My life as a translator (Part 2)
"Apa yang kamu buat kat kerja? Asyik tidur aje!"
I can't say he's too far off from the mark actually. (My younger brother and I have this penchant for conversing in Malay. We probably picked this up from all those Malay manga we read.). I spend most of my time at work dreaming. I try not to sleep openly, but sometimes, I just doze off and start drooling on my keyboard. My colleagues are nice enough to *psst!* me. My boss walks by and slaps me on the back when he sees me yawning, but he also yawns a lot ;)
Recently, I was asked to create a document to track my translation activities (who the assignments came from, how long they took, etc.) and it was satisfying to look at all these figures. Now I know I've done more than 100 official translation jobs. Not counting the times when secretaries drop by for a quick question, or when my German colleagues IM me over the office network to ask for help. I'm rather happy that the corporate communications team over in Germany actually bothers to consult me nowadays whenever they are working on something new which will be published in English eventually. There's actually a very open atmosphere in the company, both here in Malaysia and over in Germany. I remember when I pointed out a bad translation on one of our internal wikis, and my colleague was quick to point out: "ups - aber das waren nicht wir ComMädels :-)" (oops, but we comm girls didn't do that). I guess this is why I like my job, the requests may be rushed, but people always ask in a polite but casual manner and it feels more like I'm doing a friend a favour.
The work isn't always technical. Sometimes, I get to translate semi-formal announcements about events in the company, and there's a certain tone of pride in these announcements which is hard to pinpoint, but as a translator, I try my best to convey this. I really wonder who actually reads the things I translate. But whenever I translate something, there's a feeling of accomplishment, like I've drawn a secret crayon drawing on the wall which only other little boys of my age can see and appreciate. Slowly but surely, I'm drawing on the wall. I wonder what kind of image I've been working on.
I can't say he's too far off from the mark actually. (My younger brother and I have this penchant for conversing in Malay. We probably picked this up from all those Malay manga we read.). I spend most of my time at work dreaming. I try not to sleep openly, but sometimes, I just doze off and start drooling on my keyboard. My colleagues are nice enough to *psst!* me. My boss walks by and slaps me on the back when he sees me yawning, but he also yawns a lot ;)
Recently, I was asked to create a document to track my translation activities (who the assignments came from, how long they took, etc.) and it was satisfying to look at all these figures. Now I know I've done more than 100 official translation jobs. Not counting the times when secretaries drop by for a quick question, or when my German colleagues IM me over the office network to ask for help. I'm rather happy that the corporate communications team over in Germany actually bothers to consult me nowadays whenever they are working on something new which will be published in English eventually. There's actually a very open atmosphere in the company, both here in Malaysia and over in Germany. I remember when I pointed out a bad translation on one of our internal wikis, and my colleague was quick to point out: "ups - aber das waren nicht wir ComMädels :-)" (oops, but we comm girls didn't do that). I guess this is why I like my job, the requests may be rushed, but people always ask in a polite but casual manner and it feels more like I'm doing a friend a favour.
The work isn't always technical. Sometimes, I get to translate semi-formal announcements about events in the company, and there's a certain tone of pride in these announcements which is hard to pinpoint, but as a translator, I try my best to convey this. I really wonder who actually reads the things I translate. But whenever I translate something, there's a feeling of accomplishment, like I've drawn a secret crayon drawing on the wall which only other little boys of my age can see and appreciate. Slowly but surely, I'm drawing on the wall. I wonder what kind of image I've been working on.