Haven’t had any time for sknoblog or any other artistic activity lately. I’ve been doing software localization and translation work to feed the kiddies. Most translation work in the Internet age is outsourced by software companies to China and India, and translation rates have fallen dramatically (generally to a few lousy cents per source-language word). Thankfully, most of these Chinese and Indian agencies understand that translations need to be done by native speakers of the target language, so the work makes it back to France. But to pay the rent, you have to be able to translate a lot of words each day.
I used to have a handsomely-paid job before the iBubble burst, and even though I had more money than I needed, boy was I miserable. I had to manage dozens of people, which meant inspiring confidence on the worksite, and questioning the legitimacy of my role back home. As a manager, I was also supposed to close ranks with top management, but I ended up clashing with them constantly instead, and defending the work conditions of the people I managed. As a general rule, top management is only interested in doing a good job if it serves their selfish, political purposes. I was just interested in getting the job done right, without anyone getting hurt in the process. At first, because I delivered on time and on spec, I earned myself a lot of corporate credit, but when it became clear that I wasn’t deliberately aiming for corporate advancement, I was dismissed as a pitiful slob, with no ambition and no better than any other working stiff.
Also, having worked on cutting-edge multimedia projects in my job before that (the worlds’ first QuickTime VR CD-ROM for Apple, the worlds’ first interactive video DVD-ROM for Intel, etc.), and having published my own multimedia creations, how was I supposed to get excited about creating boring websites for huge corporations? How do you not laugh or puke when you meet a twenty-something product manager for a margarine, who waxes poetic about his product, tears of emotion welling up in his eyes, much like a curator speaking of the art hanging on his gallery walls?
So when the opportunity arose to get out, with a little parachute, I jumped!
I then worked for a couple of years on a secret project before my cash started to run out, which is when I turned to translating (a long time ago, I used to work for US software companies, and at the heart of my mission was getting stuff translated into French. So I started contacting translators I used to work with, and voilà).
I actually enjoy translating. Even though it can be tedious, it is an intellectual affair, and translating software is a problem-solving activity–which is something I strive on–because often times, you have bits of text that are out of context that don’t make sense, and you have to deduce what is going on as you go along. On some occasions, it can even be a creative or aesthetic affair that provides some « artistic » satisfaction. And I can work in my jammies, listening to my favorite music, and I can organise my time any way I want, and pick up my daughter at school every day. The only downside (apart from the comparatively lousy money), is that like any other « independent » worker, I never know where my next job will be coming from, or even if there will be a next job…
So this may be my fate for the foreseeable future, even though miraculously, the secret project refuses to die…
And for the first time in my life, I would actually be able to play my music live, in front of a hypothetical audience (having learned to play some of it on the guitar), so should the opportunity arise, I’m ready.