything at all, except where I was from:

"Sydney."

-- "I studied in Adelaide at Adelaide University for 3 years."

"What did you study? English language?"

-- "No. Finance."

"Oh. Do you need me to go through my speech with you?"

-- "No. It's OK. Just speak a bit slower than you normally speak. But not too slow. Just a little bit. Like 10%."

"What about this pace, is this OK?"

-- "No that's too slow. Just a little quicker but not too much."

"Oh. OK."

There are about 10 rows of people in the audience. Having studied the invitation list I knew they had job titles like Vice General Director and Deputy Director, Payment Promoting Department. So I knew I was in for a good time.

Next thing I know I'm getting mic'ed, then announced, and walk up the aisle to the podium through gentle applause.

As I start to speak, the entire audience reached for the pair of headsets in front of them and puts them on. So now no one is listening to me. My wisdom (OK, other people's wisdom) is being filtered via a slack-jawed Adelaide Uni finance graduate. And I am looking out onto rows of bumble bees. I know how Jaws 3 felt.

Needless to say, I abandoned all attempts at light hearted repartee and ploughed on through the material. Halfway through, I noticed that I had abandoned the podium and my hands were gesturing a bit too hard and my arms were occasionally flapping. I think my message was looking for other ways to get  out in its raw from. Quite tragic but beyond my control. About 3/4 of the way through I got bored, so I started speeding up my speech to annoy the translator. At one stage I was rabbiting on really quickly about key customer life event triggers and how to recognise them and how to operationalise them, while thinking to myself "Simultaneous that, yer cunt.".

That's not my only experience of simultaneous translation though. No, no, no. 

Edwina provides simultaneous translation for me - in English - on a daily basis. 

For some reason, she feels that by repeating things I say she is helping people understand it. Sometimes it's condescending to the locals when it's staccato. Sometimes confusing. But mostly it's just disruptive, superfluous filler. This from a document review last night with our contractors:

Me: "Could you just add a table in that section which gives a simple breakdown of what you are providing."

My echo: "You need to add a table in that section there. Just a breakdown of everything.

Me: "I don't understand this bit. I think I know what you're saying but the client may not understand. Could you please reword it?"

My echo: "This needs to be reworded so that the client understands it. Can you see the sentence there that begins with--"

Me: "Yes Edwina - they know which sentence. They're already marking it up on their page.

My echo: "So that sentence that you're marking up - yes that one. That needs to be reworded to make sure the client under--"

Me: "Let's have only one voice saying the same thing, OK?"

things i will remember to negotiate in my next lease

1. bedding for the spare room

2. soap dishes

3. towels

4. chopsticks

5. coat hangers

6. kettle

7. tea towels

8. corkscrew

9. toaster