A day in the life of me, Gillian Morris

I’m going to kick this series off with my own entry. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: This diary is neither aspirational, nor motivational – but it is honest. Any translator will tell you that no day in our job is the same, and it rings true here. My working days consists of a mix of translation, editing, copywriting, and localisation tasks, but for the purpose of this diary, the day in the life of a translator, I’ve deliberately picked a day of translation to record.

7 am: My husband wakes me up as he leaves for work. The kids are already up and eating breakfast. I go downstairs to make a cup of tea and come upstairs to find them splayed out in my bed, watching TV. I join them to drink my tea and catch up on LinkedIn.

7.55 am: Start getting ready, applying my SPF and mascara at a leisurely pace. Then I notice the time and a frenzy of teeth brushing, sun lotion applying, hat finding, water bottle filling, and shoe putting-on commences.

8.20 am: Leave house in good time to walk my littlest child to school. We talk about the differences between slinking, skulking, and sneaking, demonstrated through improv. Doesn’t look strange to passers-by AT ALL.

8.30 am: He stings his finger on a stinging nettle while trying to find some goosegrass (cleavers) to stick on my back. I resist the urge to tell him it serves him right, and find a plantain leaf to wrap around the offending finger.

8.41 am: They’re in. Back I go down the hill.

8.55 am: Back home. It’s time to check on my sourdough, which is bubbling nicely in the fridge, and put my little seedlings out for the day. Before I even step outside, I notice a baby slug idly chewing on what’s left of my sunflower. I guess the early slug catches the sprout.

9 am: I’ve got some yogurt, seeds and fruit for breakfast. I take it upstairs to eat while I turn on and check my emails and Slack channels. I have four inboxes: personal, work, and two client inboxes.

9.10 am: Start work for real now. My first task is tiny – I just have to translate a few text overlays for a video. Then I move on to today’s main task, some speech subtitles (around 1,700 words), which needs to be delivered by tomorrow (to me, that means today). Yesterday I spent a good few hours on the first draft (using my CAT tool), and I started confirming some segments last night, so I could estimate the speed it would take to complete. This one is quite complex, and I have a couple of glossaries to consult, so I think it’s going to take longer than normal.

11.00 am: Almost there. I had a few tricky sentences that were just far too long in the English. I’ve shortened them down so viewers don’t lose track of what’s going on when reading. Make a quick cup of tea for fuel.

12.40 pm: Catch a breath. I’ve now gone through the text several times and confirmed all the segments. Once for sense and meaning, once to check I haven’t missed any words out, and once to make sure it sounds good in English. I need to have a little brain break before the final proofread, so I go to the kitchen in search of sustenance. I’ve got lots of food in the way of ingredients, but little motivation to do anything with them for lunch, so I eat an apple and a packet of crisps.

12.50 pm: Back in my cave, eating al deskio. This is a terrible habit, but because I have limited working hours, I normally work straight through 9–3 while my kids are at school, and count pick-up time as my break.

1 pm: On the home straight. I export my translated document for a final proofread in the target text. Seeing it in a different environment (to the one I’ve been staring at for hours/days ) definitely helps.

2 pm: Deliver the job. Wohoo! I now have an hour left until I have to go and pick up the sprogs (my children). There’s not really enough time to get my teeth into anything, but I read through a copywriting brief and start taking notes/writing down ideas for a job I have to do tomorrow. This ideas time, plus a night leaving my thoughts to marinate will probably mean a smoother writing process tomorrow.

3 pm: I emerge from my dingy back bedroom office and step into the squinting sunshine, looking like a newborn vole. Shuffle up the steep hill to school, trying not to pant too loudly.

3.16 pm: Arrive at the gates looking like a sweaty tomato. Instead of “Hello darling mother, how was your day?” the sprogs greet with “Can we go to the park?”

3.20 pm: Actually, the park is not a bad idea. They’re all having a great time, and I’m sat on the grass, chatting to a few mums.

4.20 pm: Time to walk home. Their boundless energy immediately starts to run thin. It’s very unreasonable of me not to have teleportation abilities.

4.48 pm: Home at last. I put the oven on and sneak upstairs to log tasks, check off my to-do list, and email everybody back while it’s preheating.

5.17 pm: The computer’s off and the sourdough’s in the oven. I get the kids’ tea (or dinner, depending on where you’re from) sorted and clean up the kitchen.

5.40 pm: I’ve just dished up when my husband has arrived home just in time to back me up with the “my chicken fell off my fork” outburst, followed by “but I don’t like the black bits” (poppy seeds, which cannot be picked out, and he knows it). Looks like someone is tired. On the plus side, the sourdough is baked and looking good enough to eat.

5.45 pm: I make a brilliant suggestion that I could perhaps crack on with some of the weeding that absolutely needs doing.

6 pm: The sun is shining and I’m plugged into an audiobook, pulling up dandelions while my husband washes and reads with the little one. They all take a turn to come over and ask me something – I have no idea what, I’m not listening.

7 pm: I come inside to wash up and clean the kitchen (again), then go into the living room and sit with my eldest while he watches rubbish on YouTube.

7.30 pm: My husband brings me a toasted sourdough sandwich for dinner and after chatting for a bit, my eldest goes upstairs to do his reading and get ready for bed.

7.40 pm: We watch a couple of episodes of ‘You’ on Netflix. My husband brings us cup of tea at the halfway point (decaf, we’re wild like that), and I eat a satsuma and a Creme egg, for balance.

10.00 pm: Shower, book, bed. I am going to regret not blow-drying my hair in the morning when I wake up looking like a startled fox. Night world.