From CAT tool to cat drool
Where am I and how the hell did I get here?
If you don't know what a CAT tool is, I wouldn't worry. There will be a time, not so far from now, when they will simply cease to exist. But for the record, let me break the acronym down for you: Computer Assisted Translation tools do what they say on the tin. The human brain is designed to discard information it doesn't deem important, otherwise we'd all be walking around with epic headaches, regurgitating the license plate number we caught sight of last week, and reeling off each item on last Tuesday's shopping list, complete with prices.
CAT tools are like a plug-in for the human brain. Think of them as massive dictionaries, an archived log of every single phrase and sentence you ever translated, how you translated it, and what the context was. Companies, and specifically agencies, like you to work with them for several reasons. Firstly, CAT tools make you fuck up less. You can instantly search for a specific client's specific preferred term, and use it. Whole chunks of text you have already translated are automatically generated, to save you having to copy and paste or translate from scratch. And finally, CAT tools slowly but surely drain your brain, mining your mind and collating a precious resource called a 'translation memory', which you will sometimes be asked to return to the client along with your finished translation. Over time, these translation memories become so complete and extensive, the client no longer has any need for a translator. You have wittingly and willingly helped to build the robot destined to replace you.
I'm a translator, although perhaps not for too much longer. The story of how I came to find myself in this line of work is a straightforward one. I had traveled as a child, I had learned a few languages. Fundamentally indecisive and lazy, at the age of 19 I was unsure of what to do next, and decided to study languages at university. Four years of lounging around and making the grades with relatively little effort seemed alright by me. After my undergraduate degree, I went to teach English in France, and realised it wasn't for me. I needed a different kind of career. I needed something that gave me freedom, flexibility, and no boss. And so I got myself a scholarship from the French embassy in London, moved to Strasbourg, completed my Masters, and set up as a sole trader. My persistence soon paid off, and in 2013 I found myself successfully self-employed. With each passing year, I seemed to be bringing in more money. I had the incredible fortune of being both good and fast, which meant that my clients were paying me a hefty sum without realising that it took me much less time than they imagined to get through my projects.
The years passed. All I needed was my super slim computer, and I was good to go. I hopped around from city to city, taking my work with me and desperately attempting to find somewhere that could feel like home. I ended up in northern France and found myself once again at a dead end. Convinced my misfortune was somehow dependent on the place I lived, I experimented with different visions of how and where I might live, but it was no use. The truth began emerging. After six years on the job, translation wasn't doing it for me anymore. Worse still, I wasn't sure it ever had.
Imagine being a robot working on an isolated production line in a one-woman factory. Day after day after day, churning out similar turns of phrase, albeit rejigged slightly to make sure the client doesn't feel cheated. In this line of work, forced to unpick and surgically examine sentences before you convert them into another language, you begin to understand just how hollow and artificial most corporate materials are.
For six years, my working days have been filled with silence. I receive a text to translate, I translate it, I send it back. Sometimes, I'm not even told that my text has been safely received. When the end client has a query, a question, or a complaint, I am battered with phone calls. Yet despite outputting a very good standard of translation, in six years I can count the compliments and genuine thanks on one hand. No colleagues, no camaraderie, no sense of having made a difference, no recognition, no variety and no personal challenge: in six years, I have reached the end of my ability to continue in a profession that would fail almost all of Maslow's criteria.
I dabbled with the idea of psychology, but the road seemed so long. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to waste any more time lingering in academia, when the draining effects of translation were already taking their toll on me. I considered becoming a counselor, a therapist or a sophrologist, but for some reason when it came down to it, I found myself faltering. Whilst noble in themselves, I was worried I would find myself once again without colleagues, dealing with clients looking for an ego massage. I needed something more varied, something more hands-on, and something that involved being part of a team.
My friend H told me I needed to ask myself not what I COULD do, but what I would WANT to do in my life. What did I care about? I realised that every time I asked myself that, all I could come back to was animals. Wild animals, farm animals, pets. Any kind of animal. I see animals as a manifestation of something spiritual. We make animals our slaves. From the urban fox to the rural rabbit or pampered pooch, animals live how we dictate they should live - and there's nothing they can do about it. Because of this, I feel we have a duty to protect them and care for them, almost better than we would ourselves - which is why I give to three charities monthly, all of them animal charities. I realised that if every day of my life was spent simply clearing shit off a cage floor or holding a cat down for an injection, I could be content - because I would be working as part of something bigger than myself. I would have a routine, for once in my life. I would have shifts, a place to be at a specific time, a uniform, a key role within a team. I would be making a very small difference, in some small way. Not only that, but I found that my brain's ability to handle words and my eyes' screen-filtering capacities were entirely depleted with translation. There may be something to be said for creativity being given more room to rise when unshackled by the demands of similar work.
Faced with the fact that to become a vet requires a level of maths, chemistry and biology that I just don't have (and even if I were to return to school, I'm not sure I could ever reach the required standard), I made my decision: I was going to become a veterinary nurse/assistant. It would give me the sense of structure, purpose and teamwork I needed, and I could also use my training at a later stage for work abroad or to start a business. I have loads of ideas. The only question is - how the hell do I become one?
What next?
There are many different schools out there, but in France, there is just one State-certifying body with a training programme for producing 'auxiliaires vétérinaires', and that body is called GIPSA. The vast majority of the job adverts I've looked at ask for ASVs, which means veterinary assistants trained by GIPSA.
GIPSA has around 12 different training centres scattered around France, and the way it works is this: to be accepted by one of their training centres, all you need to do is find a clinic to hire you on a work placement contract. That's it. No other application, no other requirements. The training is one week at the training centre, three weeks working at your clinic, so throughout your two-year training programme, you are being paid a salary. But like I say, it all rests on you being able to find a clinic to hire you, in order to secure your training contract. You can apply to clinics directly, and you can also use GIPSA's platform: you write up your application on the platform, and then GIPSA releases the applications out to vets.
The good news is this two-year training programme, as I say, is paid. The bad news is that means jumping in at the deep end. This is no 'training on the side' or 'studying at the weekends' retraining option. This is: you want to retrain as a veterinary assistant? You shut down your laptop, you call off your clients, you join the clinic and off you go.
I've decided to take what I'm calling a prep year. There are two points to taking this prep year, in my view:
1) To make damned sure this is what I want to do. This isn't like the sophrology or the psychology, where if you decide half-way down the road that you've changed your mind, you can just whack off an email and your life hasn't really changed. If I go down this veterinary assistant route, I will probably be moving region, and I will be letting half of my clients go. There isn't much scope for turning back, so I need to take a year to research, get informed, and make sure of what I want.
2) There's no age for retraining, and I have at least another 30 years of work ahead of me. However, I will be competing against other, possibly younger people. The younger the person, the less the clinic has to pay them for their work placement contract. That means my application needs to be good, and as it stands, my profile is weak. I'll be taking this year to gain some knowledge and skills so that when I apply next year, I have a fair chance.
My prep year: a to-do list
So there we go. A few small plans to get started with. I'm excited.
If you don't know what a CAT tool is, I wouldn't worry. There will be a time, not so far from now, when they will simply cease to exist. But for the record, let me break the acronym down for you: Computer Assisted Translation tools do what they say on the tin. The human brain is designed to discard information it doesn't deem important, otherwise we'd all be walking around with epic headaches, regurgitating the license plate number we caught sight of last week, and reeling off each item on last Tuesday's shopping list, complete with prices.
CAT tools are like a plug-in for the human brain. Think of them as massive dictionaries, an archived log of every single phrase and sentence you ever translated, how you translated it, and what the context was. Companies, and specifically agencies, like you to work with them for several reasons. Firstly, CAT tools make you fuck up less. You can instantly search for a specific client's specific preferred term, and use it. Whole chunks of text you have already translated are automatically generated, to save you having to copy and paste or translate from scratch. And finally, CAT tools slowly but surely drain your brain, mining your mind and collating a precious resource called a 'translation memory', which you will sometimes be asked to return to the client along with your finished translation. Over time, these translation memories become so complete and extensive, the client no longer has any need for a translator. You have wittingly and willingly helped to build the robot destined to replace you.
I'm a translator, although perhaps not for too much longer. The story of how I came to find myself in this line of work is a straightforward one. I had traveled as a child, I had learned a few languages. Fundamentally indecisive and lazy, at the age of 19 I was unsure of what to do next, and decided to study languages at university. Four years of lounging around and making the grades with relatively little effort seemed alright by me. After my undergraduate degree, I went to teach English in France, and realised it wasn't for me. I needed a different kind of career. I needed something that gave me freedom, flexibility, and no boss. And so I got myself a scholarship from the French embassy in London, moved to Strasbourg, completed my Masters, and set up as a sole trader. My persistence soon paid off, and in 2013 I found myself successfully self-employed. With each passing year, I seemed to be bringing in more money. I had the incredible fortune of being both good and fast, which meant that my clients were paying me a hefty sum without realising that it took me much less time than they imagined to get through my projects.
The years passed. All I needed was my super slim computer, and I was good to go. I hopped around from city to city, taking my work with me and desperately attempting to find somewhere that could feel like home. I ended up in northern France and found myself once again at a dead end. Convinced my misfortune was somehow dependent on the place I lived, I experimented with different visions of how and where I might live, but it was no use. The truth began emerging. After six years on the job, translation wasn't doing it for me anymore. Worse still, I wasn't sure it ever had.
Imagine being a robot working on an isolated production line in a one-woman factory. Day after day after day, churning out similar turns of phrase, albeit rejigged slightly to make sure the client doesn't feel cheated. In this line of work, forced to unpick and surgically examine sentences before you convert them into another language, you begin to understand just how hollow and artificial most corporate materials are.
For six years, my working days have been filled with silence. I receive a text to translate, I translate it, I send it back. Sometimes, I'm not even told that my text has been safely received. When the end client has a query, a question, or a complaint, I am battered with phone calls. Yet despite outputting a very good standard of translation, in six years I can count the compliments and genuine thanks on one hand. No colleagues, no camaraderie, no sense of having made a difference, no recognition, no variety and no personal challenge: in six years, I have reached the end of my ability to continue in a profession that would fail almost all of Maslow's criteria.
I dabbled with the idea of psychology, but the road seemed so long. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to waste any more time lingering in academia, when the draining effects of translation were already taking their toll on me. I considered becoming a counselor, a therapist or a sophrologist, but for some reason when it came down to it, I found myself faltering. Whilst noble in themselves, I was worried I would find myself once again without colleagues, dealing with clients looking for an ego massage. I needed something more varied, something more hands-on, and something that involved being part of a team.
My friend H told me I needed to ask myself not what I COULD do, but what I would WANT to do in my life. What did I care about? I realised that every time I asked myself that, all I could come back to was animals. Wild animals, farm animals, pets. Any kind of animal. I see animals as a manifestation of something spiritual. We make animals our slaves. From the urban fox to the rural rabbit or pampered pooch, animals live how we dictate they should live - and there's nothing they can do about it. Because of this, I feel we have a duty to protect them and care for them, almost better than we would ourselves - which is why I give to three charities monthly, all of them animal charities. I realised that if every day of my life was spent simply clearing shit off a cage floor or holding a cat down for an injection, I could be content - because I would be working as part of something bigger than myself. I would have a routine, for once in my life. I would have shifts, a place to be at a specific time, a uniform, a key role within a team. I would be making a very small difference, in some small way. Not only that, but I found that my brain's ability to handle words and my eyes' screen-filtering capacities were entirely depleted with translation. There may be something to be said for creativity being given more room to rise when unshackled by the demands of similar work.
Faced with the fact that to become a vet requires a level of maths, chemistry and biology that I just don't have (and even if I were to return to school, I'm not sure I could ever reach the required standard), I made my decision: I was going to become a veterinary nurse/assistant. It would give me the sense of structure, purpose and teamwork I needed, and I could also use my training at a later stage for work abroad or to start a business. I have loads of ideas. The only question is - how the hell do I become one?
What next?
There are many different schools out there, but in France, there is just one State-certifying body with a training programme for producing 'auxiliaires vétérinaires', and that body is called GIPSA. The vast majority of the job adverts I've looked at ask for ASVs, which means veterinary assistants trained by GIPSA.
GIPSA has around 12 different training centres scattered around France, and the way it works is this: to be accepted by one of their training centres, all you need to do is find a clinic to hire you on a work placement contract. That's it. No other application, no other requirements. The training is one week at the training centre, three weeks working at your clinic, so throughout your two-year training programme, you are being paid a salary. But like I say, it all rests on you being able to find a clinic to hire you, in order to secure your training contract. You can apply to clinics directly, and you can also use GIPSA's platform: you write up your application on the platform, and then GIPSA releases the applications out to vets.
The good news is this two-year training programme, as I say, is paid. The bad news is that means jumping in at the deep end. This is no 'training on the side' or 'studying at the weekends' retraining option. This is: you want to retrain as a veterinary assistant? You shut down your laptop, you call off your clients, you join the clinic and off you go.
I've decided to take what I'm calling a prep year. There are two points to taking this prep year, in my view:
1) To make damned sure this is what I want to do. This isn't like the sophrology or the psychology, where if you decide half-way down the road that you've changed your mind, you can just whack off an email and your life hasn't really changed. If I go down this veterinary assistant route, I will probably be moving region, and I will be letting half of my clients go. There isn't much scope for turning back, so I need to take a year to research, get informed, and make sure of what I want.
2) There's no age for retraining, and I have at least another 30 years of work ahead of me. However, I will be competing against other, possibly younger people. The younger the person, the less the clinic has to pay them for their work placement contract. That means my application needs to be good, and as it stands, my profile is weak. I'll be taking this year to gain some knowledge and skills so that when I apply next year, I have a fair chance.
My prep year: a to-do list
- Get my driver's license: this is crucial. It looks better on an application, it's central to some of my business ideas, and I need it to volunteer.
- Volunteering: unfortunately, I cannot do any volunteering here without a car, which is why the first point on my list is so essential. I've seen there's a lot of need for volunteering abroad in shelters too, which I'll be looking into. I have met a really nice woman here, quite by chance, who's the president of a cat charity, and who has some non-driving work for me to do.
- Medical secretary certificate: lots of job ads for veterinary assistants say that a medical secretary certificate is a real plus. This is something I can do by distance-learning, which won't be very expensive but could be very useful.
- Animal first aid training: these are one-day courses, in France and the UK. I'm really interested in doing this just for my own cats' sake, but I figure this will always be useful, and would look good on an application.
- Conferences, events and journal subscription: it's important I learn more about the industry and its needs, and it would be great to meet a variety of people too. I'm looking into attending events, but understandably many of them are restricted access for professionals only. I can get a subscription to France's professional veterinary journal, so that's something I'll be considering.
- Software: there's bound to be specific software that veterinary clinics use, and in this prep year, it could be really useful to have dabbled in it, or at least be familiar with it.
- Handling aggressive animals: I don't have much experience of handling aggressive animals, and I'd like to, it strikes me as really important. This will probably come about naturally if I can volunteer at a shelter, which again, is why getting the driver's license is so important.
So there we go. A few small plans to get started with. I'm excited.
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