Wow, I was honored with a comment on my site from the mysterious and clever student-of-the-English language Habid al-Sharif. I wonder if he bears any resemblence to the movie star, Omar Sharif? You know Dr. Zhivago and all of that. Such warm brown eyes! Reminds me of my philosophy teacher in college....ooops - probably don't want to go there!

Maybe I'm just thinking of Dr.Zhivago because ( he was HOT!) of working with the Eastern European languages at my new temp job at Big Deal Corporation.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven"
Paradise Lost. Book 1. Line 253.

Milton was right....I was so sure that this assignment was going to be hell, so I was mentally, and practically prepared for almost anything. The first day on the job I took a stack of tea bags in case I was challenged to stay awake, my pocket Bible to read in case I felt that I was going to become unglued by any rude, obnoxious, or obscene behavior, a novel so that I could go on a complete "vacation" at lunch, and my eyeglasses in case the type was so small I would be better off without vison correction. But instead of a hell infested by crazy-and-not-in-a-good-way engineers, phones ringing off hooks, managers shrieking, the din of endless, droning way-too-personal conversation, bizarre questions, lack of basic tools to do the job ( "oh, let me see if I can find you a pen!") and other problems I've had on temporary jobs, it was, well...almost heaven.....

Big Deal is a huge facility. It is the only building where I have ever, in my life, actually gotten lost. I don't mean just turned around ( oh, wait, the ladies room is down the other way) but had to stand there and look out the window to see where the sun was in order to find my way back to my desk! The whole building is set up in a series of triangles - a deeply into-it feng shui practitioner would get a poison arrow through the heart, fall down, and die in there I guess. But that's the worst thing I can say about it.

I was met by the supervisor at the reception station, given a badge, materials, and a serious attempt at orientation ( people who have worked in the building a long time sometimes get lost, too) I was introduced to pleasant, friendly, co workers, each in their own roomy little cube, and given a roomy brown cube of my own. I was given a brief overview of the work, the goals were clearly explained, I got a style sheet, a reference for proofreaders marks ( which I didn't need, but was nice to have) I was told who to go to with questions, the supervisor hung around and answered all of the questions I immediately had about the work, made sure I was comfortable with what I was doing. And then - it was like a miracle. THEY LEFT ME ALONE TO DO THE WORK THEY GAVE ME! It was GREAT! No phones, no yelling, cursing, screaming...not 35 million things to do at one time or one repetative task so mind numbing anyone would fall out of her chair from boredom.

The woman who interviewed me was right - it was every bit as easy to do the proofs in a foreign language - even using only an English translation. In fact, I'd go further and say it was easier, since if you don't know the meaning of a word you don't see it as a word, but as a group of charecters. She explained that I could trust the translation company to get the language right, but what I needed to pay attention to were things like making sure dosages that are in mL say "mL" not "ml" or "mm" which would be different things. Make sure the numeric spacing was right, that the latin names of things were printed and italicized correctly.

Of course, since this is medical information, I feel the need to do a careful job most keenly. I'M WORKING ON SOMETHING THAT MATTERS! SOMEBODY GIVES A SHIT IF IT'S RIGHT! Amazingly, I picked up enough Polish on the first day to spot a phrase that needed to have quotes around it. I think I might know four or five Polish words now. It's like you fell into Star Wars and half making out something written in Wookie. After awhile you are kinda sorta reading / understanding it. It's difficult to describe. It is exacting and rather tedious, but there's a point to it.

Moreover, even though these people are facing looming deadlines and other problems there was no hint that they wanted anything done faster than it could be done right. I had all the time needed to look at these documents and make sure that I felt comfortable that I had spotted all the errors - and I had the insurance that someone more experienced would go over my work....not only because I was new, but as part of their regular quality control proceedures.

At lunch time, the supervisor came and got me, I was invited to join the group for lunch, given sage advice about what to stay away from in the caffeteria, and generally encouraged to consider myself part of the team.

This is the best box I've had a job in in a long time. Go figure.