How rude!

A guy gave me a call last Friday evening for a job. Literally my hands were full then but he asked me anxiously that I eventually said yes. It turned out to be a BIG MISTAKE!

I found it out a few hours later when he emailed me the pdf files of what he wanted me to translate. He initially said to me it was only 4 pages and the number of words was not much. What he sent me was 2 pdf files, 4 pages each, full of words!! And he only gave me 48 hours to complete them!! Only 48 hours, folks!

I already had 3 assignments to finish during the weekend. Of course I told him so. But the thing is I was stupid enough to think I could squeeze a 4 page text into my busy weekend. Never thought he would add one more file without telling me. I have never seen anyone do such a thing.

I finished 3 assignments by Sunday afternoon. I had an appointment that evening, so I emailed him to ask for one more day. Then he called me while I was on my way to my appointment and said he gave me one more day. Relieving, indeed. He added, "But I really need the translation of the first part in the first file by 2am." I said, "I will do my best when I'm back home tonight."

But I found his email when I got home saying, "What I need by 2am is the following." And the whole text, I mean bloody 8 pages in 2 f**king files, was pasted!!! Can you believe this? How come 'the first part' became the whole text?

Time for me to give up. I mean, I now realized I would never ever get it done by 2 am. So I called one of my fellow translator for help. She kindly agreed to work on the 2nd file although she only had 24 hours to finish it. I emailed her the file and copied it to him explaining I asked her to translate the 2nd file.

I thought I could finally focus on the first file to finish by 2am as requested. But this story didn't end here.

He emailed my fellow translator to ask her to finish the text by 8am and pasted the whole text again! What is he thinking? Does he really understand what I wrote in my email cc-ed him a few minutes ago? I don't think so. He seemed to think she would do both files and asked her to finish the first file by 8am, just like he previously did to me. I emailed him again to tell him that I would do the first file and she the second.

Then he replied to me saying he wanted to read my file before bed and that was why my deadline was 2am. But the funny thing is he actually told her to get the first file done by 8am a few minutes ago when he mistakenly thought she would do the both. Now you see the discrepancy in his words, don't you?

This really pissed me off! It was all wrong from the beginning... 4 pages turned out to be 8 pages in 2 different files to finish in 48 hours and now 2 different deadlines set for her and me for the same file... I had enough!

Now that I knew he didn't need it until 8am, I took a bath and went to bed right away. I was too angry to work. In addition, I thought like... why do I have to meet the deadline for someone like him? For such a bastard? No way!!!

Well, this guy is amazing in a way. He emailed me around 7:30am next morning asking me how the translation was going. In fact, I got up at 6am to work on it but it wasn't completed. He again rubbed me the wrong way. He is really good at it, don't you think? ;)

I then started working on it very slowly. Which doesn't mean I did it with great care, I just did it very slowly drinking coffee, cooking French toast, doing the laundry alongside... And I sent him the translation at 9:30am. That's my secret punishment to him for being a bastard :P

Later that day, some of my colleagues, mostly magazine editors, said to me that 90 minute deadline pass would be nothing! Oh no! But it was good enough to release my anger and stress caused by him anyway. I don't feel any anger at him now but one thing is sure, I never trust him!