Monday, January 17, 2011

Sharing some reflexions and feelings


Today I thought posting a brief heads-up 
since I was not able to post in more then a week.
It was a busy week, new job related, and I wasn't able to sew
or do anything else crafts related.
The cravings however were huge,
and this morning I've been sewing and sewing,
working on a new hexagon table runner.

Anyway...
I thought I would share a little bit how I feel
about the new job experience.
 I think I've told you that this is a part-time job,
8 hours per day, 2 days per week,
as an over-the-phone interpreter.
As some of you might recall I am originally from Portugal,
so my language target for interpretation is Portuguese.
Portugal
is situated in Europe,
the most western country in Europe.
Like Great Britain and Spain,
 Portugal was once a big colonial empire.

The Portuguese colonies would go
from South America (Brazil),
to Africa (Guine-Bissau, S. Tome e Principe, Cabo Verde, Angola e Mozambique),
Indonesia East Timor),
China (Macau)
and India (Goa, Damao e Diu).
It's understandable why Brazilians speak Portuguese, right?, as all of the former Portuguese colonies speak Portuguese also.

 The Portuguese language,
which derived from Latin and is classified as a "romanica language"
(along with French, Italian and Spanish), 
gave birth to all those Portuguese speaking branches all over the world, which have different accents, regionalisms and influences that absolutely differ from the original European Portuguese Language.
If I was able to spike your curiosity about this beautiful European country of mine, you can check out here for more information.
Coming back to my new job thoughts/reflexions...
Since the employer does not make the distinction
between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese,
both Portuguese and Brazilian languages are interpreted
either by Portuguese or Brazilian Interpreters,
randomly.
And sometimes it's not that easy,
not only the accent is so much different as also
there are conceptual and cultural differences in both languages.

 Well... to put it all on one word: it's a very stressful job!

Very demanding and stressful,
since one doesn't know what about the next call will be,
and it can be about anything.

Literally anything:
medical, insurance, emergency services, legal, technical, federal or state services, court, legal...
... and one has to be ready
to quickly remember specific terminology types,
to be able to deliver a good, accurate rendition,
to be able to remember different customer services protocols
and so on and so on...
Overall... it's a field far away
from my professional special education background,
most customer service related,
with some nice and others not so nice CS representatives.
It's really demanding and stressful.
Will I keep on?
I can't honestly answer that question yet,
but it definitely leaves me with a nostalgic feeling on my soul,
from my days of teaching, and the contact with people in presence,
 real presence,
not just voices over the phone.

I hope to meet you all here again shortly.
Till then, you all take care.

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