quote:Originally posted by hexuan:
Isn't it the "Phonetic Alphabet" not the "Police Alphabet". Merchant seamen were the first to use it, and you have posted the British one (which I am familiar with) but I think there's also an American version..?)
It seems that in Britain both the police and armed forces use the “alpha, bravo, charlie” alphabet, whereas in the US the armed forces use “alpha, bravo, charlie” but the police use one beginning “adam, boy, charles” (see Copzilla’s Phonetic Alphabet.) My colleague Joseph did his military service in the R.O.C. navy, and he learned the “alpha, bravo, charlie” alphabet as part of his training, so this alphabet seems to be understood worldwide. By the way, did you know that there is an “official” way of reading the names of the letters for Hanyu pinyin? It is similar to the German reading. It is written in zhuyin fuhao under the pinyin letters in the first appendix of the Xinhua Zidian (page 614 in my 1990 edition.)
Aside from all that, which merchant bank is it that has such lousy employment practices?
Because the bank can’t be bothered to get one for you / you are not important enough. It’s quite common because there are plenty of wide-eyed naive souls out there who think they are going to become the next Warren Buffet by editing inaccurate semi-literate speculation by unqualified inexperienced crystal ball gazers, as I did. So if you don’t like the US$3 per hour some other schlepper (It’s not just the Scottish that speak Yiddish you know) will come and take your place.
I toyed with the idea of marching straight up to the MOFA with my woes, as I’m sure every illegal worker who’s been screwed over does. But you get used to it - that’s how the system works.
So to this ad for editing at 50p an hour. You can’t live on it. But some useless college grad will take it, f**k it up, and move on. Her or she would be welcome to it. The editing market went to hell when people started to work for peanuts - in 1992 I was getting NT39k for a morning’s work at the age of 19 with no degree no nothing. Now at 30, with a Bachelor of Laws degree, extensive experience in Asia and the UK in law finance and drinking, I would get paid an absolute pittance in some office job. But much less than I did as a mere child in 92.
So I go back to Taipers a full 10 years later and get paid much less than I did 10 years ago.
Thank you to all the dummies who work for peanuts. Thanks a bunch. Some of us have families and beer bellies to support you know. (Where’s my union rep…!?)
Hello, fellow translators. Are you plagued with GIGO (garbage in, garbage out?) For me it is GIFA (garbage in, fall asleep.) Is this a mild form of narcolepsy, or does everyone have the same problem?
Like this for example. Is my Chinese not quite there yet, or is this mega-sentence a heap of trash?
This afternoon I went off to the foreign affairs police to put in my ARC application, which took about 3 1/2 hours out of my work time. OK, I admit I made a little diversion to buy Christmas cards on the way back. On getting back to the office, I found on my desk a form for asking for leave. The leave has to be made up with overtime or I lose pay. I tore up the form.
Well, folks, what do you think? Is going and getting visas and residence permits company business? I would say so. I imagine a lot of employers would pay the visa and ARC fees - certainly not dock work hours for the time you spend getting these things done. Not even the above-mentioned Trade Winds did that! I could make the time up with overtime easily enough, but it seems wrong to me on principle.
I suppose teachers tend not to have this problem because they are not desk-bound all day like us poor editors - they can probably find a time slot somewhere to get the bureaucratic stuff done.
I do my own ARC stuff, but would never stand for that kind of nonsense. Maybe next time, you should just dump the relevant documents on your boss’ desk and say: “Deal with this please, you need to send your office xiaojie to the FAP for me.” That’s what I did at my last job, with the added pleasure of throwing back over my shoulder as I left the office: “By the way, as I live in Taipei County, she’ll need to go to the FAP in Banqiao – I hope she knows where it is – its a little hard to find.”
almost word for word with the Sandman on this one. I too live in Taipei County and fearing whoever got handed the shitty card of a scoot from Taipei city out to Banqiao would stuff it up, did it myself. Mind you I do a shitload of overtime sans pay.
Don’t want to introduce paranoia to your day but is it possible some dank office ‘Romance of the Three kingdoms’ (Machiavellian bastards!) got it in for you?
I agree with the posts above. Handling your ARC should be considered a work-related matter.
Where do you work? Are there any other foreigners in the compnay? How have they dealt with this in the past? If there are some other foreigners there, perhaps you can come up with a plan to present to the boss, telling him/her that dealing with an ARC should be considered work related.
Good luck. Sometimes, oftentimes, I don’t understand what’s going on in my office. Perhaps someone has it in for you?!
Juba, filling out an ARC application form takes 10 minutes tops. Last time i was there at the cop shop in hsimenting doing the same thing i was in and out in 20 minutes. Neither of the last two companies i worked for footed the application fee.
Perhaps your company thought you were goofing off (rightly or wrongly) and docked you for the missed hours … that’s my take on it anyway!
Looks like you chanced to walk in on a no-queue day, and you seem to have forgotten the travel time to and from the police station. Do you live next door or something?
Hey eds - Are you sick of using the wordy title “the Czech Republic” every time you need to mention the Western part of what used to be Czechoslovakia? You will be relieved to read the following:
Hmm…That’s been official policy since 1993, but I have to admit it’s news to me ten years later. Is it just me stuck in a Taiwanese time warp, or is the rest of the world ignorant of this fact, too?
Could you please tell me how often you use the word “quote”, in the
price request, compared to the word “quotation”.
I am confused about how to use it in terms of replying to a request for
a quotation.
Strictly speaking, using quote as a noun is incorrect, right? Which
sentence is more common to use?
“Please find attached the quotation”; or
“Please find attached the quote”.
