I remember my father told me a story about when we lived in India many years ago. Somebody in the village was collecting stories from the local village girls and translating them into English. It seemed to be part of some kind of scheme or charity to help these girls rebuild their lives. Somehow or other they had heard that my dad was British and had worked in publishing, and, as such, they had asked him if he could help with the editing of the material. Evidently, the girls (who were illiterate) had recounted their stories and the texts had been written down and then translated into a rudimentary Indian-English which required some proof-reading. It was one of those situations where my father was completely ‘over-qualified’ – with his background in linguistics and publishing – but, nonetheless, said: sure – he was more than happy to help out. He received the printed manuscripts and sat down on the veranda to edit. He said that he had to stop after the first line.
The first line of the first story began as follows: I have suffered since the day I was born.
So you can be over-qualified and still under-prepared.