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Seorang teman lama berkata bahwa ia tak tahan bekerja dari rumah.

Apa itu gerangan bekerja dari rumah?

‘Working from home’ (WFH) adalah bekerja mendapatkan rezeki untuk mencukupi kebutuhan sehari-hari dan memberikan jasa kepada orang lain dari kediaman kita. Kok bisa? Ya bisa.

Tren ini cukup mencuri hati karena tidak perlu ikut “rat race” dari bangun pagi-pagi, siap-siap menuju kantor di lain tempat yang cukup jauh, serta berjam-jam di jalan baik di kendaraan umum atau pun di kendaraan pribadi.

Begitulah sekilas apa itu bekerja dari rumah.

Irama dari bekerja dari rumah adalah:

bangun pagi dan melakukan aktivitas rutin, mendekati komputer, menyalakan komputer, sarapan pagi, buka email, balas email, buka Facebook, komentar di Facebook, buka Google Reader, baca-baca artikel menyangkut industri terjemahan, mandi, minum kopi sambil makan snack ringan, mulai bekerja mengerjakan pesanan hingga makan siang, istirahat, mulai kembali bekerja sambil buka-buka rujukan via internet, istirahat “snack jam tiga”, berhenti bekerja ketika kuota telah dicapai, kembali membuka email dan Facebook, menghentikan diri, bercengkerama dengan keluarga, makan malam, buka internet kembali (jika ada email penting) nonton TV, istirahat.

Kira-kira begitulah irama kerja.

Tentu ada saatnya kita harus bertemu.

Ini tulisan sekarang agak relevan. Jadi saya posting.

Disclaimer: Photos were taken – way before – Covid-19 Pandemic, except the first one, note the “masker”.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. ” – Robert Frost

Coffee is a language in itself. Jackie Chan

“The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’ ” – Jeffrey Bezos

“To infinity… and beyond!” – Buzz Lightyear

“Islam began as something strange and will revert to being strange as it began, so give glad tidings to the strangers.” – The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)

I wrote something about a Windows 9 on my last post unfortunately there isn’t going to be one.

Huh?

Yes. There won’t be a 9 but a 10.

I first saw this unforseeable thing at this link. Anyway, just to let you  know the logic according to this article has got to do with LEGACY.

An article from windows.com can be seen here.

As an Indonesian translator having the latest Windows means you will need to set aside your cash and TIME for an upgrade. I have had the opportunity to upgrade my Windows because the project I was working in my Firefox wasn’t performing well. I asked a colleague and friend on this and he suggested that this might have to do with software. In simple term you’ve got to upgrade.

Asking my friend if I should upgrade or not was still my biggest concern. I’m in my comfort zone with my tools. Having to upgrade means having to learn again new things, and spend time on it. A luxury I wish not spending. But ALAS…

I decided to take that step and bought the upgrade only to have it install almost a week after I had bought it. And as soon as the product key was at my disposal, I quickly followed the instruction on how to set it up.

The first challenge that I was faced with was back-up. I had loads of files that needed back-up. Thanks to my 1 TB external hard drive, after some deleting of files, I had my files backed up from my precious tool – my notebook aka my laptop.

The second challenge was the downloading of the Windows upgrade. And, of course, comes the biggest challenge, the installing. At first, the upgrade was far from a success, it was a failure and unsuccessful. It turned out that I had encrypted the hard drive with a TrueCrypt software. Back again and find and browsed the Net and re-learned myself with the procedure. It took some time, but finally the search was over and I have the information at my disposal and march on…

And, in the end after some time on the decrypting, I was able to install the software successfully. Yes? No!

I had another challenge the product key was not accepted. Then, I turned again to my beloved Google Search, and found out that, I had to have a new product key, so I contacted my seller, the seller said the product key will come the next day.

So, this is just a tiny recollection of my time outside translating, editing, interpreting, and other stuff relating to my work. Yes… software and IT.

I hope this can be a lesson learnt for others that trying, trying, and trying is key to success on finding the solution to your challenges and resolving your IT software issue.

This may sound tedious and laborious but this is slot in time that a translator must have and should accommodate in staying in line and updated with the industries’ (localization/translation and IT/software) essentials.

Good luck on your endeavour.  I kid you not. 😀

Here’s where you can look further: CLICK

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Almost a month after I’ve installed my Windows 8, yes, I’ve just upgraded, somewhere in the universe of Internet, I saw this:

Windows 9 unveiling set for September 30, report says

Really…

It seems that doing the upgrading is an evolution and yet the software upgrades of Windows is a revolution.

As far as I’m concerned, as an Indonesian translator, I’ve only got one thing to say and do.

Wait and see.

I’ve only just awaken to this and yet this was 2012… and now it’s nearing the end of 2014.

It seems IT is a revolutionary thing and the mind set of a translator or someone in the industry of localization is moving in an evolutionary way – i.e ME, but I guess one can run after one has achieved a steady foot walking. Anyway… we shall see.

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In simultaneous interpreting (SI), the interpreter immediately speaks the message in the target-language whilst listening to it in the source language.

Standard practice in the industry is that there should be two individuals. These professional sits in a closed space or booth, where they listen to the speech via headphones, and interprets (translates orally) simultaneously. Conference participants or delegates wear headsets to listen in to the language of their choice.

During the month of April 2012, I had the opportunity to do this project in a country I never thought I would visit. The project was in South Africa, in Johannesburg and Sun City. As the project is in a different country to where I live I had to travel to the place.

It took almost a day to reach the site. We flew from Jakarta and stopped for transit in Doha, Qatar. We flew with Qatar Airways. In Doha we had to wait for almost seven hours until the flight to Johannesburg leaves. We stayed in the airport transit area in Doha. The airport transit area was nice. We had offer to recommend a different flight that would be shorter in waiting but the client took a different decision. Anyhow, we left for Johannesburg in the morning local time.

The flight was not that packed, so some passengers moved to other seats to sleep. It was overall a long journey for us.

We arrived in Johannesburg in the afternoon. We were picked up and brought to the hotel. Almost an hour after we reached the hotel, we had time to freshen up and we were ready for our work. The simultaneous interpreting site is about five minutes from our rooms. It was in the same location.

We set ourselves in the booth. There were one other pair, English – Portuguese. We were done in about two hours or so.

The next day we moved hotels to a different place, Sun City. Sun City is a holiday resort. It was an experience that I can never forget.

In the evening we started our work, there were some more language pairs French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. We started around 6 pm and lasted until 9 pm.

The next day was a full event. We started around 8 am until 4 pm. It was exhausting.

The last day we had to leave early after breakfast and was on our way back to Jakarta, Indonesia. By far this has been an amazing experience for me and my new found colleague and a friend.

Being a professional, one has to stop to recharge. One of the many ways to recharge is by learning.

The best way to learn is through workshops.

I did this. I enrolled to a workshop that not also kept me with the standards of industries but kept me informed with the experts in the field.

The workshop that I attended was organized by the University of Indonesia via its business unit LBI. The workshop was: “Professional Interpreter’s Workshop”.

It was a recharging experience, and that all professional interpreters should do. It helps the mind and body to focus on the job better. An investment worth doing.

As a linguist (translator for the language pair English to Bahasa Indonesia), I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to see Dubai during one of my projects relating to language rendering.

The four week training in Dubai had been a smaller portion of a larger part of the language project itself. The rest of the execution of the project, the actual project was about six months, and was to be conducted remote in my part of the world, in Indonesia.

By remote, I mean that the client is on one side of the globe and the project execution is in another part of the world. And, what brought the client and the provider to one place was in this nice place called Dubai.

In Dubai, I had to endure a four week long training provided by the client in that post training I would be able to utilize the software and all the necessary procedures to conduct and finish the project.

The training was a full day training for four weeks. The typical week was from Sunday to Thursday, this was because we were in a world where weekends fall on Fridays and Saturdays. It was one of the best experiences that any translator, linguist could ever experienced.

During this project I had two other Indonesians who were also working in this project. We had been a great team due to the fact that the client had such experience in doing the projects before that this one that I experienced was no exception.

Long story short, being a translator has its moments of good times. And, being in Dubai to do a project paid for by someone else, sure is a good time. An experience I myself could not have thought was possible.

Indonesians…be a translator not just the language pair of English to Indonesian, be a translator in other language pairs. I can assure you if you can do it professionally, things will be great. But being professional, is not an easy task. Just focus and go with the flow.

My first language project that took me abroad, outside Indonesia was an interpreting project.

It was such an experience because the process of getting the project was a long one, it took almost six months.

This interpreting project was for a training in the restaurant industry. It took around two days.

There was another Indonesian who also worked on this, she was an Indonesian living in Singapore.

The project was simultaneous interpreting. During this project I had to use a tool. Most simultaneous interpreting usually endure this procedure.

The simultaneous interpreting was a hard process in that you had to concentrate hard to do the job. Overall, it was an extraordinary experience.

Siri on: “iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.” (More on Siri: 1, 2)

Siri according to Indonesian Monolingual Standard Dictionary (KBBI) is:

n 1 Antr sistem nilai sosiokultural kepribadian yg merupakan pranata pertahanan harga diri dan martabat manusia sbg individu dan anggota masyarakat dl masyarakat Bugis; 2 keadaan tertimpa malu atau terhina dl masyarakat Bugis dan Makassar: penikaman bermotif — meningkat di daerah itu

Google Translate help on siri’s definition (machine translation):

n 1 Antr sociocultural value system of personality who is the defense of institutions of self-esteem and human dignity as individuals and members of the Bugis community dl; 2 state affected public embarrassment or humiliation dl Bugis and Makassar: stabbing motif – an increase in the area

Check with a professional translator via this Portal for a more refined rendering.

Anyway, there is another meaning to siri that most Indonesians are aware, siri means “nikah di bawah tangan“. This has a negative meaning for some, some may see it positively, and for the other somes, this may have a neutral meaning. Who knows? I haven’t done any surveys, so I’ll let the experts or corporations do the survey, and then you’ll get the drift.

So, corporations, (I guess this software is not aimed solely for Indonesia, is it?), for Indonesia please consider naming names for our sake. Does siri aim for Indonesians? Well, I guess not. Or maybe yes? Well… I can’t make my mind up, since I haven’t got an iPhone. Do I need one? Well… I wish I had.