How do you interact with your working community? What could you do differently to enhance the spirits of your working place? Is there someone in your working community who brings positive energy to you; why is that? Reflect on the quality of the interaction in the light of where and why is the interaction fruitful to you to lift up your working spirit.
My current working community consists 1 adult private English student, my interpreting clients in the university hospital, the police, and other offices, plus the nurses, doctors, lawyers, policemen, etc. who are the other party of interpretation, plus a few employees of the interpretation agency who book the gigs and handle the paperwork. In other words, I don't really have colleagues to chat or spend time with, except on rare occasions on my free time.
The interpreting assignments, "gigs" are booked by phone. Sometimes I get an urgent phone call at night, in the evening, 7 a.m. or when I'm just cooking a delicious Italian lunch, and they ask if I can come ASAP. Often I can. Work takes place face-to-face, also with my English student. With the student we communicate by e-mail or by phone if we need to make changes. Some interpretation jobs are booked in advance by e-mail.
To inhance the spirit of the work place, because the interpreting situations are either very personal, intimate and stressful (hospital, police cell, court cases) I aim to be emphatic and positive and try to make a connection with the client, yet remaining neutral. I want to leave a positive impression also to improve my chances of being hired again. I'm really nice to secretaries, because they are the ones who call me, but they are rarely up to date with where to find my paperwork from their own files, so often I have to instruct them to use their own systems.
Just few days ago there was an instance that another interpreter showed up for interpreting appointment. In the papers, my name was written down, so the other interpreter had to withdraw, but I discovered that this other one had interpreted the same client previously. A family member laughed that they were not sure if they were going to have an interpreter, so two was better than nothing. This wasn't the first time another non-Finnish interpreter emerges, so I've been wondering if there's some conspiracy to steal my job, since there has been very little work lately, but it could have been just some weird mix-up. I guess that's part of my "working community" too, but that's when and how I DON'T want to meet my colleagues. Actually, one non-Finnish, aspiring interpreter guy told me squarely that "we could cooperate and he could take my assignments". How rude! There are not enough jobs in my field, also confirmed by the Employment Agency statistics of job barometer 2012, so there seems to be a fierce competition of interpretation assignments.
Mostly my clients bring positive energy into my work: majority of them are very positive, grateful and personal. They often tell their life stories to me while we wait, and several times they have invited me to visit their city abroad. Professionally I don't give my contact information to clients, but sometimes we have exchanged phone numbers, for example when I interpreted through a delivery and was invited to a baby party some time later. The patient-clients are grateful and happy, because the level of treatment is very high and the staff has high expertise in the university hospital. In our Eastern neighbor country, for example, hospitals do not cater any meals for the patients.
Even though some interpretation situations are stressful and clients are there to have their problems sorted out, mostly the work is very rewarding and gives me energy. Interaction is fruitful, because the staff shares me new information, so I learn about the diseases and treatment methods, which is very interesting. The interaction with clients is also great, because I develop my own expertise by learning new vocabulary, and often the patients comment on good language skills.
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