In-house translation – outside the box

Tag: tinnitus

  • The need to manage when you’re “just about managing” – make sure to “take a break”

    The need to manage when you’re “just about managing” – make sure to “take a break”

    If you know me well and personally, I’ve probably talked to you about tinnitus management over the last three years. I might well have ducked out of meeting up or taking a phone call. Maybe I advised that I could only take a call over speaker phone. I might even have attended a hybrid meeting that I could have attended in person – to reduce the volume level.

    I have probably also changed or shortened a meeting length. Or refused to go from one meeting to the next on the fly. I might also have changed a one-hour meeting slot to a 25 or 50 minute slot on you. I might even have taken time out during the day and logged out for a couple of hours. Guilt-free naps have been essential when tinnitus got too much.

    The chances are that you might have noticed I have been less forthcoming in taking on something new recently. I might also have relinquished commitments I previously had. What I might not have mentioned to everyone is about having actively used a coach earlier in the year. I used the sessions to try to address the remit creep affecting my actual work. It is still a work in progress – I ought to get back to my coach for follow-up sessions soon.

    So why am I blogging about this? Quite simply because it might maybe help someone else. Social media focuses on “living my best life”, rather the real view when things aren’t quite working out. It seems strange that I seem to notice some friends and connections more by their absence than their repeated posting.

    If it isn’t going to plan, come up with a plan

    Psychological safety was addressed in the subproject of my employer’s transformation programme I was in the sounding board for. Vacation absence meant limited presence in sessions over the summer. I hope that I still made a contribution. It is good to see that the subject is among many being addressed. Over the last couple of years friends and colleagues have opened up more about the assistance that they have sought. Sadly, I also know of people who did not seek help in time.

    I am open that I have sessions with a coach, where one exercise was trying to redesign my typical day. My wife and I have a regular session with a parental therapist about our son’s neurodivergence. If anyone is curious, I’m happy to engage and chat about how coaching sessions help. We are also in a self-help group supports parents of neurodivergent children. I follow quite a lot of blogs by psychologists and coaches. I read them or books that they recommend rather than doom-scrolling through social media while commuting.

    Notebooks, which I have long used for mental decluttering, have also been useful for coming up with the plan. I never leave the house without a notebook and pens.

    Make time to take time out of the day

    October is a busy time with work – the end of the year is approaching, and the days rapidly become shorter. Leaving the office in darkness is a more frequent occurrence. I take vitamin D capsules, and use a phototherapy lamp. I consciously make sure that I get out more during the day. I occasionally even use a calendar entry marked “Take a break”. Breaks have been essential this week – just before the end of summer time. On Monday I went out for a walk and collected lunch with a colleague rather than heading down to the canteen.

    On Tuesday I met up for a coffee with a fellow translator visiting from Berlin. We sat outside in a nearby cafe and chatted for a couple of hours. Yesterday, I avoided the direct route to and from my son’s school. We took a longer walk (and a trip to the comic shop!) Today (Thursday) I logged out and grabbed a coffee and the Kindle and had a walk. I then read on a park bench in the sunlight. It is a real bonus having a park about 200 metres walk away (60 metres from our terrace in a straight line). Whenever the weather is good, I’ll be making a regular thing of it.

    Take a break!

    I try to use natural caesurae in the day to take a break. Coffee and meal breaks are essential in this regard. Resist the temptation of having “al desko” lunches. I tend to punctuate tasks with a walk around the corridor on my floor – a lap with a comfort stop is definitely a good thing. Some regular meetings also lend form to the day, or create certain-sized chunks. I try to remember to raise my desk at lunchtime in the office – and have a standing stint after lunch if possible.

    Make positive changes

    Last autumn I also stopped drinking – a three day hangover after two beers made me decide to stop drinking alcohol. My wife and I still enjoy an alcohol-free G&T. That is a care routine too. I did drink three glasses of wine over the course of the summer. Sometimes a glass of wine with a meal or to toast a special occasion is needed. Geocaching remains a constant, which takes me out walking usually once a week. I’m currently thinking up a few ideas for new caches. Recently I hid a new one which has been well received by the Vienna geocaching community.

    I am also reading more – and with greater substance. I didn’t get through all of my summer reading list, but several other books have also been read in the meantime. A chat with an acquaintance at the British Embassy also reminded me of some books I not started.

    Getting back to core business

    I am taking a break from the data science courses I had been pursuing for two years. My motivation was flagging, time was also at a premium. I’m focusing on translation-based CPD. I am currently submitting abstracts for translation conferences and getting back to blogging. There are a couple of publications in the pipeline too. Journaling in my change planner has become a daily habit. Best of all it helps me to free up thinking space.

    At the same time, I’ve also tried to feel less guilty about not being “perfectly efficient”. I have stopped commoditising my translation work into numbers of words delivered. The only time I really look at the word count is to try to establish how long I might need for a specific translation – and to handle multi-day projects. Slowing down a tiny bit, actually makes me feel more productive. And conciseness seems to be appreciated by colleagues.

    If anything in this post has helped you, or made you think “I need to do that!“ please let me know. It’s also very good to talk.

  • Load-shedding – when meetings and calls get too much

    Load-shedding – when meetings and calls get too much

    In March, another tinnitus flare-up meant I had to resort to additional tinnitus management mechanisms. This allowed me to keep going, and to take back control of the issue. Hybrid work and remit creep have meant increases in virtual meetings – both recurring or very densely scheduled ones. At some point, it gets too much for me with either headphones or a conference spider. Cutting meetings is the realistic measure.

    At home, the noise level from my three happy, excitable and energetic young children can also get too much. With tinnitus, the impact on me of non-stop noise exposure is draining and I often retreat for a snooze. On some occasions, the snooze lasts for 2 hours. A more frequent need for one (i.e. particularly during the working week) is an indication of noise overload.

    There are a few stealth tricks that I use to prevent things from getting out of control. I am able to turn down all the speakers around the house from my phone. And the maximum volume on the children’s Tonie Boxes is lower than the default value.

    Verterminierung – the scourge of hybrid work

    German has a concept of Verterminierung, meaning calendar gridlock and a continuous cycle of meetings. How people manage wall-to-wall calls and meetings throughout the day, every day of the week eludes me. Some corporate cultures conflate being in meetings with success. Sadly, Verterminierung has spilt over into private life: organising a child’s birthday party now needs 4-6 weeks’ lead time. In a work environment full of meetings there is too much “work about work” rather than “working”.

    I struggle with densely packed meetings, and using wear various earplugs to reduce the noise overload. Adjacent appointments also mean a constant rush from one to the next, and invariably they over-run. This is less of an issue between virtual meetings than physical ones. But there is also no opportunity to stretch legs between meetings. In addition to the noise overload, a steady stream of meetings breaks my concentration and flow. This was picked up on in comments on my Translation vs Tetris blogpost). That post was given a re-airing in light of Liz Truss’ new book.

    However, the typically hybrid setting means that meetings also place additional load on ears. Four years on from the Covid-enforced change, I regularly have uncomfortable meeting experiences. If I am alone in a meeting room and predominantly in “listen only” mode, I return to my office to escape empty room echoes.

    Banishing sales calls

    Spring seems to be a peak season for sales calls. Not unsolicited, because I clearly opted-in at some stage to be allowed to be contacted by phone. I frequently find their machine-gun pace and loud volume of such calls very painful. Usually when they first draw breath, I stop them and disarm them. I instruct them to speak slowly, clearly and at a lower volume and explain that the latter also helps them to speak in a more comfortable tone. If call centre operatives speed up again, I request an e-mail instead, and information about why it is financially in my interests.

    I used to perform a lot of customer service related matters by phone (this is still commonplace in Austria). I now steadfastly contact banks, utilities and mobile providers by Internet chat. My bank, phone provider and electricity and gas providers have proven contactable using their customer service chat. I no longer take sales calls by phone from all of them. Meter readings can now be communicated using the chatbot, phone contracts changed or extended via their app and the like. I also resolved the double charging of my ORF Beitrag this way. Occasionally I have to check whether I am dealing with a human or request to chat to a human operator.

    Applying private needs to shorten work meetings – a productivity hack

    With how easy it was to apply this for private matters, I thought I would apply it to work meetings. A few mails worked wonders to reduce the frequency or length of meetings. Many meetings are now 30 minute slots rather than 1 hour. I’m going a step further: if I set up a meeting, I use 25 minute slots. Or 50 minutes rather than an hour. This also allows breaks between calls and meetings, and time keeping is tighter. 30 and 60 minute slots have a tendency to “fill the slot” rather than good time-keeping.

    Shorter meetings allow me to have larger blocks for focussed work – for translations, terminology and editing. I use wafer-thin gaps to set up and run machine translation tests (a subject of another forthcoming blog post) or terminology entry work.

    I discovered another hack by accident. Every Wednesday and Thursday I collect my son from school with alarms at 14:37 or 15:22. I now accept 2pm meetings, scheduled for 1 hour, but will say I have to leave at 14:35. It often means meetings that are shorter, quicker and more focused. If I need a 10-15 minute meeting, I schedule for 15:00 ahead of pick-up at 15:30. For bilateral meetings, the meeting planner can shoehorn in meetings to not break up longer meeting-free blocks.

    In case people are wondering whether there is a way to enforce this in Outlook by default – there is.

    Changing meeting lengths in Outlook

    In the Outlook Options for the Calendar, meetings can be selected to “start late” or “finish early”, and in my case have been set to be shortened by an five minutes by meetings of less than one hour or 10 minutes for meetings of one hour or longer. There is of course another reason why I have chosen these particular lengths – they tie in with pomodoro lengths.

    Could that meeting be an e-mail, a Teams chat, or even a form?

    We’ve all left meetings with the feeling that “it ought to have been an e-mail, or a Team chat.” With an M365 roll-out there’ll also be “that e-mail could have been a chat”. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly we move from an e-mail to a chat-based corporate culture. Naturally, I’ll adjust my translation workflows (in terms of status updates, translator’s questions and comments, and terminology issues.

    Many meetings don’t have to be meetings. The following flow diagram is one I put together from a number of different sources to reduce meetings, meeting-related dead time and to help regain part of my working day.

    Flow chart about when to hold a meeting or now.