“la parole exportée”

I recently received a PO for a project from a multinational company with which I have a long-standing relation. In short, they respond to Request For Proposals that go through an extremely lengthy examination process, and if they are successful, the order for the translation is sent out, usually months after I’ve done the estimate.

The fact that the PO specified an unrealistic deadline was a sure sign that no deadline had been specified by the client, or the Indian BPO wouldn’t have entered something like tomorrow for a translation of 9,000 words… That didn’t sound like my client at all. Either they need it by a certain date, and they kindly ask me if I think I can do it by then, and of course I say Yes, or I have about 4 weeks to do it.

So I set off in order to get it out of the way. What experience has taught me, is to NEVER procrastinate on a project with an unspecified deadline, because you end up being… in a rush.

photo credit: gruntzooki

Then I realized that I needed some input from the client, so I sent out an e-mail and instantly received an automatic ‘Away on vacation’ response. I must admit that the temptation was sooooo great to drop the whole thing until closer to the date when my client would be back, even though the sensible half of me was telling me to just get on with it, as the required info could be taken care of at any time. I really toyed with the idea of shelving it, but about 6 hours later, the reply arrived around midnight. (Contrary to popular and unjustified belief, French employees can be officially on vacation AND work. Most of them don’t really have a choice.)

So, back to square one. No excuse to procrastinate, I must do this project now, not later…