I've always had trouble with the "What's your greatest weakness?" question in job interviews. My real greatest weaknesses have always been too great a weakness to emphasize like that, and none of the standard workarounds applied to me in any convincing manner.
But today in the shower, it came to me:
My greatest weakness is that I overthink things.
This is a good answer because it's true - or at least it's the general consensus of people around me that a) I overthink things and b) this is a problem. It can also be easily spun into a positive.
In translation, I'm always reading my work from the point of view of an unsympathetic reader who is determined to take offence at the content of the work or the quality of the translation, or who is going to be poring over the text looking specifically for weaknesses or loopholes. Isn't that a quality you'd want in someone who's responsible for your communications?
In real life, I'm always thinking of a myriad of consequences to whatever action is proposed. Someone says "Hey, I have an idea!" and I'm all "But what about the logistics? And the environmental impact? And the political implications? Do we really want to be manipulating market forces that way? And what if someone involved has a cochlear implant?" This tends to infuriate people IRL, but isn't it a quality you'd want in an employee?
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