Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Bad news, good news

I delivered the translation on time (nearly 2 working days ago) but Client just informed me that they hadn't received it yet because their system glitch turned out to be a major meltdown; they still have no e-mail. So while faxing the translation (fortunately a feasible 6 pages), just as page 1 slides out of the fax machine onto the floor, that word I needed to avoid the awkward, ambiguity-inducing repetition in the 3rd sentence suddenly leaps to my mind, after having eluded me during all last week's composition and proofreading stages.

Expose my mistake to Client? Risk looking haphazard? Of course. It's better than leaving them with the wrong word. So I cross it out, pen in the right word, and slip page 1 back into the fax machine behind the last page so it can run through again with the change clearly marked.