Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Crazy People

In my line of work I meet all sorts of kooky and crazy characters. They come from all walks of life and sometimes they ask the most ridiculous nonsense.

Only an hour ago, I had a walk in customer come by and ask of we do translation services. In true fact, we don't really offer any translation service. I mean, we have or rather I have (seeing as how this is still a new company) offered translation services for my clients in the past but then it was only because I was doing a much bigger project for them and translation services came in the package.

Even then I would hire professional  translation services for my work. I personally can't translate anything for nuts, unless of course you wouldn't mind a hilarious interpretation of your work in a different language :D

So, today I get this customer walking in and asking us to translate a brochure for them into Afrikaans ... really, I kid you not. I stood there and stared at this lady for a full 30 seconds and not cos she was drop dead gorgeous or anything but because this was the first time anyone had asked me to translate something into a language I know nothing about.

After I stop staring at her, I tell her politely that we don't even do translation services to begin with and that she would need to look for some language translation services to help her. But that doesn't dissuade her, she looks at me with this questioning glare and says,

'But you're a printer and don't printers also do translations?'

I wanted to ask her which part of printer resembles the word translator but I decided to be polite and say,

'We're a printer and we print. You need a translation company for that' (with emphasis on the words printer and translation).


'But don't printers also do translations? I want this translated before you print!' She insists.

This goes on for a while and I finally get fed up and tell her to hold on a minute and that I will have to go in the back to check on how much it would cost. So I walk in the back of my office, take a sip of water, linger around a few minutes and come out and tell her it would cost RM6,500.00 to get her Afrikaans translation done.

She looks at me in shock and then raises her voice and says,

'You crazy idiot, ah? So expensive one? I find someone else!' and walks out.

 Like I said, in my line, I meet a lot of kooky characters and some of them takes the cake.
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16 comments:

  1. 6500 only ah?? *LOL* but it was probably a priceless moment to you when she screamed.. "You crazy idiot, ah? So expensive one?"

    urmm.. i did drop by and ting tong ting tong at your office and did ask someone about some translation thingy.. was it you?

    'You crazy idiot, ah? So expensive one?

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  2. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH omfg. Cans I has your blog translated to Japanese, it's not like I could read it, buts I'll use google translator ngek ngek ngek. Oh man, epic oh. And being called crazy for quoting so much? LOL now look who's crazy at the first place? omg XD

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  3. LOL. Nice move you did back there, though... :)

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  4. Maybe your customers think your machines can do automatic translation, izzit? :D

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  5. LOL. i sèriously wonder why u always bump into weird people, or rather crazy/weird people go to u :P a magnet i hope not? hehehe

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  6. OMG! I'm picturing this in my head and I can't stop laughing!

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  7. Anny - Hahaha ... so it was you? There's all kinds of people in this world la!

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  8. Maslight - Actually I specialize in Swahili translations ... LOL! I give cheap cheap price one ... hahaha!

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  9. Lina - As long as they don't expect the machine to boil rice for them ... LOL!

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  10. Xin - Hahaha ... I think I'm a magnet for weirdos la!

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  11. Sriyany - You should have been there. It was even more fun in real life ... LOL!

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  12. Seriously, this lady just came out from where lar? This is hilarious!

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  13. Wenny - Seriously, she came out of nowhere! I'm like a magnet for weirdos ... LOL!

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