You are an interpreter if…
a.. You can rise at 6:30 a.m. many days in a row.
b.. Your working wardrobe consists of suits, which you keep wrapped in plastic to avoid wrinkles and expedite packing.
c.. You are prone to sore throats and foot problems.
d.. You talk all day; in your leisure time, you frequently just want to be quiet.
e.. Your bathrobe has been to hotels all over the globe and in half the cities in the U.S.
f.. You are sick of hotel and restaurant meals and are dying for home-cooked food.
g.. You know many words in your second language that you have never seen written down.
h.. You have met most of the professional colleagues you know on interpreting assignments (or at ATA conferences.)
i.. You are always traveling and long to be at home more so you can spend quality time with your family.
j.. You struggle not to gain weight from constant exposure to banquet and catered meals and your work leaves you little time for exercise.
k.. You stay up half the night stewing about the way you interpreted a term.
l.. Your favorite dictionaries are battered from rough treatment by baggage handlers.
m.. It drives you nuts to have the work you do referred to as translation.
n.. You are chronically tired and short of money and you suspect that the world underrates how hard you work and how much you contribute.
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You are a translator if…
a.. You are miserable unless you can get up 11 a.m. and go to bed at 3:00 a.m.
b.. Your working wardrobe consists of jeans (shorts) and sweatshirts (t-shirts), which you store conveniently on the floor of your closet.
c.. You are prone to carpal tunnel syndrome and backache
d.. You are alone with a computer all day; when you are with other people you tend to jabber.
e.. Your bathrobe is what you are apt to be wearing at 2 in the afternoon.
f.. You are sick of looking at four walls all day and are dying to go out to dinner.
g.. You know many words in your second language that you do not know how to pronounce.
h.. You have met most of the professional colleagues you know through e-mail or Internet chat rooms (or at ATA conferences.)
i.. At home you are always working or thinking about work, so the best way to spend quality time with your family is to travel together.
j.. You struggle not to gain weight from spending all day sitting on your duff and the constant availability of your refrigerator and your work leaves you little time for exercise.
k.. You stay up half the night stewing about how you’ll translate a term the next day.
l.. Your favorite dictionaries are battered from the rough treatment they get on your desk when you are in a “term search frenzy”
m.. It drives you nuts to be asked if you ever did “simultaneous translation” for a celebrity.
n.. You are chronically tired and short of money, and you suspect that the world underrates how hard you work and how much you contribute.
(found this somewhere on the Internet some time ago)
There is also a similar group on Facebook: You know you’re a translator when…
