Is not it good to show up at work and find in your mailbox an attractive offer? Some SHYAM SANGHI from LINGUISTICS INTERNATIONAL (India) offers a job to translate 400 pages from Russian into English. Why Shyam has got an order for translation from Russian to English remains unclear, but further investigation reveals that not only Shyam is a talented marketer, but also he is a generous employer as he offers no less than $3 for a page of translation. God, save the client!
Shyam should not be blamed. Shyam is an ordinary con man who are in abundance. The guilty party is the client, who is giving the results of efforts of engineers, analysts, and other experts to God knows whom. 400 pages is not a love letter “let’s go to the movies tonight”, it is, no doubt, analytical calculations, feasibility studies, scientific research. Lots of efforts, money and hours have been invested to create these 400 pages. And now all this is given to Shyam. At $3 a page.
Which is a little more than a cent a word. But that is without Shyam’s profit. Shyam is a great man. Shyam has obtained a good order. Shyam is to be respected. Taking into account Shyam’s profit $3 a page turn into a dollar a page, at best. For India it may be quite a bit. An Indian peasant, having desperately struggled with poverty and deprivation of human rights, will dart forward to light, to the effulgent pinnacles inhabited by semi-gods who make a whole dollar for a page. Way to go, Dharmavir! Good luck to you! Armed with a Russian-English dictionary Dharmavir is translating a feasibility study for an international pipeline construction project, that is all descriptions of cathodic protection, hydraulic surge and net positive suction head analyses, mechanical stress calculations and design of distributed control systems. He is translating from a language that he does not know to a language that he was poorly taught to at a rural school. The greatness of Dharmavir’s mission can be compared only with the flights to the Moon, but the latter is still pales before the grandeur of his endeavor.
Dharmavir is not alone in his titanic struggle. Even he is not capable to overcome all 400 pages. Native English speaking translators from UK or USA are out of questions due to their cupidity. So much the worse for them. Internet has made everyone equal – an experienced translator Robert, and the Indian titan Dharmavir, and a Smolensk schoolboy Vitya.
Vitya certainly understands that his pay is non-adequate, to say the least. Moreover, he strongly suspects that Shyam won’t pay him at all. But he does not have a choice, he owns to his classmate for a handful of marijuana and he is eager to grasp any earning opportunity. In contrast with his Indian fellow in arms Vitya knows Russian language. Not enough, of course, to grasp majority logic circuits or analysis of fluid viscosity, but still. Unfortunately, Vitya does not know English at all. This makes his job a little more difficult, but why would we be scared of challenges? Those who need it will understand!
This is not the end of the miracles. Shyam and the like keep being in business and getting orders. The magic word “cheap” completely blocks the thought process of a manager or secretary when making decisions on getting translations from disreputable dealers.
And, eventually, the job is done. The translation is handed over to the client. Shyam has received the agreed upon number of dollars. Dharmvir, having begged his employer, has received a half of the money he earned. Vitya has been beat for not paying his debt. The manager who gave the translation to Shyam quit and got a better job.
Everyone is happy, other than Vitya. But we should not niggle.
