And here is my first case study... when your boss asks you to translate small documents because you're bilingual, I would strongly suggest that you just decline for the (good) reason that you are not a translator. Here is now the story of Mrs. X who is a bilingual secretary for a small company. Her boss sometimes asks her to translate small documents, emails, etc., and because she wants to be a good employee, she always accepts. Everything goes well for a while, but one day she is in a hurry and has to go home early. That same day, her boss asks her for another small translation. She is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and because she doesn't want to disappoint him, she uses a computer program. A simple copy-paste, two clicks, and there you are, the translation is done. She gives the translation to her boss and leaves. He starts reading the text, but very quickly realizes that it doesn't make any sense. So he sends the original text and the translation to a professional translator and asks for an unbiased opinion. Within hours, the opinion is in: "this is a computer-generated translation, there is no doubt about it"... Now what do you think her boss is thinking? As a boss, could you trust - or even keep - your employee after this?
I don't know how the story ends, but I would assume the boss is now wondering how often his employee has used this "shortcut", maybe jeopardizing relations with clients, losing contracts or money, having the company's reputation tarnished, etc... And now I am asking you: was that worth the couple of hundred dollars saved?
PS: maybe both of them should have read "The biggest "DON'T" of all" and "Don't: think that your friend can translate because she's bilingual"...
