High alert
Dec. 21st, 2011 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularOne of the things that made the army incredibly stressful was the language barrier.
Well, obviously, but more specifically: it required me to be on constant alert at all hours of the day.
Hearing things in your native tongue, you can half tune out, let your subconscious do some of the processing, and snap to if you hear certain things that your subconscious realizes are meant to be paid attention to.
Imagine you can't do that. Imagine you need to concentrate on every word everyone around you says, twenty-four-seven, because you need to be able to: a) hear the words, b) translate them in your own head, c) snap out the correct response in the blink of an eye.
Imagine having to do that for months on end. With dire consequences to your freedom and/or well-being if you fail at any time.
Yeah, that's pretty much what my army stint was like. Well, except for the few times I had a break, and could just let my brain work in English, without having to be constantly translating. It made me a bit antisocial, I'm afraid, because people were insistent on engaging me in conversation, at times when my brain was so fried that I just wanted to dig up a paperback and read for a bit. In English.
I survived. But I needed a while to recover.
Nowadays, in the office, I don't have to translate everything around me - well, not everything everyone says every moment of the day; I'm translating stuff for a living at the moment, so I do have to have the translation circuit in my brain active, but I can focus on one thing, and break for a few minutes if I need to cool off.
Well, technically, when things are running smoothly, I can do that. Of course, sometimes I get stuff shoved at me faster than I can finish it, and there are days where too many people demand the top spot on my priority stack.
Then there are days like this week. Er, days like the ones that I've had this week.
Partner in the next office over has her temper on a hair trigger recently, screaming at people on a daily basis, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in person, and Monday there was a blistering argument among several partners in that office that lasted for over two hours - I timed it - and it poisoned the atmosphere, scraped my nerves raw.
I don't know what the argument was about. Frankly, I turn off the translation circuit when people are screaming, because it's bad enough when there's a screaming match going on in a language you know intimately, without adding the stress of having to translate it on the fly.
I've been advised, by co-workers, by teachers in Greek lessons, by the army, to embrace the Greek way of thinking - «νοοτροπία», no'otropia, they call it. Some days, I'm tempted to respond:
«Αν αυτή είναι η ελληνική νοοτροπία, να της πάρετε και να της βάλετε κάπου που δεν φαίνεται ο ήλιος.»
An afti einai y elliniki no'otropia, na tis parete kai na tis valete kapou pou den fainete o ilios.
"If that's the Greek way of thinking, take it and put it somewhere where the sun can't be seen."
I have to be more circumspect, of course. I need this job, especially in this economy. But some days, I'm tempted, and some days, my self-control is frayed along with my nerves...
Well, obviously, but more specifically: it required me to be on constant alert at all hours of the day.
Hearing things in your native tongue, you can half tune out, let your subconscious do some of the processing, and snap to if you hear certain things that your subconscious realizes are meant to be paid attention to.
Imagine you can't do that. Imagine you need to concentrate on every word everyone around you says, twenty-four-seven, because you need to be able to: a) hear the words, b) translate them in your own head, c) snap out the correct response in the blink of an eye.
Imagine having to do that for months on end. With dire consequences to your freedom and/or well-being if you fail at any time.
Yeah, that's pretty much what my army stint was like. Well, except for the few times I had a break, and could just let my brain work in English, without having to be constantly translating. It made me a bit antisocial, I'm afraid, because people were insistent on engaging me in conversation, at times when my brain was so fried that I just wanted to dig up a paperback and read for a bit. In English.
I survived. But I needed a while to recover.
Nowadays, in the office, I don't have to translate everything around me - well, not everything everyone says every moment of the day; I'm translating stuff for a living at the moment, so I do have to have the translation circuit in my brain active, but I can focus on one thing, and break for a few minutes if I need to cool off.
Well, technically, when things are running smoothly, I can do that. Of course, sometimes I get stuff shoved at me faster than I can finish it, and there are days where too many people demand the top spot on my priority stack.
Then there are days like this week. Er, days like the ones that I've had this week.
Partner in the next office over has her temper on a hair trigger recently, screaming at people on a daily basis, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in person, and Monday there was a blistering argument among several partners in that office that lasted for over two hours - I timed it - and it poisoned the atmosphere, scraped my nerves raw.
I don't know what the argument was about. Frankly, I turn off the translation circuit when people are screaming, because it's bad enough when there's a screaming match going on in a language you know intimately, without adding the stress of having to translate it on the fly.
I've been advised, by co-workers, by teachers in Greek lessons, by the army, to embrace the Greek way of thinking - «νοοτροπία», no'otropia, they call it. Some days, I'm tempted to respond:
«Αν αυτή είναι η ελληνική νοοτροπία, να της πάρετε και να της βάλετε κάπου που δεν φαίνεται ο ήλιος.»
An afti einai y elliniki no'otropia, na tis parete kai na tis valete kapou pou den fainete o ilios.
"If that's the Greek way of thinking, take it and put it somewhere where the sun can't be seen."
I have to be more circumspect, of course. I need this job, especially in this economy. But some days, I'm tempted, and some days, my self-control is frayed along with my nerves...
