Stay Away From Children

A few months have gone by and I'm settling into my new position at Large Corporation quite nicely. My new job isn't as data oriented as my last job, but you know what? It's far more fun to do and suits my skill set much better.

When I say my job is fun to do, that actually might be taking things a bit far, but certain aspects of my job are slightly amusing sometimes. Mainly because one of the many things my new job requires me to do is oversee translations for... hmm... you know I don't even know how many languages... too many to count, so let's just say all of them. I don't speak or read most of these these languages, or to be more precise, none of them. I don't speak or read any of these languages and yet it is my job to ensure that the translations make sense, follow regional legal requirements and standards and fit in the space provided. Whee!! See what I mean? Fun.

Mostly I make sure all this stuff is right by communicating with the people in the other countries and hoping like hell that they know what they are doing. Along the way I have learned some fascinating new stuff with which to pollute my brain tissue, for instance:

• The Swedish word for humidity is fuktighet. Say it with me, fuck tight.
  
• It can take up to 2 years to register new consumable products in either Indonesia or Malaysia, I can't remember which one, but that's a long fucking time. Jesus.


• Fuck them.


• Spanish and Portuguese are practically identical. I can hardly tell them apart. I like to call it Spanaguese.


• Sometimes I cheat a little and use Google Translate to spot check and once typed in what was supposed to be Romanian for "keep out of children's reach" and it translated to, "stay away from children". Good idea.

In other news, I have nicknamed one of my new co-workers Hipster McKnowItAll, for what I think may be obvious reasons, so I won't bother to explain it to you in graphic detail as if you were a nitwit, because I'm learning recently, first hand, how very annoying that can be. I will tell you this: she's an obnoxious 23 year old, who never runs out of ways to insert how she has lived in France* into unrelated conversations. She doesn't seem to realize that anyone else on earth or in America, aside from her has ever been to France and almost every day there is some point at which, I want to stab her in the face. Shut up kid.

While I'm speaking of my little hipster, know-it-all friend, I would also like to make the observation that isn't it odd how people who one might consider to be a hipster often themselves express annoyance of hipsters? No one ever owns their hipster-ness.

Let's see what else...oh yes, next month my whole department is moving to a different building in the complex. Our big boss manager lady just informed us the other day that the new cube configurations are going to have only 3 foot walls. This news seemed to bum everyone out, but frankly I don't give a shit as long as my new cublicle isn't right next to the kitchen like where I sit now. It stinks. Sometimes it smells nice, like the when the nice person makes cinnamon toast every day at 9:05 (you know who you are and I lurve you), but mostly it's burnt popcorn and god only knows what. People heat up some weird shit. I swear the other day someone microwaved a giant fart. I had to leave the area for awhile. Perhaps it was brussels sprouts, who can say? Either way I'd like my cube as far away from the fucking kitchen as humanly possible please.

Anyhoo... that's it for now. It's Friday, MDH just put some burgers on the grill (which smell fantastic BTW and not at all like brussels sprouts**) and I'm going to enjoy a nice cold beer before it starts snowing. I realize that it's only October 1st, but hey, it's Michigan, it could happen.

Bon week-end!

*for 6 months as part of a student exchange program - get over it!

**I happen to love brussels sprouts, but they reek, as do all other people's left overs. That's just the law of nature - only your own left overs smell good - they reek to everyone else.