Desde la Cabina: Workin'

Working hard, trust me.

Today, I went to my first conference.  Not only did I not show my driver's license (not even once), go through a metal detector or give my full name, but I even "posed" as a professional interpreter and, just to make it all the more authentic, a native of Argentina.

"La cabina": The system is pretty simple.  Martin wears a head set that channels the presenter and then speaks into the microphone, which projects his translation to the wireless headsets the members of the audience are wearing. 

The headsets.  My job was to hand them out at the beginning of the conference, noting each headset number with the audience member's last name.  We only had about 45 people attend, but the company has a store of about 200 of these babies.  

As you can imagine, mostly, I just tried to blend in.  Martin - a professional and an Argentine - did all the real work.  YPF, a major refiner and exporter of oil and gas here in Argentina, held a conference on energy issues in Argentina for a group of masters students from Notre Dame University in their beautiful thirty pico story office building in Puerto Madero.  Since it was going to be a short conference, and for a group of about forty Americans to boot, Martin thought it only appropriate I substitute for his real assistant, Augustín.

View from the 27th floor of YPF.  The clouds cleared up by lunch time and revealing a spectacular view.

Once the speaker started the presentation I monitored the audience for a few minutes to make sure there were no problems with the headsets before I got to put on my own and squeeze into the cabin with Martin.  At the office, when I work with the transcripts and recordings, the tape is often done in a single channel: just in Spanish or just in English.  Some recordings have both and we call them "dual channels".  In the booth with Martin I hear what he hears the speaker saying (through one side of the headset) and then I automatically hear his translation because we are sitting side by side.  Martin, however, only hears the speaker.  I can tell you, it is pretty startling to hear the two languages happening... well... simultaneously.

Inside the Mother Ship.

 During the question and answer session I got to stalk around the room handing out the microphone.  Martin and I laughed later because some of the students would only talk to me in Spanish.  I guess I did a pretty good job playing dress up.  The speaker, however, was a bit wiser.

"Where are you from? North America," he asked me in Spanish after the lecture.
"Yes, the United States," I replied.
"Ah, that makes sense.  You speak very well, but your accent... you aren't from Argentina or Uruguay.  How rare," he laughed.

If I had walked into the room with a cup of mate and a thermos under my arm of hot water they might have mistaken me for a uruguaya.  Still, for being a green little Yankee (and yes they call us 'yankis') I did right well for my first day.  No one laughed or pointed and I understood about every third word.  From the SI perspective, that's good.

At the very least it was decided that I was much better looking than Augustín and, therefor, welcome to come back.

Hasta pronto chicos

Vocabulario útil de la bitácora:

• pico: or something... "ish"
• uruguaya: a female resident of Uruguay
• Hasta pronto: 'see you soon'