Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 43 - Judy Jenner (Twin Translations) - How to Manage a Successful Interpreting Agency?
Transcript
- 0:00Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of found in
- 0:04Interpretation podcast. Once again, I'm one of your Co
- 0:08hosts Animoto when I'm here at Brian.
- 0:10Brian, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic.
- 0:12Thanks very much. And we're also here with Judy.
- 0:15Judy, how are you? I'm good.
- 0:17How are you? Good morning.
- 0:17Good morning. Good morning.
- 0:19It's a much earlier for you, I think, right?
- 0:22You're in Las Vegas if I'm not mistaken.
- 0:24I am in Washington state right now so they are still wasting
- 0:27time but much closer to Canada. Perfect.
- 0:32Alright, so don't forget everyone like share, subscribe.
- 0:35Very important. Now let's kick it.
- 0:49All right, so we're here with Judy, and Judy runs Twin
- 0:55Translations, A boutique translation and interpreting
- 0:58business with her twin sister Dagmar.
- 1:02Is that right? That's correct.
- 1:04You got it. OK, so how do I know which one
- 1:07I'm talking to? Well, it's just Judy on the
- 1:10screen, so that's an easy giveaway.
- 1:12Well, I Oh yeah, yeah, right. You wrote it, but.
- 1:16But for some people, it's hard. Some people cannot tell us
- 1:19apart. Others know exactly who we are.
- 1:22You go to into assignments and you dress the same.
- 1:25You know, we, we share the booth quite a bit, which I love that
- 1:29she's obviously my favorite booth partner.
- 1:31We don't dress the same. Sometimes we'll wear like a
- 1:33similar top or sometimes, yeah, we don't.
- 1:37I think after certain age it's that it's cute, but not as cute
- 1:41as it used to be when we're like 10, you know?
- 1:45I guess everything is cuter when we're 10.
- 1:47Aren't you right about that? Yeah.
- 1:51So I guess you guys don't finish each other's sentences, you
- 1:54finish each other's interpretation.
- 1:56Actually, you know, she is the ideal booth partner.
- 1:59We just have so much life experience, so much connection.
- 2:02And, you know, I feel like I work really well with many of my
- 2:05lovely booth partners, including the one I'm working with here in
- 2:08Washington now. But with Daggy, I call her
- 2:11Daggy. It's a, it's obviously a
- 2:13different level. It seems sort of uncanny
- 2:15sometimes where we exchange terminology, we write down notes
- 2:19in the booth, but we don't really have to because we sort
- 2:22of know where we'll get stuck. It's pretty.
- 2:25It's pretty unique to have a twin.
- 2:27So how did you guys start in interpretation?
- 2:31Who did you? Did one of you discovered it and
- 2:34then the other one join? Or were both of you interested
- 2:37in languages? What's the background story
- 2:39here? Good question.
- 2:40You know, we do have an origin story which dates back to our
- 2:45childhood in Mexico City where we grew up.
- 2:47And I remember just we're in the school bus going back from
- 2:51school before summer vacation one year.
- 2:54And I think you must have been middle school and we said when
- 2:56we grew up, we're going to something with languages and
- 3:00it's going to be called gender and gender cross cultural
- 3:03consulting. Of course, at this point we're
- 3:06like 11 or 12. And we had like absolutely no
- 3:08idea what any of that meant. It's just.
- 3:11It was actually quite cute. Actually cute.
- 3:13We're very proud of it, and it's very personal.
- 3:16Yeah, yeah, we, we do excel at the languages and the
- 3:19humanities, even though we went to a mathematical technical
- 3:23school. But without all this is
- 3:24something we should do. And lo and behold, we did start
- 3:28the translation side of the business much, much earlier than
- 3:32the interpreting side. And we, my sister studied
- 3:36translation, I studied business. And we thought we'd need some of
- 3:39those skills that we can combine.
- 3:41And that worked super well. And at some point we thought,
- 3:44well, you know, interpreting seems sort of like a magical
- 3:47thing that we're both interested in.
- 3:49So pretty much at the same time on different sides of the world,
- 3:52because I'm in Vegas, she's in Vietnam, Austria.
- 3:55We decided to get some training and some credentials and he went
- 3:59back and then both the masters degree and undergrad and
- 4:03interpreting and translation. I also went back and got a
- 4:06masters degree in conference interpreting and became court
- 4:09certified and did a a lot of exploration and a lot of
- 4:13discovery process and interpreting.
- 4:16It seems sort of impossible, the beginning to go from translation
- 4:20to adding a very different skill set.
- 4:23But just like my dear friend Corinne McKay, Well, I know has
- 4:26been a guest on your podcast. It's it's doable and it was a
- 4:29cool journey and now we're do both.
- 4:32That's awesome. And so where is your company
- 4:35based out of? Because you're in Vegas, She's
- 4:38in Austria, you said. Exactly.
- 4:40She's in Vietnam, Austria. So OK, big companies called twin
- 4:44translations. She takes care of the European
- 4:47side of the business. I take care of the American side
- 4:50of the business. And on the on the back end, we
- 4:53had to split it just for the next purposes, right.
- 4:56So we, we technically have two different companies, the two
- 5:00different tax bases because many, many years ago our
- 5:03accountants and CPA said what having two subsidiaries of the
- 5:08same company is going to be very difficult for, for tax purposes.
- 5:12So for accounting purposes 2 separate companies, but the the
- 5:16public facing companies twin translations to make sure
- 5:19everybody remembers the twins. Yeah.
- 5:23So you had to. So it's two companies just.
- 5:25Right. Of course it's just for tax
- 5:27purposes, but it would have been too complicated to have like 1
- 5:33company and two different branches.
- 5:35That's what our CPA said, you know, this is not my area of
- 5:39expertise. So they said it's just much
- 5:41easier for another, some tax treaties of course between
- 5:44Australia and the US, but they said make it easier on yourself.
- 5:48That's going to save you a lot of time and headache if you if
- 5:50you split it. And we've talked about that.
- 5:52A lot of the interpreter circles were friends and colleagues have
- 5:56businesses with others in different countries, and it's a
- 5:58lot more difficult than it than it seems.
- 6:00Transnational tax law apparently is a complicated issue.
- 6:04Not that I know much about it, but I think there was good
- 6:07advice from our CPA's back then. And how much how much travel are
- 6:11you doing for conferences? And it depends, you know, and
- 6:16sometimes I'd say more than I'd like and sometimes not enough.
- 6:19But you know, it's, it's like that always and every
- 6:21professional, right. Yeah.
- 6:22Like I'm traveling too much. I'm not traveling enough.
- 6:25So right now I'm in assignment in Washington and I'm going
- 6:29straight from here to another assignment in Oregon.
- 6:32But that's for court. So it's, it's a mix between
- 6:35court and, and conference. And I, I, I love both, you know,
- 6:39I think court is sort of the, the stomping grounds and the
- 6:43sort of bread and butter for a lot of interpreters on the, on
- 6:47the West Coast and here in the US.
- 6:49And the conference interpreting is something I really, really
- 6:52enjoy, but obviously requires a lot more preparation.
- 6:56And it's sort of a different ball game in terms of how the
- 7:00payments are structured, right? Because if you think about it or
- 7:04court, oftentimes after you have a lot of experience, it requires
- 7:08minimal preparation. Profit margins are actually
- 7:12quite a bit higher. So I'm, I'm very picky with some
- 7:16of the conference work that I take because I want to make sure
- 7:18that at the end of the day, what I'm netting and what I'm
- 7:22averaging is comparable to to other assignments because this
- 7:26certainly is more glamorous than in court.
- 7:28But ultimately I'm running a business and I want to make sure
- 7:31that I'm getting the net that I want.
- 7:34And you have to just divide it differently if you look at how
- 7:37much time you're spending on conference prep.
- 7:39Well, I'm a bit surprised that if I understand you correctly,
- 7:43you're saying that even for court you can go from state to
- 7:47state because I imagine court interpretation, which I don't
- 7:50do. I imagine it to be very local,
- 7:54for instance. So there's a courthouse here in
- 7:56Quebec City where I am. I thought I would get to, let's
- 7:59say, if I had. If I wanted to, I could just
- 8:00work there rather than be sent in Montreal or other cities
- 8:04nearby. Yeah, super good question on
- 8:06Yeah, it's here in the US we have something that's called a
- 8:09federal certification for court interpreters.
- 8:12So every state has their own certification.
- 8:14And then there's something that's the highest level of
- 8:17court, which is federal, which currently only exists for the
- 8:20Spanish language, which I'm lucky enough to have, though
- 8:24with that, that that certification, you are allowed
- 8:28to work in the federal courts, which of course operate
- 8:30nationwide. And the federal courts have a
- 8:33very big need for federally certified interpreters, which
- 8:36there are relatively few of us. So we can fly around and go
- 8:41wherever they're calling us, you know, from New York to Texas to
- 8:45Florida. Wow, that is so cool.
- 8:47And when you're guests that your rates are higher when you're
- 8:52federally certified and the cases you work with are not like
- 8:56regular cases, there must be a bit more technical or something
- 9:01like that or it is just about the certification.
- 9:03It's just a different jurisdictional issue, right?
- 9:05The federal government has jurisdiction over certain cases
- 9:08that the state courts do not. And I'm not, I'm not the lawyer,
- 9:12I'm just married to one. But that the federal level,
- 9:16you'll see more cases that have to do with that trans state
- 9:20issues, for example, drug smuggling, kidnapping of a lot
- 9:24of the big drug cases can be indicted in both state and
- 9:27federal courts. And then American legal system
- 9:30is complicated. But usually the, the, the
- 9:33federal, the, the feds will indict cases that they want to
- 9:37take to sort of a higher, bigger, bigger stage, so to say.
- 9:41We so we don't have those petty cases that you see at the state
- 9:44level, which is like, you know, Jay walking and traffic tickets,
- 9:48although we do have some traffic tickets inside of national
- 9:52parks. So the national parks belong to
- 9:54the federal government. So if the Germans, sorry,
- 9:57sometimes the Germans come here this summer to Yellowstone and
- 10:00they're speeding and they get a speeding ticket inside National
- 10:03Park, you're going to federal courts.
- 10:05Just a friendly reminder to everybody, you don't want to
- 10:09mess in the around in the national parks.
- 10:12Wow. But yeah, mostly it's higher
- 10:13profile, bigger drug cases, but not always.
- 10:16So we'll never see you on like Judge Judy or?
- 10:18Something no? How about I like their name.
- 10:22Oh well, yes, Judge Judy and interpreter Judy.
- 10:25Combining both worlds. There you go, right?
- 10:29So, so when you're crossing a national, so just to make sure,
- 10:32just when you're crossing a National Park in the US, you're
- 10:35in, in federal land. That's right.
- 10:37I can say that way. And if you get arrested, I mean,
- 10:41if you, you know, you speed, you're, you're like, you're
- 10:44speeding or. Something.
- 10:45Then it's not a federal ticket, right?
- 10:48It's a state ticket. Or no, it's, it's federal.
- 10:51You gonna you gonna be seeing me the federal court?
- 10:53Well, you, not you personally, but yes.
- 10:55That's her translator that's interpreted.
- 10:57I'm sorry. I want my interpreter.
- 10:59I want. The best vanish interpreter.
- 11:02I would. Hire her for French.
- 11:04That's right. You don't want me for French.
- 11:06You'll be in big trouble. Yes.
- 11:08So yeah, it sounds weird. A lot of people don't know that
- 11:11that that these are that's federal land.
- 11:14So it's all goes directly to federal court.
- 11:16So except, for example, if you are on Lake Mead outside of
- 11:21Vegas, which is all the water comes from, by the way, for
- 11:24millions and millions of people. Yeah, We just rented a party
- 11:27boat there a couple of weeks ago.
- 11:29It's an incredible amount of fun.
- 11:31And if you got caught speeding with this boat or drinking with
- 11:35this boat, you are going to be going to federal court.
- 11:38Yeah. Because it's not, it's it's
- 11:40inside the state of Nevada, but it's someone in a federal area.
- 11:44There's federal lands called national parks and national
- 11:48conservation areas. That's all federal, right.
- 11:50But usually what we do, we do some of these funny cases they
- 11:53called the petty calendar and federal courts.
- 11:56And oftentimes that involves things like illegal bonfire
- 12:01building and, yes, speeding on Lake Mead, things like that.
- 12:06But most of the cases are drug related cases, immigration
- 12:12cases, which is a complicated issue because immigration is
- 12:14technically an administrative issue.
- 12:17But it, these cases go to Federal Court for the criminal
- 12:20portion because it is, it is a criminal offence to be in this
- 12:24country. Well, they, they, they, they say
- 12:27illegally, but I think undocumented is them the correct
- 12:30term which should be using. So then there's a federal
- 12:32proceeding that happens mostly in border states.
- 12:36So there's some interesting work.
- 12:38Also heartbreaking work, though some of the criminal work I
- 12:43really have to balance with civil cases and also with
- 12:47conference interpreting work. So yeah, you got everything
- 12:50between like drug drug cases and like skinny dipping and Lake
- 12:54Mead like. Anything you have never seen?
- 12:57Skinny thief thing? I'm still waiting for that.
- 12:59But yes, most of it is some sort of drug related cases, but
- 13:03they're not all big trials. I think if you're not a court
- 13:06interpreter, you oftentimes think that you do these big, big
- 13:09trials all the time. But we do have a few trials a
- 13:13year at the federal level that I self select into.
- 13:16Most of them are initial appearances, quick hearing,
- 13:19status checks, maybe a change of plea where people plead guilty
- 13:22to certain charges. And they're, they're pretty
- 13:24standard. They're very predictable, right?
- 13:27They're they're technical, but they're, they're repetitive.
- 13:30But most these days, it's a lot of drug cases, yes.
- 13:33At the federal level, a few months ago, I think that the
- 13:38Trump administration said that English is now the official
- 13:42language in the US. Has that changed anything?
- 13:45And not yet far, not yet. We're waiting for that to play
- 13:48out. I have the pleasure of
- 13:50volunteering my time as one of the spokespersons of the ATA.
- 13:54And just for the for, for the sake of our listeners or
- 13:57viewers, can you explain what it is first like for this official
- 14:02language? And so there is a, there was an
- 14:05executive order they came through that says that English
- 14:08is now now going to be the official language of the US
- 14:11because it turns out that the US did not formally have an actual
- 14:15official language designation, which was neither here or there.
- 14:18But the reality is that Spanish is very wide, very, very widely
- 14:22spoken in the US. But as opposed to Canada, we
- 14:25didn't have any sort of official designation of one language or
- 14:28two languages, which I think would probably make more sense,
- 14:31but they're not asking us. So we're just waiting for this
- 14:34to play out. Like what does that actually
- 14:36mean? This is executive order have any
- 14:39sort of power over the judiciary and.
- 14:41As I just. Show it has a non lawyer, I
- 14:43would say no, that's a different branch of government, right?
- 14:45But can it affect sort of things that the executive branch does
- 14:50like deciding to have the the website for the White House only
- 14:54in English as opposed to Spanish?
- 14:56I suppose so, right? But this is a we are living in
- 14:59very difficult times here in the US, and language access, I
- 15:03suppose, will be affected one way or another.
- 15:07I hope not. I really don't see how the
- 15:10executive order can affect the judiciary.
- 15:13So I think the courts are safe, I would say, without having your
- 15:17crystal ball. So, OK, just just so I put it in
- 15:20order in my mind. So there's the federal
- 15:22government and there's the executive branch, but the
- 15:25judiciary is another branch. So although it's a federal court
- 15:29and a federal offence is not the executive level, that can change
- 15:34what happens in the judiciary. As far as I understand that, you
- 15:38know, this has never really been litigated before.
- 15:40It hasn't really come up, you know, but technically that
- 15:43that's we're supposed to have checks and balances, quite
- 15:46different branches of government mean that we have certain
- 15:48division that we can't all just throw it in 1 LB.
- 15:52They get, I'm no expert on all these things and I think it's
- 15:55also new to everybody, but technically the judiciary is an
- 15:59independent branch of government, right?
- 16:01That's the whole idea that the courts are independent and they
- 16:04are not under the executive branch.
- 16:07So it's a due process issue mostly, right?
- 16:09I mean, they do have, as a defendant, a due process right
- 16:13to participate in your own defence.
- 16:15And if you don't speak the language, that is of course a
- 16:18violation of your due process rights.
- 16:21There's going to be some litigation on this for sure.
- 16:25I haven't seen it affect any of our work yet.
- 16:30And I certainly hope that it ever, you know, I wish I had a
- 16:33crystal ball and I wish the answer to that were no.
- 16:36But we, we don't know. I, if I live in Vegas, but I'm
- 16:43not a betting lady. I don't, I don't gamble.
- 16:47Let's just hope for the best, you know, and I've been asked in
- 16:50my function as a spokesperson for the ATA, for the American
- 16:53Translators Association where this is going.
- 16:56And I, I wish I had an answer. But it certainly is
- 16:59unprecedented to hear something like that.
- 17:01Because whether we like it or not, the US is a highly, highly
- 17:06multilingual country. And there's 10s of millions of
- 17:09people who speak a language other than English as their
- 17:13first language. And should those folks have
- 17:16access to services, to the judiciary, to government, to
- 17:20medical services? You know what my answer is on a
- 17:23both a human level and an interpreter level, absolutely
- 17:27they should. They're not asking us, but we
- 17:29certainly are going to keep on pushing back on the
- 17:32organizational level, ATA NAGET, which is the National
- 17:36Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators,
- 17:39and also on the on the personal level, right with these services
- 17:43are important. Absolutely.
- 17:45And I'm just wondering for the ATA, you said that you're a
- 17:48spokesperson. Does that mean that you have to
- 17:50go a lobby at the White House or what does that mean?
- 17:52No, it doesn't mean lobbying. We don't have a we do have a
- 17:56doctor, Phil Rivers, and I'm sure you're familiar with,
- 17:59there's a lot of advocacy work for ATA and for other groups.
- 18:02So basically, I respond to the media when I'm a group of
- 18:08trained media, trained translators and interpreters at
- 18:12the ATA who respond to media inquiries.
- 18:15And, you know, oftentimes, as you know, interpreting and
- 18:17translation is only in the media when something really bad
- 18:21happens. So we also take it as some of
- 18:26the educational opportunity to tell the public about
- 18:29interpreting, about translation. I've done some interviews on
- 18:32CNN, on national public radios and major newspapers.
- 18:36So it's. Yeah.
- 18:39It's ASL part of it or no? You know, we ASL unfortunately
- 18:43is very separate from from spoken languages here in the US.
- 18:48They have their own associations and I don't have much contact
- 18:51with ASL, which is I think quite unfortunate, right?
- 18:54But they have developed a little bit differently.
- 18:56They're they're under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- 18:59So ASL is something that has to be provided.
- 19:02So without any sort of question because of fall under ADA,
- 19:05Americans with Disabilities. But I wish we had a little bit
- 19:08more more contact with ASL. Actually, at this conference
- 19:12last year when I was here, we had an ASL interpreter and it
- 19:15was kind of nice to spend some time with somebody from sign
- 19:18languages. Yeah, absolutely.
- 19:20We, I think it's kind of similar in Canada to the sign language,
- 19:24American Sign Language or Quebec sign Language.
- 19:26It's it's separate from OTAC for Quebec or ATIO for Ontario or
- 19:31they have their own association as well.
- 19:33Now. I remember the first time I
- 19:34tried to hire you, I thought you French was your combination.
- 19:40I remember that, Brian. That was funny.
- 19:42But yeah, yeah, sign me up. I'm like, OK, great.
- 19:44It's French. It's like I don't speak French.
- 19:46I'm. Like hold on, how so?
- 19:50You wanted to hire here in the United States.
- 19:52Yeah, and. What made you think that she her
- 19:56French actually was her first language?
- 19:58It was just an assumption I think, because Corinne had
- 20:00introduced us and Corinne is English French, so um, yeah.
- 20:05So I thought you were English, French as well.
- 20:07How these rumors get started? There you go.
- 20:11To work with you on that assignment sounded really
- 20:13interesting, but I know twins sister does have French in her
- 20:17combination, but unfortunately that's one of the differences
- 20:19between the twins and that she has French and I don't.
- 20:23Is she? Interested in in French too.
- 20:25She does do French to to German and into the other languages,
- 20:28not into French but from French. So passive.
- 20:31So you've got German and Spanish as an English obviously as your
- 20:37language combinations. Yeah, I do, because I have a
- 20:40relatively, I don't know how unique my background is, but we
- 20:44were born in Austria to Austrian and Austrian German parents, and
- 20:48my dad took a job in Mexico City when we're in elementary school.
- 20:53So we packed up and moved to Mexico City in the 80s and you
- 20:58know, I, I give my mom also a lot of credit for making this
- 21:00happen because this, I don't know if you're old enough to
- 21:03remember this, but this is the before times, as in before the
- 21:07Internet and. We're we're the last generation
- 21:11to remember that. OK, good.
- 21:13So we're in the same boat here. And it was it was quite an
- 21:16adventure. And I consider myself incredibly
- 21:18privileged who have had that opportunity to grow up in a
- 21:22different country and to go to a German school in Mexico.
- 21:26But to have this total Mexican immersion in a country that I
- 21:30feel very, very close to and that that magical world that I
- 21:34grew up in doesn't really exist anymore and is that Mexico is,
- 21:38is not the reality now, but it's still a place I go to back to
- 21:44frequently. And then and remember with much
- 21:47nostalgia, it's, it was a, it was a great way to grow up and
- 21:50I'm very grateful. Yeah, my my grandmother was born
- 21:53in in Silao in Mexico and and they lived in Mexico City for
- 21:58many years. My mom was raised there so.
- 22:01That's amazing. Good for you.
- 22:04Mexico City has a close place in my heart too, so.
- 22:07Good. It's a very special place.
- 22:09It's so big that you can't even process how big it is.
- 22:13You know, when when I was a kid, there's of course a very small
- 22:17part of the city that's really your stomping grounds.
- 22:19That's the there's so many parts of the city that you haven't
- 22:22even been to ever because it's even when I was a kid, it was in
- 22:25the 20 million range. You know, there's very little
- 22:30accurate data. I'm gonna go out in the limo
- 22:33saying and the actual population, right?
- 22:35I remember is there for the census of 1990 and I remember
- 22:39they're giving us information at school about how they're going
- 22:42to count people in it. It seems a big challenge
- 22:46considering that some of these outlying areas and of course
- 22:49more poor areas don't have addresses and it's it's a
- 22:53challenge, right. So we we know that it's one of
- 22:56the largest cities in the world, but I think the actual
- 22:59population is a not exactly quite easy to to to nail down.
- 23:05Point. So at home you spoke German and
- 23:09outside, let's say at school, I mean outside with little like
- 23:12other kids outside, you were speaking Spanish.
- 23:15Well, how? How did that work?
- 23:16Like, yeah, I was actually trying to think back at how that
- 23:19exactly that went. And I I asked my dad a little
- 23:22bit about it too, and my sister and I do.
- 23:24Remember question for the podcast?
- 23:26No, no, I just recently I was thinking how, how was it?
- 23:29Because I know that my friends from the German school in Mexico
- 23:32City, we all had these multilingual backgrounds.
- 23:35Some of them had one German father, a German father, Mexican
- 23:39mother or children of diplomats or their father was working for
- 23:42Volkswagen. And you know, this is back when
- 23:45not too many women expats really were traveling the world.
- 23:48It was mostly from the father side.
- 23:50And we did have these funny mixtures of German and Spanish
- 23:55that we spoke in the German school.
- 23:57But at home, I do remember that my parents seemed pretty keen on
- 24:01keeping the German language alive.
- 24:04But just like all children are either immigrants or expats, we
- 24:08just thought that German was not very cool, that we were in
- 24:13Mexico. And we adapted very quickly and
- 24:16we just looked to Mexico with a whole, with whole heart.
- 24:21Is that what I remember very frequently as my mom would say
- 24:24something in German, it would answer in Spanish?
- 24:27Oh, did she accept that or did she?
- 24:29Did she say? I think she just went with it.
- 24:35I remember she just sort of went with it.
- 24:37But it it was good advice that they sent us to the German
- 24:41school, which we had no interest in going to zero.
- 24:45We wanted to go to the American school, which we heard was
- 24:48significantly easier. And turns out that's certainly
- 24:51true. The words are shorter.
- 24:54Much shorter and there we heard there was more partying there
- 24:57too. So that's what we heard in high
- 24:58school. So we thought that sounds much
- 25:00better, but our parents said no. At some point we will move back
- 25:03to Austria, which is exactly what did happen.
- 25:05Well, I said if you want to be able to have credit for all
- 25:08these years of schooling, you need to attend this German
- 25:11school. So it's much reluctance.
- 25:15We attended the German school and you know, outside of school
- 25:19and home, our lives are really completely Spanish dominated.
- 25:22Really. We didn't hang out with too many
- 25:24German speakers at the Tennis Club or and my circle of friends
- 25:29there really wasn't anybody outside of school who spoke
- 25:32German. So German sort of took, yeah, I
- 25:35guess, second place in my life for a long time.
- 25:38So I wasn't as close to the German language as I I was, of
- 25:42course, when I was a young kid. And then you move back to
- 25:45Austria and that's where or your German got a lot better
- 25:51afterwards because you were using it in your daily life.
- 25:55Right. I mean, you know, it was my
- 25:57German was fine, but you're there.
- 25:59It's funny how you terminology, you're just not on this on top
- 26:03of it anymore, right, when you're kind of far away from it
- 26:05for for a long time. So yeah, we moved back and I
- 26:08think he was either it was junior year of high school,
- 26:10which isn't a good time to move. If you ever have children in
- 26:14your life, don't move women in the.
- 26:16Around 15 years old. I think it was that 17 or
- 26:19something. So it's not, not, not a good
- 26:21time to, to move to different continent.
- 26:24And, but I was there. I was only in Austria very
- 26:26briefly for about a year because then I came to the college here
- 26:30in the US, which is some kind of a brief transition.
- 26:34Then the German is a language I didn't spend as much time with
- 26:38as a, as a child and as a young adult, but now as an actual
- 26:42older adult, I'm sort of rediscovering the, the pleasures
- 26:46of, of German. And actually at this conference,
- 26:48I'm actually doing, doing German, which is really nice.
- 26:51I'm doing in English, German, German both.
- 26:54Cool, so English is your third language I guess like if you
- 26:58were to. In, in in order of acquisition.
- 27:01Yeah. But, you know, if I do the math,
- 27:03I have actually lived in the US longer than I've lived anywhere
- 27:07else, which is kind of a scary statistic.
- 27:11And also when you start adding the years, turns out the numbers
- 27:14getting much bigger than I would expect, you know?
- 27:17I know. Yeah.
- 27:18Every. Year, every year, it turns out
- 27:20it's a good thing, right? So yeah, I've been here since in
- 27:24the US since 1995. This is my 30th year which seems
- 27:28so crazy. Yeah, but your, your story about
- 27:33languages are reminds me of a little bit of my own in one way.
- 27:38My mother always spoke Spanish to me since since I'm a child,
- 27:41because my mother's from Salvador.
- 27:43I grew up here in Quebec City and I, I went to school here in
- 27:47Quebec and my family on my mother's side all live in the
- 27:50States and all my cousins, I've got roughly 20 cousins in, in
- 27:56the United States are all around the New York, New Jersey, Long
- 27:59Island area. And so when I was a kid, I, if I
- 28:04had to go to my grandmother's place, I would speak Spanish at,
- 28:06and my, my grandmother with other kids in English with my
- 28:10cousins, sometimes in Spanish, some, some others in English.
- 28:12And then in Quebec, I would speak French.
- 28:14But my Spanish was sort of an everyday Spanish and I didn't
- 28:19sound like I was having much of an accent or something.
- 28:22I was pretty fluent. But then I went to Barcelona to
- 28:27study conference interpretation and when I'm because it was an
- 28:31exchange program with my university here in Quebec City.
- 28:34And when I got to Barcelona, of course it's Catalan.
- 28:37But my course I took, I picked up the courses in Spanish and
- 28:41suddenly I was hearing some words for the first time that
- 28:45are pretty common. But since these are not words
- 28:48that I would use every day with my mother or other family
- 28:50members, I had to learn them. For instance, I heard the word
- 28:54that I still remember the first time I heard the word Sakia,
- 28:57which is a drought. And I was like, I had never, you
- 29:00know, I've never spoken with my mom about a drought about
- 29:02anything, right. So it's not a word that I would
- 29:04use So suddenly in the interpretation in the conference
- 29:08I hear and they were talking about a traffic and I was like,
- 29:10Sakia, Sakia. What, what is that?
- 29:11Then I just typed and I saw it was a drought.
- 29:14So OK, I do I, I do the interpretation.
- 29:16So I figured that since my, my Spanish was not in, I would say
- 29:21an educated Spanish. It was more like a colloquial
- 29:24Spanish with family members and everything.
- 29:27Although I may sound fluent, being educated in a language is
- 29:31very different than just learning it naturally.
- 29:33So did you have that barrier with German where you had to
- 29:37relearn your own language in in a certain way?
- 29:40Because you were not as of I would say you, you didn't have
- 29:45all the terminology that a native speaker who grew up in a
- 29:48country would have. Super interesting.
- 29:50I love hearing about your story, Elon.
- 29:52That's super interesting. Yeah, I mean that we talked
- 29:55about that a lot, right, like for what we call heritage
- 29:57speakers of a certain language, right, on how you're vocabulary
- 30:01tends to be more limited because you just didn't have the formal
- 30:03education. I think the Super interesting
- 30:06topic, right? It really shows you sort of the
- 30:08limits of the language that you speak in and on every day and
- 30:11how much more limited your profitability is if you didn't
- 30:14have formal education. So we moved to Mexico.
- 30:17It was still elementary school under the Mexican system, but I
- 30:20was either 9 or 10. So I did have a very, very solid
- 30:23base of German as a child. And of course the German school
- 30:27felt very strongly about holding back classes in both German and
- 30:31in Spanish. So there was no, there was no
- 30:35escaping the German there. But the interesting thing is I
- 30:39there's, there are a few years early in my interpreting career
- 30:42where I felt that of course I speak it at a native language,
- 30:45but I felt like, should I really be going into German?
- 30:49And this is something that I think we don't talking about
- 30:52often enough in our in our profession because we're all
- 30:55sort of strive for perfection and maybe we don't want to sort
- 30:58of admit some of the shortcomings.
- 31:00But I think these are important conversations to have, right.
- 31:03I remember there's one event in Vegas that came up that was
- 31:05English into German and is one of my, you know, the political
- 31:10figures are really admire Bill Clinton was coming.
- 31:12And I thought, oh, you have the chance to interpret Bill
- 31:14Clinton. But I took it really hard.
- 31:16Look at myself and I thought I, I don't know if I'm ready to
- 31:19interpret Bill Clinton into German and I turned it down and
- 31:23turns out I think it was a bad decision.
- 31:25I think you probably would have been ready to do Bill Clinton in
- 31:29German. But I think it's always good to
- 31:31air on the side of caution. But as I've gotten older, I've
- 31:34also understood that of course, I do have that capability.
- 31:38Do I? Is my life more English
- 31:40dominated now than German dominated?
- 31:42Of course. But I also spend at least a
- 31:44couple of months in a year in Vienna and I'm sort of
- 31:48rediscovering some of those that higher level language, right,
- 31:52when you're surrounded by more educated people.
- 31:54And also in the booth when I have the chance to work in
- 31:56Europe and to German, I'm always learning from the other German
- 32:01interpreters, like, oh, this is a nice turn of phrase.
- 32:03Like I wouldn't have thought about it that way.
- 32:05And you're always adding to her your vocabulary.
- 32:08So yeah, I didn't run into that issue of that I didn't have sort
- 32:11of the higher level German because I did have formal
- 32:13education and middle school, elementary school, high school
- 32:17in German. Even I didn't didn't like it
- 32:20that even I had eight years of chemistry in German, right.
- 32:23So I had some which actually really helped me yesterday here
- 32:26at this conference where I was interpreting in a laboratory for
- 32:30a distillation process. And my interpreting partners,
- 32:33like can you do this part because of your German chemistry
- 32:36background? I said yeah, I got you.
- 32:40That's pretty incredible. That's fun.
- 32:42That's fun. Um, while back, just to change
- 32:46the subject a a bit, we were, I was checking out LinkedIn and
- 32:50Jonathan Downey, who's been on her podcast a couple of times.
- 32:53He mentioned he gave like some props to a bunch of people,
- 32:56including yourself. What was he?
- 32:58I mean, he only said like, kudos to Judy Jenner and her research.
- 33:02Like could you expand on on what he was talking about?
- 33:06Oh, Jonathan is such a great guy.
- 33:07This is a great nation to to our profession.
- 33:10I love him. He was talking about the book
- 33:13that my sister and I wrote many years ago about the
- 33:16entrepreneurial side of translation.
- 33:19Back then we focused on translation.
- 33:20It's called The Entrepreneurial Linguist, the Business School
- 33:24approach to freelance translation, which in hindsight,
- 33:27was a bit too long of a title. From your German background you
- 33:34like long words. Longer compound long.
- 33:37And it was a book that came out in 2010, and we wrote it pretty
- 33:41early on when we thought, well, a lot of translators are
- 33:45incredible at the language side. They're excellent at the
- 33:48humanities. But I had come out of Business
- 33:50School and I approached our our translation business back then
- 33:55really from an entrepreneurial sort of business perspective,
- 33:58like how can we grow this? How can we make as much money as
- 34:01possible? Because presumably that's what
- 34:03we're all here for, to to make a good living and not just to play
- 34:06with language without any sort of good living.
- 34:10So we wrote this book just really as a call to action for
- 34:13our colleagues and say, hey, look, we gotta stop it with this
- 34:16poverty cult and stop it that, oh, I don't like to talk about
- 34:19money and money is not comfortable.
- 34:21Yeah, I hear you. No, but I, I I read another book
- 34:25for you what the title was, but yeah, it gave the same example
- 34:28with the plumber. Like, you could be the best
- 34:30plumber in the world, but if you don't know anything about
- 34:32business, once you go and try to start your own company, you may
- 34:35fail and do worse than that, actually just doing the
- 34:38plumbing. And I think that's a big trap
- 34:40for a lot of entrepreneurs. Like, say, for example, famous
- 34:43chefs who try to go out on their own and they're they're the best
- 34:47chefs in the world, but they don't know anything about
- 34:49business necessarily. So their business fails or
- 34:51restaurant fails, They have to go back and become a chef
- 34:54somewhere else. Yeah, it's, it's that's such an
- 34:56important aspect for any freelancer in any profession.
- 34:59I find it. So I think that that book does
- 35:01resonate more than just our industry, but to all freelancers
- 35:05and anyone wants to be an entrepreneur.
- 35:08Absolutely, because working for yourself sounds really great
- 35:10until you really get into the weeds and figure out that now
- 35:13you're responsible for everything and you need to
- 35:15charge accordingly. And I think we've theorized
- 35:18about this for 20 years because we've been speaking at
- 35:21conferences about entrepreneurship and about how
- 35:24to run your own business for many, many years.
- 35:25But the issues really haven't changed.
- 35:27We're we're a female dominated industry and without getting
- 35:31into too many stereotypes, it's funny.
- 35:33I'm talking to two males here. You know, that's, that is funny,
- 35:36but, you know, amazing interpreters, but, you know, not
- 35:39representative of the overall sort of a gender breakdown.
- 35:43So I think as women were just generally not as good
- 35:46negotiating, we're not as good as standing up and asking for
- 35:49what we want. And that, I think, has really
- 35:51sort of trickled down to what oftentimes called the poverty
- 35:55cold, right? That you're like, oh, I don't
- 35:57wanna ask for this. I don't think I'm worth it.
- 35:59And there's a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of insecurity,
- 36:02which, you know, we all have, right?
- 36:04But you have to ask for what you want.
- 36:06And you have to to run this business in a way that you can
- 36:09make a profit because otherwise it's just a waste of your time,
- 36:13right? Would you say that this is sort
- 36:16of one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs because, well,
- 36:21in my case, and that's interesting because actually I
- 36:23never thought about that point specifically, maybe because in
- 36:26Canada the market is different. We have the official language
- 36:29act that means that and there's a shortage of interpreters at
- 36:32many level, not all of them. And so we regularly get some
- 36:35work. But as a, as a self-employed
- 36:39interpreter, I feel that the biggest challenge is to manage
- 36:45time and ambition. And what I mean by that is that
- 36:50managing time, you, you need to put some time aside to do your
- 36:53taxes, to do some of the paperwork to do this and to do
- 36:56that. And sometimes we're like, well,
- 36:58I'm not making money then. So when am I going to do it?
- 37:01So that's one thing. And the other is the ambition
- 37:03part. For instance, I'm saying, OK,
- 37:04let's start a podcast with Brian.
- 37:06And we got to take some time to do it, right?
- 37:09But we want to take, we gotta take the time.
- 37:11So I gotta make sure that I'm not working on that day.
- 37:14I got to make sure that if it's a schedule, then I have to take
- 37:16a few hours to edit it. What am I gonna do it?
- 37:18I'm gonna do it when we conference, I'm going down over
- 37:20the weekend, etcetera, etcetera. So I feel, and when you're an
- 37:22entrepreneur, you always have some hopefully you always have
- 37:25many ideas, many projects and many things.
- 37:28And you got to learn to say no, no in order to manage your
- 37:31sanity, to manage time, to manage the work life balance and
- 37:35all of that. Yeah, and I don't think you're
- 37:37ever going to be a business owner after this week because I
- 37:39think I've been bitching to you all week long about how much
- 37:42I've been work I've had, alas, because my soundboard for the
- 37:47whole week, I'm like. Well, I get, I get only a few
- 37:51emails with Brian and I'm like. And then I, I don't check my
- 37:54inbox for like a few hours and then my, my inbox is like, and
- 37:56I'm like Brian, I mean, because I get CC sometimes a lot.
- 38:01And sometimes because of that, some people reply and I'm not
- 38:03even in the conversation. And I'm like, how can he manage
- 38:06so many emails? I'm like, Oh my God.
- 38:08Does he have a twin? Maybe like a twin somewhere?
- 38:13No, it's a secret. You're absolutely right.
- 38:16We have limited. That is Ryan.
- 38:18Ryan. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan and Brian.
- 38:20Very creative. I like that.
- 38:22Like Jenny and Jimmy or something.
- 38:24Yeah. I mean, we all have time limits,
- 38:26of course, that the resource, the only resource we have is
- 38:28time, right? And I think it took me a long
- 38:31time to convince my colleagues that non billable hours are part
- 38:34of what you need to do as an entrepreneur.
- 38:37They say I can't do marketing. I got to be interpreting.
- 38:39I'm like, well, but no professional person does only
- 38:43100% of their job, right? No, lawyer, little doctor,
- 38:46that's just not the way professional people live their
- 38:50lives, right? If you're living in a working in
- 38:52a factory, then you're doing 100% billable hours, right?
- 38:54But there has to be a portion of the time that's gonna be
- 38:58dedicated to client acquisition, to marketing, to recording
- 39:01amazing podcasts and them. And he has to say no to things
- 39:05to saying, hey, there's an assignment that came up that
- 39:08turns out I'm not that interested in.
- 39:10It's not the fee schedule that I want.
- 39:13I'm going to say no and go do something else, whether that is
- 39:16working on my admin stuff or going for a walk, hitting the
- 39:19gym, spending some time with my husband, reading a book,
- 39:22whatever. I think saying no is something
- 39:24we're also not very good at in our profession.
- 39:27And then often again, I think it's also sort of a female thing
- 39:31you like, without generalizing too much.
- 39:33But I've seen that so often that people say, oh, I want better
- 39:36clients, I want higher paying clients.
- 39:37But I'm sort of stuck with this one client.
- 39:40They gave me a lot of work. Like, yeah, but you're not
- 39:42technically stuck with them. You choose to be stuck with
- 39:44them. You work for your son, right?
- 39:45You can say no thank you. I'm not going to take the
- 39:48assignment. Is there a risk?
- 39:50Of course there's a risk every time you say no to perfectly
- 39:53good work, even if it's maybe not the fee schedule you want
- 39:56and you don't have work, you'll have to be, you know, you have
- 40:00to have some risk, some ability to handle a risk, right?
- 40:03To say, OK, if I don't fill this time, what's the worst that can
- 40:06happen, right? The worst that can happen is
- 40:08that it didn't make money that day, right?
- 40:10And maybe I used it to, to do something else.
- 40:13But yeah, I wish I had more, more time, just like everybody.
- 40:15And I think it's important to invest also our time and what.
- 40:19What you guys are doing and helping the profession and
- 40:21moving it forward, I do that by volunteering my time, by having
- 40:25mentees, by teaching at the university, by volunteering at
- 40:29associations. And I think we all need more of
- 40:32that. So, and I think my contribution
- 40:34to this podcast is switched to a public service announcement to
- 40:38invite all our lovely colleagues and your guests and listeners
- 40:41to, to give something back to this profession, right?
- 40:43Because we all get so much from it and we need to move it
- 40:47forward. And your podcast the perfect
- 40:50example of how we can accomplish that.
- 40:51And of course, it's a lot of work and I thank you for it.
- 40:54But no, you're right, like this whole entrepreneur thing, it's
- 40:57so important for for people in every profession.
- 41:00Like I read an article a couple of years ago where apparently
- 41:04freelance freelancers are outnumbering employees.
- 41:08So there's 52% of the workforce in Canada and it's probably
- 41:13similar in in the States that are freelancers as opposed to
- 41:17being employed by a company. Does that include Uber Eats and
- 41:20Uber drive? I would assume so because
- 41:22they're not employees, right? Like you can, I could become an
- 41:25Uber driver and go like do like take calls on the weekend,
- 41:30right? They pick people up.
- 41:32So good. Yeah.
- 41:33Yeah. Uber's gone to great lengths to
- 41:35make sure those folks are not classified as employees.
- 41:38Indeed. Yeah, that's a fascinating
- 41:40statistic. I didn't know that, but I know
- 41:42that obviously small businesses are the backbone of of any
- 41:46economy really, that they drive the economy.
- 41:49They're very nimble, they're adaptable.
- 41:50They are easy to start, right? But it's hard to do it well in
- 41:55the long run. You have to really value your
- 41:59time and not give your time away for free.
- 42:02And I've been telling my students this for, for, for
- 42:05decades where you gotta, there's a value to your time.
- 42:08So if your client is like, hey, can you help me walk, walk me
- 42:11through remote simultaneous interpreting on Zoom?
- 42:14Yeah, I can help you. But there's a cost associated
- 42:16with it. Here's my fee schedule.
- 42:18It's not free. Why should it be free?
- 42:21You can't go to your lawyer to say I want a free contract, but
- 42:24I think we tend to be so giving with our time and to clients,
- 42:28but we have to start billing for these things.
- 42:31Yeah. Well, you, you just mentioned
- 42:33something that I heard early in my career from someone here and
- 42:39an owner of an agency here in Quebec City.
- 42:42And she she told me that. Oh, yeah.
- 42:46I've explained to the client that we, you, they should see us
- 42:50as lawyers and that's how we should build it.
- 42:56And I was like, oh, OK. And since I heard that very
- 43:01early in my career, then it kind of changed the way I thought
- 43:05about it. And it basically shaped the
- 43:09rest. I mean even today's behavior and
- 43:12how I see myself and how I see how we should see ourselves in
- 43:15our profession. I love that.
- 43:17I think we need to demand that and lawyers are good at many,
- 43:20many things and billing for their time is one of them.
- 43:23And I think as a profession of interpreting and even on the
- 43:26conference interpreting level, we haven't really done a very
- 43:30good job. I heard recently from a
- 43:32colleague said, oh, these clients asking me to fly to a
- 43:34different city and I got a friend in that different cities,
- 43:37I'll just stay at her house. I said, why would you stay at
- 43:41her house? The the client should pay for
- 43:42you to stay at the hotel. She's like, no, but I'm trying
- 43:45to save the money. I'm like, you shouldn't try to
- 43:47save the money because this is a bad precedent for the rest of
- 43:50the profession, right? Yeah, the hotel room.
- 43:52And then if you want to stay at your friend's house, you don't
- 43:54want to actually be in that room.
- 43:56Go to your friend's house, but keep the client honest.
- 43:58This is an expense they need to cover.
- 44:00What one more, one more, one more thing about that.
- 44:02It's it's to me it's even worse than that because it devalue
- 44:06your your you think you're helping the client, but it
- 44:09actually it's bad for your own reputation.
- 44:12Because if I, OK, if I have anyone in any profession who's
- 44:19really right up there at the very top, they're not gonna do
- 44:23it for cheap. They're gonna ask me for this,
- 44:25this, this and that and have a long list of demands in order to
- 44:30accommodate them. And if I have someone who says,
- 44:33yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll just hitchhike to, I don't know, to
- 44:36come to your podcast. Let's say, although we don't
- 44:38bring anyone anywhere, then I will not.
- 44:41I will think this is a hitchhiker.
- 44:45Yeah, maybe that person is not as worth as that person claims
- 44:49to be. You know, there's also the
- 44:52reputational side of it. And when you're a professional,
- 44:55you should really act like it. You should dress like it.
- 44:57You should talk like one. Hmm.
- 45:00And I think that then hire clients and better paying
- 45:04clients will be basically hire you because they'll want the
- 45:07best. Well, there's a reason why why
- 45:09people like when people have conferences that they book the
- 45:11hotel, like you're going to different city, you're, you
- 45:14don't know, like the public transportation there.
- 45:16You don't know, like if you're going to get there on time, if
- 45:18you're, if you're somewhere else, Like the, the whole goal
- 45:21is that everyone's in one place so that the conference goes
- 45:24well. So like as soon as you start
- 45:26saying, Oh yeah, no, I'm gonna go find my own accommodations,
- 45:28then that opens the door to maybe like, you know, is the
- 45:32subway running that day or is, you know, is there Uber in this
- 45:35little town like that kind of thing, right.
- 45:37So. Absolutely.
- 45:39That you bring up another great point about that Brian.
- 45:41Yeah, here in this very fancy hotel, I just take the elevator
- 45:45downstairs and then at my booth is waiting for me right there.
- 45:49And I think those standards are important right as interpreting
- 45:53is changing like all professions.
- 45:54I don't know if those the glory days of us traveling around the
- 45:58world to cool conferences are over.
- 46:01I don't know. I just recently interpreted in
- 46:03Sri Lanka, which is really cool. Is that gonna happen again in a
- 46:07few years? I don't know.
- 46:08I'm gonna enjoy it while it's happening.
- 46:10But I think it's really important that we keep on
- 46:13fighting for those standards. And of course, providing the,
- 46:15the flip side of the coin, which is the professionalism, the, the
- 46:18level of preparedness, the being on time, which is my absolute
- 46:23pet peeve. Number one person born at a
- 46:26German speaking country. You could imagine that, that for
- 46:29me, being picture quality is a, is a big, big sticker sticking
- 46:33point. And you know, I, I notice when
- 46:36people even for different pools, like at this event, for example,
- 46:39we've got 8 booths, 8 languages. I, I, I notice who's, who's
- 46:44there early because I think that's something that, that some
- 46:48interpreters forget, right? That many of us hire each other
- 46:51for other events. And of course I have events too,
- 46:54that I would need different languages.
- 46:55And people are paying attention, right?
- 46:57Who are the folks who are there on time?
- 46:59Who are the folks who are there early?
- 47:01And actually, I want to tell you a funny story about this travel
- 47:04thing, which you may enjoy. I recently had a client who had
- 47:07a conference in Vegas. And of course, I'm in Vegas and
- 47:10I happened to be in town and they said we want to pay you
- 47:13less than your fee schedule, but we'll put you up at a nice hotel
- 47:18room in Vegas. So we could do which I said I
- 47:22said it nicer than this, but I said I've got a perfectly
- 47:25beautiful house in Vegas with a pool.
- 47:27You're welcome anytime, gentleman.
- 47:29By the way, it's a great party house.
- 47:32I don't need it. A hotel room in Vegas.
- 47:35I you know. I work in Vegas in February so I
- 47:38should have next time I go to Vegas you.
- 47:42Are not, you're not allowed to come to Vegas without checking
- 47:44in with me? That's an interpreter rule.
- 47:47Alright, Interpreters must check in with me and I'll need to take
- 47:50them out for a drink anyway. So I said no, I don't, I don't
- 47:52need. If you want to put me up in this
- 47:54hotel room, fine. If you want me to stay here,
- 47:56absolutely. But no, this is my fee schedule
- 48:00and this is what it costs. And then they said, well, but
- 48:03it's a $600.00 hotel room at Fountain Blue.
- 48:07And I said, look, you're talking to a Vegas girl.
- 48:09This room is not $600.00. It's 3:50.
- 48:12And it's a nice room, but they're over decorated that to
- 48:16put too much furniture in there. It's really not that great of a
- 48:18room, but they have a nice gym. So if you want me to stay there,
- 48:21I'm happy to stay there if it makes your conference easier,
- 48:24not lowering my fee schedule. This is the fee schedule.
- 48:28And they said, OK, I guess we're just, we're just wondering.
- 48:32If we're just wondering. Like yeah, it worked out well.
- 48:37That's good. One time, one time just to, just
- 48:39to, just to finish this on the same thought one time, many,
- 48:43many years ago when my one of my very first assignments, what the
- 48:49owner of an agency calls me and says, can you lower your fee a
- 48:53little, but there's gonna be great chicken at the buffet.
- 48:58And there's a glass of water for you, too.
- 49:01Very well with the. Great chicken.
- 49:03Brian knows who I'm talking. About yes, I know you're, I
- 49:07think just just to reassure you, Judy, I think that I don't think
- 49:12we're gonna be unable to travel in the future.
- 49:14I think you, like, keep enjoying it because they have had
- 49:18colleagues like 20 years ago who had been in the profession for
- 49:2130 years and they went on cruise ships doing interpretation,
- 49:25whatnot, like, Oh yeah, those glory days are gone.
- 49:28But then like, you know, 20 years later, you're going to Sri
- 49:31Lanka. Alan and I are traveling like,
- 49:33so you know what? In 20 years, we'll be fine.
- 49:35I absolutely hope you're right because I'm loving is too much
- 49:39for it to to change, right? But I'm always, yeah, I'm always
- 49:42prepared mentally for things to change, right?
- 49:44Which I think is a a healthy attitude, right?
- 49:47Instead of just hoping and clinging on to the hope that
- 49:49everything will continue the same.
- 49:51I'm open to the possibility of change, but I would of course,
- 49:54love to continue this because it while it's a lot of work, it's
- 49:57also it's a lot of fun. And as you know, some
- 50:00assignments are more fun than others.
- 50:02Some are more meaningful than others, and some are really
- 50:06something that fills you. You just fills your heart with
- 50:09with happiness that you're able to make this interpreting happen
- 50:13and others is very corporate and very far away from the language.
- 50:17You know, I do some of these big events in Vegas for Amazon Web
- 50:20Services and for Microsoft and it's it's meaningful work, but
- 50:25you're not close enough to the people to really sort of feel
- 50:28the effect right. So nobody's coming up to you and
- 50:32saying, Hey, thank you for your great work because there is,
- 50:35there are 10,000 people in this ballroom and the booths are
- 50:39backstage and it doesn't feel as, as, as direct, right.
- 50:42But here it's smaller conferences are like 2-3 hundred
- 50:45people here. Folks will come up to us and
- 50:47say, hey, thank you. I didn't, I was, I didn't even
- 50:50know would have interpreting services and I was afraid that I
- 50:53wouldn't understand what anybody was saying.
- 50:54And, and now we do. And that's, that's meaningful.
- 50:57Some of those things are incredibly meaningful.
- 51:00And what I, what that happens when that is magical moments
- 51:03happen in the booth or, or liaison interpreting.
- 51:06It reminds you of how special this profession is.
- 51:10Absolutely. Speaking of Vegas, I when I sent
- 51:13Alan to Las Vegas, I think you're right.
- 51:15It was in February ish. Yeah, I think it was in
- 51:17February. I worked with a an AV company in
- 51:20Vegas that supplied the interpretation equipment.
- 51:23They were awesome. Like they were awesome to.
- 51:25Deal with Yeah, they were. Think it's probably the same.
- 51:27One that I'm working with right now is a global interpretation.
- 51:30They're amazing. Yeah.
- 51:31Is it Chris? Chris, Chris, I'm here with him
- 51:34right now. Chris.
- 51:36For us, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tell him the the the the
- 51:40French Canadian guy from from Quebec City and he'll he'll
- 51:44know. Yeah, that's so funny.
- 51:46I just saw him at breakfast. I said, hey, I gotta run.
- 51:48I have to go upstairs and through this podcast and this is
- 51:52what I love about interpreting well, one of money many things
- 51:55these these connections right how small it is.
- 51:57I will go look for him and tell him that you 2 say hi.
- 52:01He's so. Cool pre advertising for him, so
- 52:04there he goes. Yeah, I was like, should I
- 52:06mention his name? But yes, he's he's great.
- 52:08So he deserves. Love reserved.
- 52:10Yeah, well deserved. Kudos.
- 52:12Alright, so Judy, thank you so much for joining us and to the
- 52:17podcast. It was amazing.
- 52:19Wow, We're almost at one hour, which is actually longer, but we
- 52:23had some great stories. Yeah, good.
- 52:26I'm so happy. It's such a pleasure and an
- 52:28honor that you invited me. And I know how much work this is
- 52:31just in scheduling, and I'm sorry my schedule has been so
- 52:35tough. And I thank you for for keeping
- 52:38at it and finding a slot that worked for all of us.
- 52:41And I'm very grateful. I love the work you do, I love
- 52:43the stories and I love your style.
- 52:45So I'll keep on sharing and subscribing, of course, and
- 52:48telling other people about it. Then I will not repeat everyone.
- 52:52I will not repeat to everyone to like, share, subscribe.
- 52:56I will not do that so. OK, I don't get it, but it
- 53:00doesn't hurt to say it again. Awesome.
- 53:01Well, yeah, thank you so much Judy.
- 53:03That was amazing to have you and to finally get to talk to you
- 53:06for like an extended period of time, not just over the phone.
- 53:09And I think we may have all have something in common that we all
- 53:13do the Glendon the. Masters yes, I was going to
- 53:16bring that up. I'm so glad you found out you
- 53:18couldn't. Ask you about the Masters, right
- 53:21Glendon as. Well.
- 53:22Yeah, yes. What?
- 53:23Lyndon? I graduated in 2022.
- 53:27Yeah, more recently than us. Like when did I graduate my
- 53:31Thomas right? There I'm beginning to doubt
- 53:32too. Is it 23 or 22?
- 53:34I did it later in my career and I think it was 22.
- 53:36Yes, 20. Man, it's just something else we
- 53:40have in common. But maybe.
- 53:41We'll have it. We'll have to bring you back and
- 53:43then we'll talk about all the other things we have in common
- 53:45as well. Oh, I'd love it.
- 53:47I think that there's a lot to talk about.
- 53:49Absolutely happy to come back anytime.
- 53:52That's good podcast from the pool in Vegas.
- 53:54There you go. I love that I have two barking
- 53:56dogs. I'm not sure how well that will
- 53:58work, but it's they're they're they're do it.
- 54:00Yeah, they're they're invited. Perfect.
- 54:03Alright, alright, Alright. See you next time.
- 54:06Thanks. Bye.