Jorb

So I was describing this job, to various people, back in about month 2 of jobhunting. I had a picture in my head of my ideal occupation, and I used this picture to explain, to myself and others, why I wasn't jumping to apply to freelance interpreting agencies.

Interpreting is about people, after all, and lots of them. And they'd all be counting on my three-second linguistic turnaround, and in the med jobs their health might depend on it, and on the tour gigs they'd all be entitled about it, and I'm not great at that crap. Hell, I don't like it.

So I had this picture of a translating job, instead: just sit me down at a desk and give me a laptop and a few dictionaries. Let me work through written copy; give me a thirty-minute turnaround instead of three freaking seconds.

I didn't expect this job to be that. Frankly it was advertised as more of a customer relations/interpreting gig, and it's been made clear that'll still be the most important - if infrequent - duty I have.

But I've spent the last two workdays at a quiet desk, with three dictionaries and a laptop. I'm up to a rate of six short translation edits an hour - though it took me two hours today for a single page of my own. Still, most of that was spent in background research, which I won't have to do twice.

It's not bad. Not bad atall.

Ps

Dude next to me on the subway is carefully reading the page in his Mandarin phrasebook that will teach him how to profess his undying, passionate love. I don't think he's turned the page in 15 minutes.