This is a true story of finding work as nobody.

In the US, you have to establish your credit (as a borrower,unless you are super-rich). If you don’t have any credit, no one will loan you money. If you have never borrowed money, you have no credit (as a borrower).So, how do you break this cycle?

I came to the US as a graduate student in 1986, and didn’t evenknow what Visa (card) was. I wanted to get a credit card to establish myself assomeone who can be “trusted,” but there was no way I could get my first creditcard with no job and no borrowing history. Thanks to the American Express card, which was smart enough to realize the earning potential of graduate students, Igot my first credit card! Since I am a responsible person, I have never hadtrouble borrowing money from US banks since then.

The same is true for finding work as a freelancer atfreelancer.com. I heard of this website from a friend, and decided to check itout. There, an ocean of freelancers is looking for jobs. It was actually quite depressing initially, when I saw that many jobs don’t even pay the minimum wage. Since Ihave plenty of time, I go have a look from time to time. I tried to figure outhow to get hired as “nobody.” (Unlike the freelance English editing I do forliving, my name means nothing at this website.)

I decided to focus ontranslation from English to simplified Chinese, and studied those who were successful at winning bids. I am also picky, because I don’t want to waste my time doing things that I don’t like (since the pay is already poor). Finally, I found a project I liked, translating a video clip of ~1 min. Here is the link to the original YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/dumtar

I placed my bid. In my private message to the employer, I told him that I recently helped to translate an article in SciAm, entitled “Walls ofwater,” into Chinese. I also told him that I am a scientist and decided to be a full-time freelancer.

I suspect that my private message made a difference, because I was hired. To be honest, I had no idea how to get started. I expected to receive a transcript of the text, but it never came. Since I had only three days to finish the project, and my reputation was at stake, I decided to write down the content in the clip myself. It reminded me of taking a mock TOEFLtest. It took me three rounds of listening to record the English content, with a typo that I was not aware of at the time.

The next step of translation was easier than I thought, probably because I just finished working on a much longer article. I also know that my Chinese is not in a good shape yet, so I asked LH for help. The final step was to record the Chinese translation (as a sound file). I asked my son how to do it using a laptop, and he said he had no idea. I recalled a girlfriend did her singing in YouTube, so I called her up. She recommended Audacity.com, and that’s what I had to try.

To my surprise, Audacity.com was very easy to use. I did a recording test, and two minutes later I was in business. I recorded the Chinese version once, and realized my weakness as a southerner: I don’t know all the words that require tongue curling, the zh, ch, and sh. So, I tried to figure out which one has the -h sound and marked it in color. I did the recording one more time, and decided it was good enough for the job that pays USD30. After uploading the Word File and the “WAV” file, I was done, with one day to spare.

What a good feeling of finishing something that was new and different from anything else that I had ever done before!

This morning, I found out that my employer liked my work:
“I amvery happy with the work done. I would hire this Freelancer again.”

And he even tipped me USD5.