Listening to the cousins

We were lazily walking a path in the countryside of Tokyo. I listened to my son's cousins walking behind, chatting with each other. It sounded like bursts, salvo of words mixed with giggling sounds. I may have understood more if listening intently, the interpreter's mode of listening, but there was no need for that. I noticed though that in casual mood, I hardly could understand what teenagers were chatting about, and that was good enough. No client ever speaks like a teenager.

The art of getting ready

This sounds redundant and it is aimed at it. Finally, by the end of the day, in such circumstances where the market I know wants you to perform in any situation, even in the thickest, uninformed, unprepared ones, the single competence to nurture, to ponder, to fine tune, to record, to split the hairs of, to massage deep in the skin, to raise to an art, apparently as it must dealt with as a set of technics, strategies, the single edge to build and maintain is nothing but the art of getting ready. "Sonny, you speak the language don't you?" They slyly or worse, genuinely you can deliver at the snap of the finger about LED backlight units, knowing you have had some for breakfast. Don't you? I am reminded of the LinkedIn crowd translation scandal - a sly version of : "Sonny, you can do it for free don't you? You'll get a lollypop, exclusive!". There is no work around. You won't persuade the buyer, the intermediary of your service that preparation time and the money that should but doesn't come with it would benefit anyone, starting from the end user of interpretation : das Klient! They won't buy into it, they know they will find someone, anyone else ready to raise hands and accept for viler price to deliver, something. Are you knowledgeable in thin film PV cells, the whole gamut of it down to the speaks of lab researchers? You bet I am! Just give me a few hours to get the big picture, but would you be so kind as to pay my time getting elements of that big picture? More than ever from now on, besides the possibility to simply quit this profession, the single center of interest must be the art of getting ready under any circumstances.

What interpreters need to know

OPI, over the phone interpretation, is that stupid industry where you are supposed to deliver on mostly any subject, a capela, and often, out of the blue. Self-quoted answer to a intermediary asking the usual question that sometimes just get on your nerves:

"As for the question about my "familiarity with the topic and/or terminology involved", this is the
usual plain joke. There is not a single interpreter on planet Earth with familiarity on such arcane topic. Interpreters are familiar with technics to prepare for mostly any subject although they do not get paid for the preparation task."

OPI interpreters are asked to perform what any professional pilot would absolutely decline to do : fly with no flight preparation and fuzzy maps at best.