You Must Be Tired... お疲れ様の悲劇

以前に実際に起きたお疲れ様の悲劇について書いてみました｡｡｡

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Otsukare sama" in Japanese? Literally, this means "You must be tired," but in practice, it's used for someone working hard to appreciate what they've done and on many other occasions especially at work.

For example, you can say that to your coworkers in the office to mean "Good morning / afternoon / evening" or "Hello / hi." You can use it for someone completing their project to mean "Good job" or finishing their work and leaving the office instead of saying "See you (tomorrow)." It's very easy to use because you can use it anytime (even early in the morning before being tired) because it includes no word related to when to use (e.g., morning, afternoon or evening). You can also start business emails with this phrase to your coworkers to mean "Hope you are well." 

When I was working as a translator for a project at the Tokyo office of an American company, a project member wrote an email to someone he didn't know at the London office. The member is Japanese and doesn't speak English, so he wrote the email first in Japanese, then translated it using some translation software into English. The beginning of that email "Otsukare sama," a usual Japanese phrase, which he must have used only to say "Hope you're well," was translated into "You must be tired." A few days later, the project manager asked me if I had translated the email and specifically about the meaning of the beginning phrase. A few months later, that member was laid off. I don't know if he was fired for that translation... 

Google Translate translates the phrase "Otsukare sama" into "Thank you for your hard work," which may be a bit better than "You must be tired," but still sounds strange for an email to someone you don't know or have never worked with...    

「お疲れ様」って便利ですよね。こんにちは、こんばんは、さようなら｡｡｡ 等、いろいろな言葉の代わりになります。

昔、プロジェクト通訳をやっていた頃のことです。プロジェクトメンバーの日本人男性がロンドン事務所にメールしました。英語を話さない人だったので最初に日本語で書き、それを当時の翻訳ソフトで翻訳して出しました。（私はそのことを全く知りませんでした。）

数日後、プロジェクトマネジャーに呼ばれ、そのメールを私が翻訳したか、冒頭部分の「You must be tired」はどういう意味なのかを聞かれました。日本語の「お疲れ様」が「You must be tired」となっていたんです。初めてメールを出す相手（英国事務所の人）になぜ「疲れてるに違いない」と言うのかとしつこく聞かれました。数カ月後、その日本人メンバーは解雇されました。そのメール（翻訳）が原因だったのかは分かりません。

Google Translateは「お疲れ様」を「Thank you for your hard work」と訳すようです。「You must be tired」よりはいいかな。ちなみに私はこういったフレーズは全て無視して訳しません｡｡｡😉

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