Today we completed a 3-day marathon on
electricity and namely – switchgear. A grand event: 800 PPT slides, 500 terms
in the glossary, superenthusiastic electrical engineers working from 9 am
(sharp!) to 7 pm or later, reluctantly making coffee-breaks and breaks for
lunch; real-time work on the terms when the customer sends corrections and
answers to the questions directly to the booth: I cannot believe that we have
done it and everything has already finished. It was especially pleasant and
unexpected when in the end they called me and my partner on stage to hand in
presents and express gratitude for superb work! And we even did a short
interview for them about the difficulties related to the job! It is long time
since I met such grateful and attentive customers. Therefore, I hold this
complex profession in great respect now! Electric engineers, YOU ROCK!
P.S. Yesterday I was so tired that I
fell asleep with my mustard paper (I have not yet got rid of bronchitis) and
today when the alarm went off I could not understand for a long time what is
going on, where I should go, etc.
It was the morning of the 2nd day of
remote simultaneous interpreting of Lush Showcase in Liverpool, the UK. The 1st day went as planned, nothing
unexpected, all good. But the 2nd day went wrong right from the start.
I wake up and feel the sore throat. It means that I have to rush to the drugstore.
It is 30 minutes before the soundcheck, I run. Take what I want, run back, get home
2 min before the soundcheck. I switch on the PC: there is no internet
connection!!! I write to the support team but it will take time to fix it
anyway and I need to log in to the platform NOW. I remember about the mobile
internet, use it to log in and pray that the internet speed is enough for RSI, at
least for some time before the cable internet is fixed. We check the sound, all
good. I am trying to come up with some options. There is
a co-working cafe near by, it opens at 10 am. Calling -–no answer. 10, 15 minutes –
finally someone picked up the phone.
I am asking if it is possible to
book an isolated room for TODAY, RIGHT NOW. They are saying that yes, there is
such a room, but it is available from 12 am. Thank God! It is already something. I am thinking that I will try to start working on
the mobile internet and see how it goes. If it goes wrong, I will run to the co-working
café. The works starts, it seems to be ok. And then I remember about the notification
I read yesterday about the scheduled power outage. It says that today from 10 am
to 18 pm there will be no power in the building!!! Thus, what do we have: 1. The
cable internet is down 2. The power might be switched off during the day 3. My
throat and overall condition are getting worse. Isn’t it too much? After
weighting up all pros and cons I decide to run to the co-working café while my
partner works. I pack my things, run, get there. My room is still occupied, I
wait. 1 min, 2, 5 I WAIT!!! (and my partner is working in the meantime…). Finally, I am in my room, unpack my things, switch
on my laptop, try to plug in the internet cable but it downs on me that…MY LAPTOP
DOES NOT HAVE AN ETHERNET PORT! Naturally, I have forgotten all about it. The adaptor is 1. At home 2. I have no idea where exactly. My partner works for 30 minutes already, there is
no way I can run back home for the adaptor. I swear to myself and hope that wifi
will work fine. And it does! The speed is quite all right, I relax a little
bit. The technicians check once again my settings (please, forgive me that I gave
you so much extra work), all ready and I start to work. In small pauses I get myself
hot tea and go to the WC to gargle my throat (I have all medicine at hand). In this
way 5 hours pass and they announce a big break. I think may be my home internet
is already fixed? I make up my mind to go back home: there is not much work left
and if needed I can finish it on mobile internet. The power should also be back by this time. And, of course, it would be nice to have something
to eat. I pack my thing again and run. I come home: no, they have not fixed
anything yet (once again mutter pleasant words about by internet provider). I assemble
the set up, log in to the platform, the technicians check everything once again
and I start to work. And now I hear my house intercom ringing…IS NOT IT TOO
MUCH??? I cannot answer, cannot say anything, cannot ask my partner to take over
– it is not easy to interpret and simultaneously type something in the chat. I am praying – go away for Christ’s sake, nobody wants you here! Who can it be…and then THE SECOND RINGING! And then –
MY DOORBELL! What the hell…thank God, the moderator asks my partner to take over and I am rushing to the door –
it’s a courier. With some effort but I manage to behave: he did
not know that PEOPLE CAN BE BUSY AT HOME AND CAN BE INABLE TO OPEN THE DOOR!!!
I see him out and get back to work. Another half an hour and we are done.
I can relax now. Why am I so lucky with such stories?
UPDATE: this
experience impressed me so much that today I had a second cable internet installed
in my flat…just in case or NEVER AGAIN
On 4-9 June Stavropol hosted the Third BRICS and SCO Student Sprong Festival, where I happened to work as a conference interpreter at one of the sessions. The Conference covered youth affairs, education quality, intercultural ties, experience exchange between youth from different countries. There were 3 official working languages: Russian, English and Chinese and 2 interpreting booths respectively: Russian-English and Russian-Chinese with relay option. The Festival included the cultural program: performances by youth teams, gala-concerts, open air concerts of Russian pop stars. These days there was a special atmosphere in the city – I felt like I was a student once again- it was a very pleasant and heart warming experience. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me!
Today I once again worked with one of my first customers: we are together for more than 10 years and it feels like we are already a family. But it is not the point. Each time we meet I am overcome by nostalgia and remember my VERY FIRST experience of simultaneous interpreting. I believe every simultaneous interpreter has a similar story, which you can never forget. Here is mine. At that time I was a University student yet. I was recommended to my clients by one of my teachers, which was flattering and I wanted to fulfill expectations. The first experience of working with them was a consecutive interpreting, which went quite well, and after it they invited me to go to Switzerland to interpret the conference simultaneously. Even today I am astonished by the bravery of my clients (they knew I did not have any experience at all) and my own, but then I decided that I could not afford to miss this chance. So I am in Switzerland and walking to the interpreting booth (and I saw the conference interpreting equipment in the booth for the first time there as well since the equipment in the University looked significantly different), my knees are trembling and my heart beating super fast. Here I should say that the topic of the conference was quite sophysticated: medical equipment and among others several scientific presentations on physics. But I am fearless and so I am going to the booth. However, it is not enough that it is my first simultaneous interpreting and the topic is difficult, to top that all I am in the booth alone…Why? I did not quite understand back then how simultaneous interpreters work. They seemed to me very high above, unreal perfect people from another planet. Only afterwards I learned that in fact simultaneous interpreters work in pairs and change every 20-30 minutes. Thus, 1st simultaneous interpreting, complex medical topic, I am all by myself but even that was not all! The client comes to sit next to me in the booth. And – attention – when I do not understand something and interpret wrongly he takes the headset of me (!!!) and starts to explain to me what it really means and how I should have translated it. So you understand, right, the conference goes on, the speaker develops his/her idea and here I am sitting and listening to the client (naturaly, I hardly understand anything due to adrenaline) and when I finally put on the headset again I am trying to once again get what it is all about. Later my listeners told me that once or twice I exclaimed in the microphone “Oh my God!!!”. However, despite all that I was really lucky – both with the client, who was amazingly good willing and tolerant, and with the listeners who always supported me. If anyone of you ever reads this – thank you so much! Thanks to you I did not run away from the profession and continued to learn and develop my skills, though my first simultaneous interpreting experience was so stressfull. And thanks to you I traveled all over Switzerland afterwards. It was great!
