[Blog administrator's note: I received the following e-mail from my supervisor today. It illustrates the trouble that can be encountered when you offshore documentation.]
My sixth grade son came home yesterday with an MP3 player that he got on trade. Surprisingly, he also got a CD with the software and device drivers and a user manual. In my house, I have to play technical support for all electronic gadgetry and computer-based equipment, so I started reading the manual. Granted, the MP3 player is not an iPod so I wouldn’t hold it to Macintosh standards, but below are a few choice excerpts from the guide that illustrate why our profession is important and that you should think twice about outsourcing documentation.
Do not use this device in the extremely thermal, cold, dusty, and watery circumstances..
More simple under FM interface, it only can do until the 3rd step and deleted is present channel. Please plug the USB cable out after the safe injection when delete the files in the computer. Otherwise it will show that the file has not been deleted.
Warning: This program can just be used by the person who is professional to repair this machine. This upgrade maybe can cause the machine can not work again because of the incorrect operation.
The normal MP3 user can be troubled by ‘Material Leakage’ and they would not like others to read themselves’ personal data’, they only can delete this ‘private data’ when their friends borrow their Mp3, which it cause big trouble.
Firstly, the user can see the format tool, select ‘Partition and password protect’ and select the suitable space for the password protected disk and then set up username and password, input ‘New username’ in inputting username, input ‘new password’ in the inputting password, after confirming ‘new password’, click ‘start’, then it start to divide disk.
Remark: When connecting PC with player to transfer data, any operation is forbidden. During this period, do not get out the USB in order to avoid data transferring not completely or player damage.
There is some noise in the damaged MP3 and even can not play music, please assure that the file is complete.
Wow, that’s horrendous. Frankly, I support outsourcing for many things, but documentation is not one of them. Some of these sentences aren’t even comprehensible. Thanks for the laugh!
That’s horrible english and I think it comes from translating local language to english.