Dear Client…
In this case, the client is a translation agency, the only one I work for. Our relationship is the result of a special situation; I don’t work for agencies as a rule.
So this is part of the brief that came with a translation project:
Please translate all text from column A - and ensure that your translation is also divided into separate cells, as per the source.
My (friendly, yet slightly hurt) reply, when delivering the project:
Do you really think that I don’t know how to use an Excel file? :))))
Client’s reply:
you’d be surprised how technophobic some translators are!!
Seriously!
I’m a member of the baby boomer generation, albeit from the second half… 
and very soon, you’ll read about how I began my career, with a pencil and a rubber…
But technology has been with us in the form of computers and software for most of my working life, in many diverse forms (using software, translating it, translating its documentation in various forms). I have used spreadsheets for literally ages. I keep track of projects, accounts, even Christmas menus in Excel (I must admit, though, that I strongly object to the use of spreadsheets for translations, hum hum, that will be our secret).
Anyhow I would assume that since their inception sometime back in the… let me see… 80’s, the standard professional translator would be able to use if not to create files using the Holy Trinity of office tools: word, spreadsheet and presentation software.
And in 2008, you’re giving me instructions on how to use Excel?
I want to cry…
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Tags: office tools, Translation
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