having standards...

I had a rather heavy week recently, leaving Monday morning and coming back six flights later on Sunday evening. The two conference locations were in Eastern Europe. Both were an eye-opener in many respects but allow me to focus on one:

Interpreters sometimes have a reputation for being a bit diva-ish. While I have certainly met colleagues who deserve being called this, I believe it to be an unjustified prejudice on the whole.

In this particular case, after traveling for two whole days with connecting flights and working for three days with the inconvenience of having to be up extra early every morning for a transfer to the meeting venue, I went on to a Saturday conference - at the normal daily rate, no weekend special, I may add - in Croatia. I got up at 6am to catch the first of two flights and arrived 12 hours later after a particularly draining 3 1/2 hours on the motorway. And ended up in here.

Don't get me wrong, the room and the furniture were well-worn but spotless for all I could see. I had electricity and hot water whenever I needed them. Yet... the room reminded me of the one I shared at university. I don't mind staying in such places when I travel on a budget. In fact, I seek them out. But that is my choice, and I do it for the experience.

However, when I am contracted to do a mentally demanding and draining job, with all the additional stress factors of traveling long distances, and being unable to go home afterwards to relax the way I like to, at least I would like to have some basic comforts that would allow me to recharge my batteries.

Of course, this is not always possible, and I am willing to believe that this was one of those occasions. I also think that it wouldn't have been such an issue if I had traveled there from home and gone straight back, but it just so happened that I was already tired and pumped out when I arrived, and after a short night here as the latest point of reference:



We interpreters are occasionally accomodated in such places, and although I would never see this as the norm, it is impossible not to use such experiences as some kind of benchmark.

So I would like to say that a combination of having had an unusually hard week and the contrast between the very basic accomodations on the first and second jobs, interspersed with a night of luxury, was responsible for the complaints you may have heard from me...

some more compliments...

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your team of interpreters for your support with the European Consultation Committee.

Without the invaluable support provided by your team this event would not have gone as smoothly as it has. Please pass on our thanks to them.”

Astra Zeneca, London 24-26 June 2009

"Just a quick e-mail to ask if you would be kind enough to pass on our thanks to Ute, Antje, Karmelin and Marta for all their hard work on Friday. They did a fantastic job for us and helped to make our European Sales Conference a resounding success.”

Russ Berrie, Southampton 19 June 2009

one major issue...

...at the job today was the way the brähler console, picture see previous post, works. Of the three buttons in the top right hand corner, A and C are usually set to English, B to the 'other' language, i.e. French, German, Spanish, etc. I am not quite clear why there are two buttons for the English channel when most, in fact, all other consoles make do with one button per out-going channel.

But never mind. The real issue with this console is that only one console can ever be on the English out-going channel, and on this particular job we have 10, 2 in every of the 5 booths. So if the colleague in the French booth just had to work into English and then hands over to the booth partner for the next 30 minutes and just switches her own microphone off, than that is fine with all other consoles I know. But noooooo..., not this one! If next the Spanish delegate needs to be interpreted into English, the Spanish interpreter will find that s/he can't switch on their microphone because the English channel is still blocked by the non-working French console.

It doesn't help that on this console, as opposed to the Philips model, there is no way of telling whether and if yes, by whom, the English channel is blocked.

Confusing? Imagine having to figure that out while you are interpreting, with your colleagues grimacing and gesticulating at you as nobody can hear you because oviously, your microphone isn't working, and the delegates start making light of it by saying: "The interpreter is apparently asleep." Nice, I'm sure.

So dear colleagues, if you work with this particular console, please IMMEDIATELY change your out-going channel back to your own language to unblock the English channel.

And dear technicians and team-leaders, please remind all interpreters of this peculiarity, at least until everyone has had some more experience with this just recently EU-approved new model, instead of shouting impatiently through the booth window.

how did I become an interpreter? - part 2

Just a little explanation on this console, another one in my collection of kit I've worked with. Note the Braille next to some of the buttons. Raises the question why blind interpreters would need to know the 'floor' and 'relay' and 'microphone' buttons but not the volume, frequencies, or even the channels they are listening to or going out on. Any ideas?

But let's continue with part two of my road to becoming an interpreter:

I went to extended secondary school in a specialist language class, meaning I continued Russian and French and learned English again, passed the entrance exam for the linguistics course at Leipzig university, and waited for the language combination I would be alloted by the system – no choice there, just 'Einsicht in die Notwendigkeit' (acceptance of necessity), as Friedrich Engels defined freedom. At an open day event that we'd all been invited back to university for, I was given Russian and Serbocroate. I was devastated, and probably realised for the first time that I wasn't into just any old languages. There was one girl who'd got a place in the English/French group but when it turned out that she didn't have the required entry level (a story in its own right), she was kicked out. After the session I walked up to the head of the faculty to ask her whether I couldn't have the place that had become available in the English/French group. She didn't promise anything but I left full of hope and proud of myself for having dared for the first time to take my destiny into my own hand, a big no-no in this socialist state.

Weeks later, when I retrieved our mail from the letter boxes in the communal hallway, I found a letter from Leipzig and opened it hastily. I hope I still have that letter somewhere as it changed my whole life. It said that due to unforeseen circumstances, a vacancy had turned up in the English/Spanish group, and they offered it to me! Needless to say, I was over the moon. We lived in the fourth floor in those days, no lift, but no lift could have been up those stairs faster than I was that day.

The rest is history, they say.

However, many years later, when I already lived in the UK, it turned out that there was another twist in this tale. On one occasion, when I told this story at a family party, mum finally came clean. She told me that actually, after the day when we were allocated languages, she had traveled to the university – she must have taken a day off work for it – to talk to the head of the faculty, who happened to be a woman. She pleaded with her from mother to mother, and in the end it was this visit that resulted in the late change of mind.

I have no idea why mum never told me this before. I always thought I got a raw deal from her in my teenage years as she was very strict with me, but looking back now, she was there for me when it mattered most, and she did more for me than I can ever thank her for.

Mum, I love you and admire you more than you can possibly imagine.

Oh, one of the girls who took evening English classes with me also became an interpreter. Isn't that funny? Especially when you consider how few places the three linguistics faculties in East Germany had.

I was thinking the other day...

... how did I become an interpreter?

Well, it's all my mother's fault. I don't mean that the way it sounds. I am very grateful to my mum for being very good at spotting my talents – or rather inclinations at first – and finding ways of fostering them.

I jumped around a lot in the kitchen to a folkloric music programme on the radio while mum tried to cook lunch on Saturdays. She spotted an article in the newspaper about a ballet group that was to be set up, took me along, and I loved it. Years later there was talk of sending me to the entrance exam for the Palucca ballet school in Dresden but we moved town a few months before the date. One example.

Mum was a pediatric nurse. She took me to hospital a lot when I was smaller, sometimes to cheer up children in the emergency room on the children's ward. I wanted to become a nurse like her, probably because I saw her be happy there, competent, decisive, respected – more so than at home, if I have to be honest.

Mum directed this wish into studying medicine due to my grades in school. In East German schools, Russian was the first foreign language at age 12. At 14 pupils had the option to add either French or English. The optional bit turned out to be somewhat academic as class schedules of the two classes in my year clashed, and to learn English – as mum had advised me to do for my future medical studies – I would have had to change to the other class.

I know it's a long-winded story but please bear with me.

I didn't want to change class as throughout my time in school, we had moved home every two years already, and this would have been my third change in friends, teacher etc. I simply didn't want to any more. So mum again did something for me that I really can't appreciate enough: she went to my head teacher and got permission from him for me to start English classes at age 13 in evening school, i.e. the adult education system. Frankly, who other than my mum would have come up with such an unconventional idea? Two other girls ('s parents) joined in, and so we three of us got the go-ahead. The condition was that our marks in other subjects wouldn't suffer, and so I learnt Russian, then English, and then French, as well.

At some point mum sat me down for a chat. As a medical doctor I would have to work long hours and be on call, and I had not the right temperament for this, she said. That sounds harsh but by that time I hadn't been getting the cuddly treatment for a few years, and besides, I knew that the assessment was honest and – what's more – spot-on. However, she said, I seemed to really enjoy those languages. I had to agree with her. So we explored the options. There was foreign language correspondent, which was basically a typist with language skills. No university degree needed for that. The two academic options were teacher and interpreter/translator, and I'd rather be dead than a teacher. The choice was clear.

tbc

terms of payment...

To give a balanced account of the assignment I was so vocal about a little over a month ago, let me add the news that I have just been paid, and the full amount that I have invoiced, too. I would like to officially say that I appreciate this very much, and it is going a long way to making me reassess my stance towards this particular client after the previous discussions we had.

It is a little bit later than a month since I sent the invoice but that is still within the industry norm in the UK. For information purposes, I have found that most translation and interpreting agencies will pay once you send a reminder. I send reminders four weeks after sending the invoice. Some agencies will pay (according to their own top's) at the end of the month following the month in which they received the invoice, so in a worst case scenario you'd have to wait 2 calendar months to get paid (if you so happen to invoice at the very beginning of a month). Even that is something I can live with as I will still have a fair idea as to when I will have this money in my account.

However, there are still the other agencies that pay when they feel like it. I stopped working for most of those as better, more reliable clients came along. At the end of the day, I cannot pay my bills with money that one day in the distant future will be mine and theoretically already has been for months. I have also always found chasing agencies for my pay a very disagreeable and humiliating exercise. Why would I have to go begging for money that I've earned? It's not charity to pay me, it's a contractual obligation. The analogy I like to use is this: I don't turn up to a conference the week after, either, do I?

To end on a positive note: there are agencies that actually pay before I ever get around to sending a reminder, usually around 2 to 3 weeks after the invoice date. Those are my favourites as my job for them is done once I send the invoice and enter all the final details in my big order book. I can then focus on my real work, which is interpreting and translating.

P.S.:

There is a (this is only my impression) little known piece of legislation called the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, added to by the Late Payment of Commercial Debt Regulations 2002, which give every sole trader the right to charge statutory interest on late payments, whether or not this has been mentioned in the terms of business. I prefer to mention it anyway by having the following footer in all my invoices:

Payment terms:

Payment to be received within 28 calendar days, unless otherwise agreed.

In accordance with the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2002, late payment incurs interest at the rate of 10,00% (reference rate 1 January to 30 June 2009 + 8%).

There is also a very useful internet resource for sole traders wishing to use this legislation. I use this interest calculator all the time as it makes it very easy to calculate the interest owed to you by keying in the relevant information.

The same website offers a table of the interest rates to be applied in the relevant 6 month period in an interest table.

Somewhere they also have templates of very official sounding letters you might wish to send to the accounting department of the tardy client. Just fill in the blanks with your details. Very helpful, although I have never used them.

Everything else I know about this legislation and how to apply it was found on the same website. I found it a great help to find out what statutory protection there actually is from clients who leave us high and dry financially.

My personal experience is that most clients won't pay the interest (although some have) but will pay up without much further undue delay. As such adding progressive interest to every reminder is a much more forceful argument than just sending the reminder on its own.

a question of psychology...

A question that has bothered me from time to time is that of the gender dominance in the profession of interpreting. No offence, guys, but most of us are women. At least here in Europe.

Having said this, let me please add that the 'bad' interpreters, at least in my personal experience, are as much male as female. So it can't be just about women being better at it.

My thoughts over time were as follows:

1. Women chat more, so they are better suited.

Not quite true as I myself was never much of a talker, more a listener. Although this evidently has changed as more than ten years into my professional career, a colleague and good friend told me she refers to me when talking to her husband as 'the one who can't shut up'. (?)

2. Women are natural multi-taskers, and listening, thinking, and speaking at the same time, never mind maybe asking the booth partner off-line what the hell the person has just been saying, is serious multi-tasking.

But I do have some German male colleagues, and I also know some male French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch... etc. interpreters who are right up there, too.*

3. Women are better at putting their own opinion second and repeating convincingly something they absolutely don't believe in. :-p

I think this one might actually hold some water. But I may be completely wrong, as I have used the cough-button countless times to give my own commentary to my colleague who was at those times most likely deeply involved in the newspaper the hotel provided in the morning and didn't really care. :-)

I think there may be some justification for a study into why at least in Europe, the profession is indeed female dominated. Even in East Germany, of the 10 students in my seminar group, only two were guys.

It might also be interesting to find out what the situation is like on other continents and whether there is a correlation, either positive or negative, to the position women hold in those societies...

* clients: If you need any recommendations, get in touch
colleagues: If you want me to mention you by name, let me know and make me a good offer. ;-)