#f2finterpreting

[nxiousxpsistence]

16/02/2022 - Am I an asshole to myself?

I woke up at around 6.20 today, for a Zoom meeting starting at 6.30 am. I don’t believe in personal preparation before any meeting. I wake up as early as that about once a week, as I work for an international NGO focusing on civic engagement back in [redacted] and my 6 is their 9. It was a 2-hour meeting that got me tired even before the day began.

Thorn/Bud: Interpreting between an Audience and an Organisation is much different than interpreting between an Organisation and its Advisory Board, where the discussions will be more in-depth and concepts used more abstract & wider in scope.

Then, I had a 3-hour F2F meeting booked in Enfield at 11 am, which meant I left home immediately after the first meeting. I was at the train station when I got a very unexpected bonus from an international (huge) organisation in my bank account. I’ve been working for 18 years and this was my first ever bonus! It’s funny how the amount you get unexpectedly matches exactly how much money you need at a given moment. Note to self: Raise your expectations!

It was going to be my first legal F2F appointment and I was a bit nervous for it. I did some online legal work and even appeared in a UK court before, but being there physically is always a different feel. Still, working as a community interpreter means all you really must do well is your actual job and the legal/medical services are more than happy to help you with administrative details. It then turned out that it was not only my first legal F2F, but also my first sight translation-only job. I was left in a room with my client and I read to them what specific documents in English said. I enjoyed every minute of it and seeing in their face that they did get a good understanding of what was being said meant a lot! It finished early and I was pretty happy about that.

As usual, I formed an immediate bond with the client and emphatised with them, which sometimes does hinder my work. It has something to do with how starved I am for a human connection here. I have never been this lonely in my life. Still, I need to learn how to keep my emotions out of it full stop - I found myself trying to - very slightly - nudge them in a specific direction - never anything major but flies are small, too. That’s not your job, GK, that’s not your job.

I got home at around 1 pm, had a nap, and sat on my usual chair to start working online at 3.30. I have a shift every week day on an international platform of remote interpreting, working for clients in the UK and U.S. It’s mostly medical or immigration-related and I do enjoy it when I have a lot of calls, although it does feel eerily like working at a call centre. I do find waiting in front of a screen with my headphones on a bit challenging - it’s always a dilemma:

I can’t not do anything at any given moment. I need to keep occupied with at least one video playing in the background and a translation/editing job to work on. But my video and my work may be interrupted at any moment by an incoming call, which I never know if on video or just audio. I end up a mess - tired, overworked, and - I don’t know how - but bored. This goes on until 9 pm. I’m now entering the last hour.

It’s an interesting job, though. You never know what will come up. Today it was two old men complaining about their aches and pains and a baby screaming in my ear while I was trying to hear what I was supposed to translate. I sometimes get mental health or immigration appointments. It keeps me going as long as I get a lot of calls.

All in all, today, I have had 4 pieces of work taking about 10 hours of my time and then some. Once I’m done with my shift, I’ll sleep for a bit, wake up early again to work on a translation job and then go for a medical F2F appointment at 10 am. It’s abortion again, yay!

I feel like I am treating myself poorly, like I am my own boss but the boss is pretty mean. But I’ve been like this for the last 18 years, I honestly don’t know any other way to go about it and I have a sneaking suspicion that I can’t shape it any other way unless some god decides to throw me into an entirely different path. I am thankful to my ADHD for the super powers, but I am not sure if I’m laying quite a horrible bed for my future, older self to lie in.

I am going to apply for a very high-level position at an international donor soon, which would mean a 9-5, job security, benefits, and an end to this horribly uncertain immigration scheme. My partner and I may even move out of this 10 square metres of en suite mess. I miss having a spare room in my 100-m2 apartment (oh and my cats!). I have a good feeling about it. Yet I can’t believe I am actually yearning for a routine, 8-hour office day, when the entire world seems to hate it.

Well, we’ll see.