preparation is everything...

The client for this pharmaceutical conference sent all the presentations in advance. The interpreting team travelled out the day before the event and had the travel day upgraded to a full working day as there would be a briefing. There was another briefing in the morning of the following day and another final one at the end of it.

Part of the briefing was not strictly necessary as it covered aspects that interpreters know more about than the client. However, I for one was very happy to spend the extra time being prepared rather than just preparing on my own as nuances were explained, important messages emphasised, and terminology clarified.

The client was also very obliging in arranging internet access for us after we explained that the final presentation we received in the evening of the first day would not be much good as it was very technical if we couldn't prepare for it, which would involve accessing extremely useful and sometimes downright life-saving resources like dict.cc and linguee.com.

I felt very confident and at ease working for this client as I always knew what they said and what they intended to communicate with it. It made my - our - work so much easier. Sure, the client paid extra in terms of the full day instead of just travel and an hour over-time on the first conference day for the added briefing but I would argue that was not a punishment. Rather it was a good investment as their message would have well and truly hit home rather than having us struggle unprepared with the technical niceties of RA, if you know what I mean. ;-)

On top of that, as the meeting ended, everyone of the presenters and delegates received a glass of champagne. And so did the interpreting and technical team. I'm not saying that this should be a requirement but it surely makes me remember this particular client fondly, although extra work was involved.

Makes my day, this does...!

"I just wanted to say thank you to you and your interpreters for all of your help with our client's Summit earlier this week.

They were a pleasure to work with on-site and despite the interpreters commenting on our speakers talking nineteen to the dozen, they managed to keep up and do a great job.

I hope that we can work together soon on future projects.

Thanks again and kind regards,

Gareth"

Gareth Burke | Account Manager

Worldspanevents
Breathing life into your events

but you're not a professional are you...

(edited 17 November 2010)

I have written about this strange phenomenon before. Although usually we get compliments from people who simply can't fathom how you can listen to someone and speak at the same time - and in two different languages, too - conference interpreters get asked things like the question in the title a fair bit, as well.

Only a few days ago I was told by a colleague from another language booth that one of the delegates had approached him and opened a conversation with that very question. Now, interpreters are as proud as any other professional of the work they do and of their quite unique skills, so opening a conversation like this is not going to win you an instant fan in the person it is addressed to.

It has to be said, the conference was a medical one. And in a way the assumption on the part of the delegate was right - we are not qualified - or professional - physicians. But then again, that is pretty obvious, as we are interpreters, highly trained and uniquely skilled linguistics professionals in our own right.

Anyway, just think about it: what medical doctor would be prepared to give up a doctor's income to work in an interpreting booth for rates that don't reflect his/her professional experience and have only gone up once* since the new millennium began (and are still a pittance in comparison to what a consultant takes home) plus spend a day or two extra on every job to prepare for it with mostly little or no help from the client (like presentations and background material) and travel to the venue without getting compensated for it? Didn't think so. That's why medical professionals work in clinics and hospitals, not in interpreting booths.

In short, it is a flawed perception that if someone is a lawyer or a deep-sea oil rig engineer or a thoracic surgeon and so on and knows a bit of Spanish, then that person would be a good interpreter. Even if that person knew how to work in the booth, that kind of interpreter would never earn enough to make a living as they would be locked into a small proportion of the work that we do in a year. Interpreting sadly doesn't pay enough to compensate the interpreter for being fully qualified as a linguist AND fully qualified in the subject matter of the particular event, and being limited to that subject matter and hence maybe 10 days of work in a year.

In fact, this actually illustrates another issue: the importance of preparation. Like barristers, interpreters work better, the better they are briefed. If the end client or production company or agency doesn't consider it necessary to ask for or provide conference papers and other relevant material well ahead of the conference, interpreters may involuntarily come across as unprofessional because they have been robbed of one essential part of their work, namely preparation. This is at least in the UK the most common complaint of colleagues. Nobody likes to do a bad job, but sometimes I feel like a runner sent out to win the Olympics with my feet tied together.

So this is a plea to end clients: if you want interpreters for your event to convey your message to foreign delegates, make sure you get your money's worth by allowing the interpreters to do their jobs well. Give them what they ask for, and accept that there is a reason for it, even if you don't understand it.

This final comment goes to the delegates: if you don't appreciate the hard work interpreters do for you, at least don't go offending them by implying they are somehow amateurs. Thank you.

* in the UK

Picture from the conference room at the Maritim Hotel in Berlin Friedrichstraße, September 2010.

some more feedback...

... from Livewire Productions about one job I was contracted to interpret:

"Firstly I just wanted to let you know that everything went extremely well during the TJX conference at Alton Towers.

The translators did their job brilliantly. The only issue we had related to the breakout session but that was more to do with the client than with us. We were informed that the breakout session would be one presenter, presenting to the delegates so we provided an ambient microphone and a static camera. In fact the delagates broke into groups and the ambient microphone just provided your translators with so much background noise that they found it hard to hear what conversations/presentations they were supposed to translate. However, they battled on manfully."

It's nice to be appreciated.

By the way, working mainly through agencies as we do, I have come across one problem: We often get delegates coming to the booth to thank us for our work but our agency rarely finds out, and we don't get the comments in writing so we could use them as references. After all, we are freelance, and we need recommendations like any other business. One agency I talked to about this told me that it was company policy NOT to pass positive comments on to the interpreters involved. I think this is fundamentally wrong. Just so you know.

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.