almost over before it began

This turned out much longer than I expected, but there was just so much to tell.

yesterday I started what was supposed to be a job doing translations for a mining company. There is a mine in our town (an open pit mine) which was on the brink of bankruptcy and were bought out by these guys that only speak English. One is from Ontario and the others are from the U.S.

They asked Donald, a friend of mine, if he knew anyone who could speak and write both English and French.. Well.. seems I'm the only one he knows that can do that. You have to understand that where I live it is almost completely French. Although Canada is supposed to be bilingual, most people aren't. And in Québec, if you are not in Montreal, you have a very low percentage of people who are truly bilingual. Most French people are separatists who wish to cut away from Canada and be a distinct society on their own. I'm not one of them, but that's a different story.

Anyways, under the impression that I'm going to be doing translation of documents etc., I get there, and instead of going to the main office, where Donald works, these guys are crammed into a tiny little room, smaller than my livingroom.

First thing that happens is that I get introduced to them all, one by one.

Paul is a geologist from Ste-Thérèse and he speaks only French.

Jerry, very high-strung nervous and can't put a whole sentence together because of it, is their P.R. guy. I always thought if you were in P.R. it would take a calm person with lots of charisma, apparently not.

John is from Washington and is the president's husband. Her name is Peggy and she is not there today. He is a mumbler. You just want to scream: "Articulate!".

Dwayne is from the States but I'm not sure exactly from where.. but I am sure that you could use a bit more "umph" when shaking hands. I was almost worried I might crush HIS hand.

One thing I am sure of is that these guys are mining engineers.. they sound dimwitted because they lack any speaking skills or any social skills at all. Their brains have little wheels rolling around but are not able to spit out more than a word here or there. There are surely some mining egineers out there that sound like actual human-beings.. but to-date I haven't met one. They also lack any sense of humor.

Anyways... they offer me a certain amount of money, I'm shocked.. it's way too low.. I come back with an counter-offer of less than I actually wanted. I spurt out 2.00$ an hour more than he is offering and just want to kick myself in the shins for not asking for more. Now some of you may think I'm being greedy, but he literally offered me about 2.00 more than minumum wage. Even with the 2.00 more I want.. he hesitates.. and says he has to ask Dwayne. Leaves, comes back and it's a go.

So.. they have the union's agreement with the employees of the former mine to translate.. fine. But they don't really want me to translate it. That would take too much time and cost too much. So they want me to do a "Babel Fish" translation.. 150 words at a time.. cut and paste..doesn't matter about certain words not fitting in the context.. they don't care.. just back and forth. Now I'm feeling like a monkey, because this is extremely monotonous work.. zzzz...zzzz....zzzzzz....zzzz

Perhaps now is a good time to put you at the scene of where I'm working. I'm not working in the office building. They have decided they are not sure if they want to keep that building. The only person that is working there at the moment is Donald. There are about 15 offices up there with not a soul working in them. Donald is there because he has special lab equipment and they cannot move now because they don't have any place for it.

So.. I'm in an office that has literally 6-7 desks in it,(hard to tell beneath the mess of papers and dust) They don't really have a place for me to sit down, or a proper computer for me to work on .. so I'm going to work on Jerry's computer and he is going to interrupt me often to check emails and stuff. Every 10 minutes, he asks.. where are you up to now.. what page? He is quite nervous and fidgety.

It's lunchtime, Donald calls and says to come and have lunch with him .. there is an employees room at the "real" office.. we will sit and talk and have lunch.

Oh, I almost forgot this little tidbit... at the little office, where my millionaire mining guys are .. there is no bathroom nor plumbing at all. If you have to go, you jump into a huge mining truck.. because you don't bring your own vehicule into the mining area.. and you run up to the main office where they do have bathrooms.

I do go, but need to borrow a flashlight from Donald. These guys have decided they are going to save on electricity.. so they have closed breakers.. so even if you want to turn on the lights. you can't.

Are you starting to get a feel for how wonderful a place this is.

Now. Donald brings me around the main office.. with all these beautiful empty offices that we could all be using. Pretty desks in a variety of tasteful colors... no computers but I don't know why at the moment.

These guys have closed all the breakers there except for the two rooms that Donald uses.

Before going back to the dusty hovel, Donald, who by the way has no idea that they are not making me do traditional translation, says.. Maggie I need an ink-cartridge. He has a special printer that is very large so he can print out some sort of mapping that he does of the mine territory. He does some sort of environmental work.. and does lab tests for contaminants etc., They would probably like to get rid of Donald, but the law in Quebec forces you to have such a person in your employment if you are running a mine.. and there are very few people who do what he does.. anyways.. Could I ask them to give him an ink cartridge please. No problem, Donald.. I'll get you your cartridge.

Just before leaving, our mumbler, John, I believe, comes to see Donald about a certain plan. Donald shows him what he has been working on and shows him a particular part where there should be a fan.. and the water passes here before going to another place where it is cleaned.. ok.. he says to Donald, ah! we can just dump the water. Donald looks at him and says: You are talking to the green police. This guy lifts his wrists together as in saying "Cuff Me". So Donald goes on to tell him that he has to clean the water, we cannot put this polluted water back into the town's system.. See now this guy mutters something back like.. well the town has to clean it anyways so let them do it. What he doesn't realize is we have spring water here.. the water from the mine will go to a lake where people go swimming. It doesn't have to be filtered by the town.

These guys like cutting corners.. alot.

Then he says he needs certain licenses from the town to do his construction but he doesn't want to pay for a a real plan.. he wants to pay like 100$ for a quickly drawn rectangle with little circles that will indicate about where the equipment will go. So Donald, I can just see his face trying not to crack up.. telling him that won't just won't do.

So anyways.. I go back to the depressing miserable room I have been set up in.. and bring along the cartridge.

Now comes more comedy.

So I ask for a cartridge for Donald, they can't find one.. so Dwayne..our limp-handed genius says.. well tell him to use another printer. I explain to him that he can't that his printer is a large format and he can't use another printer. So Jerry says to Dwayne.. well.. I guess we have no choice.. we'll have to buy him one.

I'm amazed .. but still holding it together.

So he calls Donald to find out where they buy their ink. Papeterie Commerciale. Fine. Jerry won't let Donald get the ink before knowing how much it costs.

Turns out it is 39.99 plus tax something like 46.00. While on the phone, the company I'm talking to used to supply the former mine in office supplies so you can see she is anxious to do business.. she says. Could we come over and drop off some catalogs and talk about opening an account. So I ask Jerry and he lunges for the phone ( I tell you .. he is a meltdown waiting to happen) He starts talking to the girl saying send me a fax for the account opening. The girl is struggling with her English.. but he won't pass me the phone.

He hangs up. He then says: call Walmart.. check their price.

Walmart is a retailer and will be a bit more expensive even as cheap as they are..but ok, I'll call them. Of course they come back with 40.95 plus tax.. which is more than a dollar more expensive. Now, nervous jerryervous.. says call her back.. tell her to send the fax to open the account.

Fine. I call her back.. I'm embarrassed.. she's laughing.. saying the fax has been sent.. I can hear the fax 's beeboops in the background while I'm talking to her. I say I'm sorry and will get back to her.

He says, call her back, ask her is they can open a temporary 30 day credit. I call her back. She must think I'm nuts.. I tell her, I'm sorry but since I've just started and things aren't really set up yet, could she do this.. she very calmly says, Why of course... I can feel her smiling. (She should be their P.R. guy!) We'll make the bill out now and leave it at the cash for your employee to pick up.

Jerry now looks at the form he has received by fax for the account opening. It is three pages long. It asks for company name, address. bank. shareholder names, social insurance numbers. etc.,

He makes me put the name of the company and address and send it back. No other details. He says: they'll do it our way or we'll go with someone else; no compromise. yikes!

Great. I send back the fax but their fax is busy. You can hear the operator saying "the line is busy.. blah, blah, blah!" but it's in French right.. so he starts yelling.. you put in the wrong number... and starts pressing all sorts of buttons on the fax machine. I'm starting to wonder if this is either an episode of Twilight Zone or of Candid Camera.. this guy cannot be for real. He's nuts!

So he makes me send it again. They will receive it twice. I am imagining the girls there .. laughing and slapping their thighs. Ridiculous.

now as if the day wasn't entertaining enough.. he has some translation for me to do.. for real this time. No babel fish.. Great..

He makes me put on a heavy sweater and brings me into an unheated warehouse that has a ciment floor and perhaps 30 filing cabinets all in a row.. and on the other side are a bunch of really great looking computers and monitors.

Now he has no idea what is in the filing cabinets.. because he can't read French.. so he expects me to spend a good part of the next 3 weeks working in this warehouse .. wearing a winter jacket if I need it, and labeling the files. I don't think so buddy.

Anways .. to not drag on this horror story any longer. I didn't want to say anything to him right there because, honestly, I was a little afraid of his reaction. So I called Donald and told him to come to my house the next morning on his way to work and pick up my invoice and a little letter I wrote them.

I could have written down in the letter how very terrible I thought it would be to work for them. That they were crazy etc., A take your job and shove it letter.. but I didn't want to jeopardize anything for Donald, who works in this own office and really doesn't have to deal with their craziness too much.

I wrote something along the lines of : As you know I am an artist and it had been several years I hadn't worked in an office and today reminded me why.. It was much too monotonous for a creative person as myself. The bill for my services are enclosed and I hoped their project was profitable ... blah, blah..
cordially yours, Maggie.

Sadly these guys complain that their hotel rooms where they are staying are much too expensive (they share rooms -50$ a night.. that would be about 35 US) They discussed bringing sleeping bags and sleeping in the empty offices in the main building. At least there, if they have to pee at night, there are actual bathrooms.. as long as they have a flashlight to get there. It is hard for me to comprehend being millionaires and being SO stingy. Every nickle .. every dime. Jerry actually showed me pens and pencils in a box and said specifically.. these office supplies.. if you want a pen or something .. you ask me first. Frankly, I would rather not have money if it makes you that crazy.