Busy week continues, but no overly long nights

Second week into 1H results announcements for many Japanese corporations, but there was nothing like Halloween (31 Oct) when there were so many reports by analysts that had to translated into English and out the door before the next morning. There were two big days this week (the 6th and the 8th) but fortunately there was enough "capacity" (this is the term that they often use: they'll ask a translator: 'how much capacity do you have today? can you do a short one? or would you be able to do a (longer) one?') to cover the large number of reports still coming in at a regular pace.

This week I found myself settled into the role of a relief pitcher, the middle reliever who sets up for the closer. Right from about early evening it gets busy, and until the other translators based in Europe (and then later in the night, the US) come online (translators, you see, wait by their computers for translation offers to come in), there's a spread of two hours or so where if reports outnumber translators, then they start scrambling. And that's where I sort of come in. So far, I've been asked to take the shorter translations, short brief passages, but even then it takes me a good 45-60 minutes to translate it and put it into the desktop publishing template for publishing over the Internet. By taking the smaller jobs, I free up "capacity" and they can interest people with larger, meatier jobs (which of course means more work but more money at the end of the day).

I would like to take the plunge sometime and translate a larger article, but I don't know if I'll get the chance. I'm still settling into my dual role as editor/translator; half of my colleagues prefer to use me as an editor, the other half wants to use my translation skills. Either way I'm happy to be of service, just so long as they entrust me with some kind of work ...!