Well knock me down with a feather, the leaves are starting to fall from the trees and the mornings are getting darker. Autumn is just around the corner and it just seemed to creep up on us as here at Trend Translations as we’ve been lost in translation pretty much the whole summer, working our tippety-tappety fingers to the bone.
So it seems like a good time to talk about deadlines! Ahhh, the sweet smell of victory as our fingers race toward the deadline and the satisfying feeling of delivering ON time!! Being utterly at the end of the food chain when it comes to magazine work, we are the ones who always get left with the scraps.
“Can you do it by tomorrow?” trips effortlessly from the lips of many a copy editor or journalist who has just spent weeks researching and writing a press release or a fashion article. And just as effortlessly comes our answer, whilst cooking yet another pot-load of pasta for the family because we haven’t made it to the shops or hastily cancelling that evening out with friends or ever-suffering loved ones yet again! “Yes, of course, we can do it “am besten gestern”, no problem at all! It will be in your inbox by 8am!”
Okay, so I confess, I do secretly love that little tingle of tiredness, the feeling of each receding word getting you closer to the rush of the last paragraph…but I don't love it enough to do it for minimum wage! After all, apparently “burnout” is NOT even a PROPER word! And, officially it doesn't actually even exist. It is often just bandied around as a stylish media synonym for the overworked and underpaid, with maybe a smidgen of depression thrown in for good measure. And we all know how important it is to find the happy medium between being busy and being stressed.
So, thank the lord for good, funny, kind colleagues. The ones who send you a cheery “THANK YOU!” after you have delivered on time, yet again, working against the clock, ensuring their magazine goes to print on time or their press release is released on time, or their website goes online on time. The ones who actually preface their “So, is tomorrow a realistic possibility?” with “Hey, how are you?” (We really pull out the stops for them!) And nothing beats that gal on the other end of Skype/Whatsapp/e-mail/SMS (the wonders of modern technology, eh?!) who is always ready to add a little bit of “Senf” to that uncertain sentence, or inject a bit of magic to a tagline or heading…Cheers Paula!
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