Urgent! Your opinion about this job offer, please

[tokyo]

Originally posted by alphamale

I still think they want KOOKY for a threesome.

He has kids, I met his youngest daughter and the boyfriend of his oldest daughter who drove me home.

 

Actually, that would be also worth a question. I find him to be extremely open. He talks for hours on the phone. The first time I called him he asked me about my boyfriends. YES, I'm not stupid, it's just he seems to be pretty genuine. When we met, he took my hand. That's a no-no for me usually. He showed me his garden (his office is at home). He seems to have a happy family. He tried to tickle me and told me to losen up.

 

I'm confused.

 

I've been wondering lately if I'm not really closed-minded.

[alphamale]

Originally posted by kooky

I'm saying "elitist" as in he's really professional and ambitious, he expects good work and good employees, etc.

 

This is not the correct usage of the word "elitist" KOOKY. Man, now i have to wonder 'bout your translating ability .

 

An elitist is someone who think extremely highly of himself and looks down upon all others in a negative way.

[tokyo]

Originally posted by alphamale

This is not the correct usage of the word "elitist" KOOKY. Man, now i have to wonder 'bout your translating ability .

 

An elitist is someone who think extremely highly of himself and looks down upon all others in a negative way.

Hey, I know what elitist means. He has an extremely high opinion of himself. He calls himself elite.

[faux]

I understand that translation is difficult, but I also understand that accurate translations are very important, especially if the documents do contain legal terms. If you only managed to score a "medium" grade, I do not think this man is doing anything wrong in wanting someone who is more accurate; documents containing legalese would have to be translated near-perfectly.

 

If you want the job, you should work harder and get a better score. If you cannot do this, and do not feel it is necessary to put your all into it so that you can deliver the most accurate translations possibile, I can understand why you might not be best suited to this particular job.

[moimeme]

It's just as if I have to try to get accepted into his elitist club and I'm not really in the mood for this. Could I be better and am just too lazy?

 

I'm saying "elitist" as in he's really professional and ambitious, he expects good work and good employees, etc. I hate it when people have all sorts of expectations on me, I feel stressed and I'm wondering if I'm just subconsciously avoiding the stress by saying that I think he expects too much of me even though I could do a better job. Is my argumentation as far as now reasonable that he expects too much?

 

It sounds as though you have a fairly bad attitude. You are not even a professional translator, nor can you speak the second language fluently, and therefore you have no right to get yourself in a snit that he said you weren't good enough. You should have sufficient understanding about your lack of abilities to take direction gracefully and to learn how to do the job better. You'll get pretty much nowhere in the work world if your attitude is 'I am perfect and therefore take me as I am or go to hell'.

[tokyo]

Faux, I understand that translations have to be accurate, but it's not that important stuff, these are not contracts, I would think he was nuts if he let his legal documents translate by me. I think if he wants to get a perfect job he should get a professional translator. In my opinion he has pretty high expectations on someone who never studied this. I will also certainly not get paid like a translator. I guess, it bugs me that he tells me to try harder. If he had said you're not good enough, I would have been fine with this, but I don't feel he has the right to tell me to try harder.

 

 

Moimeme, how do you know I don't speak it fluently? And I just have to translate documents anyway.

 

I don't think I'm perfect, I'm just wondering if I'm reasonable when I say that he expects too much from a non-professional translator. Should I really invest more energy and time and will this make the translation better?

 

Ok, I guess, he sets the conditions and I can choose if I accept them or not. I think I'm beating a dead horse. I should have made a decision spontaneously instead of thinking too much over this.

 

By the way, Moimeme. You just reminded me to be nicer when I want to give helpful advice.

[greenhorn]

Hmm I am joining the thread pretty late, but this thread was started late at night for me.

 

There has to be some objectivity for payment of the translation work. It could be based on no of words or no of lines but never on quality as a whole. It is impossible to be objective on that parameter.Even the professional testing agencies who do grading for Essays in GMAT or GRE finds it difficult and there are two evaluators for it.

 

So Kooky, my advice would be to fix that sort of payment criteria or else they will always find some ways to give reduced money.

 

I think in any job one always needs to swallow some pride and bit more when working for family run businesses. The crave for flexibility and independent decision making is what leads to many setting up their own business.

 

I don't think that there is any human being who can 100 % objectively judge the quality of an essay or translation work.

 

2 cents please.