“la parole exportée”

We all try to reconcile our public and our private personas. Sometimes it’s easy, other times it’s not.

However, the role of conference interpreters is to facilitate dialogue, to help people of different cultures and opinions come together through a process of negotiation, not war. We are entitled to our own opinions, of course, but in my public capacity, I cannot, and will not, take sides.

Because of the ‘New Friendship’ concept that social networks are spreading, I keep receiving invitations to join in petitions, groups, etc. regarding Tibet. There is no point in bombarding me and expecting me to join in, just for the sake of it.

If I wanted to act on this issue, I would take action through different channels, and in a totally private capacity.

In other words, I am a professional translator, not a professional activist.

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WOW! Wasn’t that awesome?

Some of you (many if not all) are probably rolling on the floor laughing at my innocent starry-eyed comment, but exchanging links is not something I do everyday, and I have no squirms admitting it.

I spent ages debating whether I should or should not ask one LinkedIn connection (a client) to give me a recommendation (he did). Now I’m working on getting more recommendations from other clients, but debating with myself takes a long time…

I don’t even exchange business cards, even though I have some brand new ones I had made especially for that purpose and described in a post recently. Thinking of which, why don’t I post one here, in case I forget to take it out of my purse next time I meet one of you. This is actually a combined scan of the two sides of two different cards.

I am not even ashamed to admit that I am the type of person who ignores every tip and advice you read online. They sound like very good advice indeed, but I’m simply not that kind of person. I keep a huge list to refer to later, like this one here that I liked very much.

(“and she’s telling us she’s been in this business for nearly 30 years?“)

Anyway, to cut the story short. I exchanged this link with a fellow translator, I happened to read his new blog and I loved the spirit of it. And he’s so good with words that he is using this title that I am getting utterly bored with, ‘Lost in Translation‘, twisting it in a very nice way. Have a look under English Language Translators’ Blogs in the sidebar.

Back to work now!

I had a phone call this morning, a shy female voice on the other end.

She was calling upon P.’s recommendation. P. is a fellow conference interpreter with whom I worked for the first time in December.

She was looking for someone to translate a marriage contract, I could tell by the tone of her voice that there was a problem somewhere. But I am not qualified to do certified legal translations.

I had to tell her that I couldn’t help her, but I never say ‘No’ to a client, in particular to this kind of customer, without offering a replacement. She might have been in deep trouble for what I knew. So I gave her the name of another translator who is an expert in legal affairs and whom I have used for personal business.

She didn’t seem too happy with that either. The translator was too far, she didn’t want to mail the documents, she didn’t have any form of transportation, she didn’t have access to a scanner, I’m not sure she had a computer to send the documents via e-mail anyway. I gave her the name and the telephone number and told her to call and make arrangements if possible. If this failed, the other translator would surely know someone closer to her. I hope she did.

At the time, I thought this was the best solution. But I could also have instructed her to go to the town hall and ask for the name of a local translator. In every Mairie, there is a list of all expert translators, for every language. Why didn’t I do it? Because I knew a professional and I know that personal recommendations work often better with a busy professional. The reason why I recommend this professional is because she, when I urgently needed to have similar documents translated, worked fast, and very well.

I don’t know what happened in the end, but I called my fellow interpreter later on, and she is going to find out. The lady’s distress was palpable, and now I’m feeling guilty.

… than this.

But this one’s cool!

As found on StumbleUpon.

Thanks to Caroline Middlebrook’s excellent post.