Inflation around the world is hurting people and same is happening in our country. Everyone is looking for extra work, part time jobs and working as a freelancer to fulfill the basic necessities of family. In my case, I do not have any pressure from my family. I am happy with what I am getting from my job. Support of my parents and brothers is enough and I am living a happy life but still who doesn’t want some extra money in the pocket. Although, I have never applied for part time job or made any profile for freelance work but if any opportunity knock my door on its own then it is most welcome.
Recently, one of my friend approached me for some translation work of his company. I have never done this before and don’t have any experience of it but I thought to give it a try. I got an email from concern person of his company, sharing the excel file with me and asking about deadline and the cost of this work. I responded her with crystal message that I am not an expert in it and don’t know about the cost, I will be ok with whatever you decide and asked to give me three days of time to complete this excel sheet with translation. She was ok with it and asked to start working on it. Below were my exact words on the email:
Thank you for your consideration for English translation however, I am having a tight schedule and busy weekdays so I am unable to commit time at the moment but most probably can complete the task by Tuesday Morning.
Regarding cost, I am not sure or you can say unaware of the cost of this work but it would be good to go with whatever you decide.
I just had one thing in my mind to complete this task ASAP. I never did translation work before, these were some feedbacks from customers on their new product launch in Urdu which needs to be translated in English. It was around 2000 rows and I was unable to calculate the exact time to do this work. I passed couple of days without even touching that file and when one day left, I started working on it. This is the worst habit I have to delay things and do in the last moments. I remember doing the same in exams too LOL and this always had bad impact on me. Once again, I was trapped in this. No doubt, I was liking this translation work as it was not so hard but due to lack of time, I got upset and worried of deadline.
As expected, I was unable to complete the sheet on given deadline due to which I received a negative feedback from concern, commitment is very important in freelance working. She gave one extra day to complete the file. Also share another work at the same time and asked deadline and cost of it. I replied with below message:
I am already trying to finish the first one and hope to revert that by tomorrow morning, I would suggest to have a look at that first and if you find it all good then I will start working on this one.
First, I want to make sure that my work is acceptable and then I was to take another task. All night, I worked on that file and reverted to her. She replied in the morning to start working on second file. It felt good and satisfactory because my inner satisfaction is very important to me. Second file just had 250 rows so, I took it very lightly and confirmed to revert it by tomorrow. My speed is getting better now. When I get back home from work, finished the second file in 2 hours. Just at the end moment when I was sharing the updated file on email, I cross checked and saw another sheet which I didn’t noticed before. OMG, this file had 2 sheets each with 250 rows. And the second sheet had lengthy sentences. Ops I was literally sweating but on the positive side, thank God that I checked it at the last moment to get saved from embarrassment. Once again, I worked at night to complete that file. I was too much stressed out, handling the pressure and deadline lock, not easy. I shared the file next morning.
Overall, it was a good experience as I get something to learn from it and mainly about commitments and deadlines. The cost was not yet informed to me so, I pushed my friend to check with concern for the same and let me know the feedback and $$$. I was unable to write a post on daily basis for last couple of weeks just because of this work.
It didn’t stop here, the third task was super crazy which I am going to share by tomorrow. So stay tuned……
