Simone has an alter ego. Her alter ego has a very serious job: translating technical (and occasionally not so technical) documents from French to English or vice versa.
For the last two years, her alter ego dozed peacefully while Simone concentrated on raising her latest bambino. Last night, however, that Rip Van Winkle moment came to an abrupt end.
"Can you translate several 50 page presentations by next week?" The called inquired.
Simone could.
Did she want to?
Okay, she didn't really but the lure of money drew her in.
That's where things went from bad to worse. Simone started translating prior to receiving answers to her questions. This meant that she used the incorrect pronoun and verb form through most of the presentation and had to redo it.
Secondly, she was informed that she would have to work directly in a PowerPoint presentation format but not to worry about formatting as the office manager would take care of that. She was further instructed that she would be held to her original quote of 10 cents per word.
Sadly, this proved problematic. The PowerPoint presentation format meant that Simone had to dig for hidden text. Furthermore, the 10 cent per word had been based on the assumption that the 50 page presentation would be in a word processing format and so Simone discounted the translation fee, giving it a bulk rate.
She regretfully declined doing any further translation past the first assignment that she dutifully completed.
A visit to the playground with the little guy soon put her spirits to right and Simone once more appreciated how truly lucky she is to have a husband like hers. Being allowed to build sandcastles at Simone's age is a priviledge indeed!
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