Poll: What is the worst time-waster when working? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What is the worst time-waster when working?".
View the poll results »
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Michele Fauble 
United States
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
I have better things to do with my time.
[Edited at 2024-07-25 19:04 GMT]
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There’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the word freelance! Some of my friends and family members seem to not understand that the fact that I’m not obliged to keep a strict schedule doesn’t mean having no obligations at all and so being always free to talk at whatever time they want.
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Michele Fauble wrote:
I have better things to do with my time.
Yet here you are… 😉😂
I view ProZ/social media breaks as an essential part of the working process. You can’t concentrate indefinitely.
The only time waster I can think of is problems with CAT tools and other software.
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NDAs just prior to an "urgent" job please, especially if these involve multiple clauses and pages to print and scan and re-send. Why don't they think beforehand or issue one in PDF form where an online signature suffices?
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 12:27
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
The time spent with LinkedIn has proved itself to be a total waste.
Also, time spent in chatting with strangers who added me out of the blue would lead to nowhere in most cases.
[Edited at 2024-07-25 17:48 GMT]
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 18:27
French to English
If I'm on social media, I'm not working.
The worst time-waster is minor technical hitches.
I recently had to translate a file in a CAT tool there were tags everywhere. Like between every single word.
I struggled for too long, then finally gave in and asked if I could work in the original PowerPoint file.
I realised that the file had been created by someone who didn't know how to change fonts or format files: they had put tabs in between each word because the font ... See more If I'm on social media, I'm not working.
The worst time-waster is minor technical hitches.
I recently had to translate a file in a CAT tool there were tags everywhere. Like between every single word.
I struggled for too long, then finally gave in and asked if I could work in the original PowerPoint file.
I realised that the file had been created by someone who didn't know how to change fonts or format files: they had put tabs in between each word because the font and size they used made the letters overlap and all run together. No wonder the CAT tool couldn't handle it. ▲ Collapse
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 18:27
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Another one is a client constantly emailing you to check on the progress. Some clients really behave as if you were their employee and they were your only client, so they can email you as many times as they want, just for the sake of it. This is not all clients, fortunately, just some.
Also the clients who want me to comment on the translation edits done by their $0.01 random proofreaders. Huge time wasters.
[Edited at 2024-07-25 07:40 GMT]
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| Aren't social media and procrastination synonyms? ;) | Jul 25 |
Oh well, procrastination is probably a hypernym of social media.
Now ... back to work!
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:27
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Q. "What is the worst time-waster when working?".
A. This.
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Richard Jenkins
Brazil
Local time: 13:27
Member (2006)
Portuguese to English
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| I see an even split between procrastination and social media | Jul 25 |
In other words, being distracted, which is no-one's fault but your own, or by being pinged by others and, as a massive book reader and a regular user of goodreads.com - one of my favourite sites - getting constant pop-ups telling me that person X likes your status update. I excuse goodreads as a 'professional' luxury linked to my role as a linguist.
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