Attendees of the event who are new to my blog may be interested in reading a little more about how I got into translation, as just one example of how a freelance translator begins their career. Well, if you’re wondering, read on…

For me, translating freelance was something I’d aimed for since starting my MA in Translation and Linguistics at Westminster University over six years ago. Completing the course 9 months later, I realised that freelancing lark would require planning, careful consideration and funds (not to mention paying off various bills and loans). So, quite early on I started looking for in-house translation jobs in London, eventually accepting a job as a full-time in-house translator in the public sector. My plan was to stay in this job for about a year, save up and then launch my freelance translation business.

I remember that I was fairly overly confident about my abilities as a translator at that stage, despite not having much real-world experience of it. Embarrassing to think about it now! A year passed quickly and I realised that I still had a long way to go before I felt ready to go it alone, both in terms of my translation skills and my ability to run a business. I still felt that I was much more suited to freelancing than to cubicle life in a rather uninspiring air-conditioned office, but the value of what I was learning was too great to just ditch it so quickly. I decided to set myself a target of at least 3 years in the job, and then to go for it freelance.

So, apart from translating diligently, squirrelling away my pennies, making my escape plan and daydreaming about a fantasy life as a freelance translator, what else was I doing during those years? Well, because I was serious about becoming freelance, and felt that if I put my mind to it and got support from the right people I could really make a go of it, I spent a lot of my evenings online researching how others were doing it, what sort of hardware/software/ancillary skills I might need for my business etc. Like many translators, I did regular voluntary translations in my spare time in order to hone my translation skills. I joined several ITI groups, and started reading the e-group threads after work. I attended steadily more ITI and CIOL events (networking is a long-term activity so I thought it best to get started on that ASAP), and I started a blog. I had been reading other translation blogs, and realised that I was gaining so much from reading about the experiences of other translators that I wanted to contribute something of my own. This led to more networking and becoming part of a dialogue with other translators in order to share our experiences.

Eventually, I felt the time was right to finally go freelance. If anything, though, I felt even more terrified at the prospect of freelancing at that point than I did when I graduated years before, when I was blissfully ignorant about what it involved! But I was still determined to do it, and resolute that in-house translation was not for me at that point in my life. I needed something to make me take the plunge, but I also needed a security blanket. So, I hatched another plan. I started attending a TESOL course for 3 hours each evening after work to qualify to teach English as a foreign language – a sort of back-up plan just in case freelancing didn’t work out, or if it took a lot longer than expected to get going. I also sat the ITI exam to become a qualified member (MITI).

Happily, I passed both the TESOL course and the ITI exam and no longer had any excuses to put off going freelance. The next thing I needed was the ITI’s Professional Support Group course, as after years in the public sector I was still seriously lacking any business skills. So, one week after leaving my in-house job for good I started the PSG course and was at my new desk in my home office. I got a short-term part-time teaching job in central London to help pay the bills, and also some locum teaching and private tuition in Business English. By October 2008 (6 months after going freelance), I was finding it too difficult to fit all this in with what was by then a full-time translation workload and felt secure enough to stop the teaching altogether.

I think it’s fair to say that each freelance translator will have taken a slightly different route, and the length of time it takes to get to the point where you’re earning a decent full-time income with regular, valued customers will vary considerably (depending on your language combinations, experience, marketing material, and often just sheer good luck). However, hearing how other people did it and how long it took them is one of the best ways of getting a realistic picture of what to aim for. I started my career in-house, and I’m not suggesting that’s what everyone ’should’ do. However, I do think that however you do it, careful planning is one of the best routes to a successful, sustainable freelance career. Running your own business is very fulfilling but can be scary, and so ultimately, the crucial qualities are determination and the ability to be brave when it’s needed!

]]> http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/10/22/getting-into-translation/feed/ 1 http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/08/21/contingency-planning-for-your-freelance-business/ http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/08/21/contingency-planning-for-your-freelance-business/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:44:08 +0000 philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/?p=419

Image courtesy of http://www.backup2go.com.au/dataloss.php

Céline over at Naked Translations wrote a post yesterday about back-up systems for freelancers, and invited others to share how they guard their businesses against data loss. Céline, if you’re reading, this post is my answer!

I actually have what some might call a fairly paranoid approach to how I back-up my work, and have a few solutions. It took me a long time (too long) to fully realise just how important it is to make sure important documents can be recovered in the event of computer failure/other business disaster. I’ve never experienced the anguish of losing a humongous translation hours before a deadline, but last week I did experience major data loss. I think we can all identify with how it feels at that moment you realise something important has just gone ‘poof!’ and disappeared into thin air.

My first solution, similar to Céline’s Dropbox solution, is to use online syncing. I use Sugarsync. Essentially, as I’m typing, each document is then automatically backed-up on their servers, meaning I can access all my updated files from any computer that is connected to the internet (whether it’s a PC or a Mac). I can do this remotely via my profile on the Sugarsync website or via the downloadable Sugarsync file manager. Sugarsync also offers a number of advanced features, including an intriguingly named ‘magic briefcase’ and a secure ftp location for sending large files. For anyone worried about data security and backing-up in ‘the cloud’, files are encrypted with 128-bit AES – can you say that about email?

I love Sugarsync, but it’s certainly not my only solution. I also use a more traditional back-up and storage tool called ZenVault that stores my important files at a remote location. The data loss I experienced last week illustrated exactly why I use back-up as well as syncing: as soon as I managed to lose the crucial files on one computer, that change was automatically synced across all my computers, so there was no chance of recovery. However, instead I was able to go into my ZenVault terminal and recover the documents from previous back-ups. So, I have a way of taking a static snapshot of all my documents and past documents, as well as a way of making the latest versions of my documents available across all my computers.

Another key back-up for me is having alternative computers to work on in case my main PC fails. I also use the über-traditional method of backing up to an external hard-drive on my desk, which is the preferred option for most freelancers. At this year’s ITI conference, there was a lot of chatter about using ‘the cloud’ to store data, but people seemed to assume that storing it in offline was automatically more secure. What would you do if your home was burgled or burned down and your one and only back-up solution was inside? Is that really any more of a secure solution than using an encrypted online back-up service to store important files at a remote location?

The possibilities really are endless for the paranoid, and my view is that these contingencies are not likely to happen at the same time. However, it’s really does pay to be too careful when you’re freelance (i.e. without IT support on hand).  Essentially, the only (almost) fail-safe solution is to have more than one contingency planning solution.

To learn more about online back-up and syncing, have a read of this article.  Warning – the review is rather long, but if you can scan it and pick up the salient points it’s a good starting place for contingency planning. The key message is not to rely on just one solution.

The response to our presentation has been really positive, with many people wanting to learn more or see the slides again, so we decided to take our little 2 person roadshow online for the big wide world to see. We are now pleased to unveil a stripped down, re-recorded version of our presentation available at Slideshare.net. You can view the show within this post (below) or by following this link to Slideshare if you have problems hearing or viewing the embed.

After a delightful evening meal at the library of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (the main conference venue), we reconvened early the next morning for another day of presentations, chat and lots of coffee. I felt that there was a perceptible shift on the second day towards the more practical, day-to-day aspects of translation and interpreting, with the emphasis on technology, work-life balance and professional development.

The day started with yours truly – co-presenting with Sarah Dillon. We’d done a lot (and I mean A LOT – see Sarah’s write-up) of preparation and research for our presentation, and it was both terrifying and exhilarating to finally be able to share it with our professional community in this way. We basically offered a whistlestop tour of the concepts behind social media and web 2.0, the type of online tools available, and how language professionals might best use them. Sarah did a demo of some novel uses of LinkedIn and Tweetdeck which appeared to be new to many delegates.

We had a small technological hitch along the way, with our remote presentation tool throwing a wobbly halfway through. Although it had worked fine in our tests, we had foreseen this happening, so managed to remain calm and carry on thanks to  our backup plan (a PowerPoint file containing screenshots). However, I think that our key messages still came through – that these tools are not scary or difficult to use, that they allow YOU to be in control of how much information you receive, that not every one of these tools will be right for you, and that’s OK, but that the online world is changing – big time. It’s almost a case of ‘find a manageable way to keep up, or get left behind’. I think these messages were fairly well received, and Sarah and I have been really, really excited to see more ITI members venturing onto Twitter, for example.

Watch this space for more news on our presentation, as we already have plans to make a recorded version of our presentation available at Slideshare and perhaps even to publish our research, thoughts and findings as an ebook via  Lulu. The ITI Conference website will also be uploading copies of every presentation early next week – go to  www.iticonference.org.uk.

Our session was followed by a panel discussion entitled ‘Where to draw the line?’ with Nick Rosenthal, Iwan Davies, Patricia Sommer and Paul Appleyard.  A few questions had already been sent to the panel in advance, focusing on the usual suspects such as how to chase late payment. We were reminded that it is important to operate a rigorous policy when dealing with late payments – don’t take any prisoners, and operate a zero tolerance policy, but remember to remain professional and courteous in all dealings with clients.

Next up was Dr. Steve Vincent from Leeds University Business School, on the subject of work-life balance for knowledge workers. Steve challenged the phrase ‘work-life balance’, suggesting that it was more an issue of ‘work-life conflict’ – this is a description that I also personally feel is more appropriate. Siobhan Soraghan, a business coach, ran the next session, again on work-life balance. Siobhan has personal experience of ‘burn-out’, and proposed that we check in with ourselves and our working/non-work habits and rationally analyse them.  We are all busy people, we all wonder how we’ll get everything done with just 24 hours in the day, so Siobhan suggested that in order to avoid burnout, in our daily tasks we should prioritise our endless lists of things we ‘need’ to do, by asking ourselves which of them are both important and urgent. The most important asset in each of our businesses is our health, and this needs investment through ’self-sustainability’ activities. To read more about Siobhan’s work, visit: http://www.active-insight.com

A truly original and inspirational presentation came next, by Phil Goddard on ‘Finding a work-life balance crossing America’. Some readers may already know about Phil’s 3000 mile walk across the USA for charity, but for those who don’t I urge you to visit http://anenglishmaninneworleans.blogspot.com and  www.nytola.com. Impressively, Phil found that he was still able to work on translation jobs while he was away, and often found himself delivering jobs from his laptop at random hours of the day or in unusual places – this really showed us just how ‘mobile’ it is possible to be these days if you really want to be.

Reinhard Schaler, founding editor of the Journal of Specialist Translation (JosTrans), and founder and director of the  Localisation Research Centre at the University of Limerick, presented a session entitled ‘Where is translation technology going?’. Reinhard started by stating a problem: there is more material out there online than translators can translate. Some examples: 40% of Facebook users are not using English, but Facebook’s mission statement is to make their product available in ALL languages. Their way of tackling this has been to crowdsource volunteer translators from within their existing user base – collaborative translation where users can comment on and update translations in order achieve a final version. This is a controversial practice among translators, and rightly so in some cases, but I am minded to agree that it is the most effective method for a product such as Facebook – after all, none of the language used on it is highly complex, and wouldn’t its users be best placed to understand the terms in context? The fact of allowing users to update other entries, Wikipedia style, would also go some way to resolving translation errors and stumbling blocks.

I attended the translation technology parallel session run by Ana Luiz Iaria. Ana is well known to be very knowledgeable on this subject, and took us through a run-down of productivity tools, back-up, tag verifiers etc. Look out for Ana’s presentation on the ITI Conference website to see the links to the tools she introduced us to.

And so the conference drew to a close, and there were a lot of tired but happy faces in the audience. To finish up, we discussed ways that the ITI is supporting the profession, with training courses and several new initiatives in the pipeline for the coming 12 months. Despite the feeling of tiredness I could sense we were all experiencing, I could also feel the unmistakable sense of renewed enthusiasm, new ideas and new contacts we so often come away with from conferences. At their best, conferences and any indeed any gathering of freelance professionals remind us why we’re in this profession, and help spur us on to develop ourselves and our businesses. I can safely say that this was one such event.

At the conference I attended last November, I decided to ‘live tweet’ from the event. But this time somehow the mood just didn’t take me, and I also knew that a few other delegates, particularly @nickrosenthal and @serenadorey would be tweeting updates, so I knew it would be well covered. Not to mention the fact that I was cripplingly nervous about my Sunday morning appearance as a speaker, so was rather distracted by that! So, I stuck to good old-fashioned paper notes this time, and here are my thoughts:

The conference had 3 key themes: ’sustaining the profession’, ’sustaining the professional’ and ‘moving with the times’; each  session being built into these. The Saturday morning began with the keynote speaker, Katerina Germanis from the FSC, describing the FSC’s work, and also giving a brief insight into its translation needs. This set the tone for the weekend very well. It seemed clear to me that the FSC are currently rethinking their translation ’strategy’ and assessing how best to proceed, so there may be some interesting developments there.

Next up was Helen Wolfson, international coordinator at Friends of the Earth, who gave a great overview of some of the work they do. Helen (clearly a very experienced and talented speaker) explained that FOE work with 3 official languages, and all their material needs to be available in each of these, meaning that their translation needs are huge. I was so impressed with the presentation, I decided to join FOE!

One of the most eye-opening sessions for me came up next: ‘Where have the translators gone?’, by Klaus Ahrend, Fiona Harris and Terry Clough of the DG Translation. I wrote a blog post a while ago about this, when the problem of sourcing talented into-English translators first arose in the mainstream British media, but I really had no idea that the problem had got so serious so quickly. About 1/3 of their staff translators are due to retire in the coming years. Some figures for you:

• In 2000, they worked with 10 language pairs and had 185 translators
• In 2004, they worked with 19 language pairs and had 222 translators
• In 2008, they worked with 22 language pairs and had 156 translators
• Their order volume has gone from €1.2m in 2005, to €3.8m in 2008.

As you can see, the general trend is fewer and fewer suppliers, against increasing (and wider) demand.  A particular problem is finding high standard English translators for the languages of the newer EU members. This is something Fiona Harris is seeking to address, namely by starting a MAJOR awareness-raising campaign (even using Youtube videos!).

According to Marcel Lemmens of Teamwork Vertaalworkshops, a similar situation is unfolding with the Dutch language. He explained there is a mismatch in the market in terms of Dutch>English translators. There is a major shortage, and only 2 universities in the UK offer translation courses where students are able to have Dutch as their source language. Marcel also emphasized one of the key take-home messages of the conference – that target language writing skills are the single most important skill in translation.

I really, really relished the next sessions – a series of presentations from recent MA in Translation students from assorted universities across the UK. They gave us a brief overview of their dissertations, which varied from translation gains in the international reporting of Chinese leaders’ speeches, to issues surrounding working as a sign language interpreter. You can read about some of the graduates in interviews on Sarah Dillon’s blog.

The conference then moved back towards an environmental theme, with a presentation by Cat Akana of Blue Planet Multicultural, a translation company specialising in the environment. I think our eyes were opened to just what a dire situation we’re in, in terms of the environmental challenges that lie ahead, and we were reminded of the need to take action now, before it’s too late. In fact, as Cat pointed out, climate change is happening NOW, and peak oil may already have happened, meaning that the ‘future’ we still assume to be far off may already arrived. Some of us may have noticed translating more and more environment-themed texts, and this is likely to continue to increase.

We were then treated to a fascinating presentation by Silvia Ferrero, owner of MediaLoc, on the games localisation industry. I’m not very familiar with this type of translation, but learned alot about what is involved, including a high degree of creativity and sometimes rewriting in order to achieve the best final result.

As we moved towards wrapping up the 1st day, we discussed contingency planning with a panel of experts. Questions from the floor included (paraphrased) ‘how safe is the internet?’, ’should I use online word processing tools?’ and ‘how often should I back-up my work?’. We were shown techniques in supporting mobility and flexibilty through folder and software syncing, how to boot from Linux in the event of a system failure, and how to link your main PC to others in your office. The main message from this session was that we should never just rely on ONE solution, contingency planning means preparing for several eventualities.

The final session was by Liz Robertson, Chair of the Association of Translation Companies, entitled ‘Sustainable relationships in a recession’. I really enjoyed Liz’s presentation, and particularly appreciated how well she set the tone for the 2nd day (and for our presentation). Her key points were that translators and translation companies are usually seen as 2 separate groups, that there was a lack of mutual recognition. Instead we should be focusing more on working in cooperation, since we already share a common goal. Her take-home points were: 1) know your client, 2) understand yourself and 3) ask for feedback, and welcome it when it comes.

Here’s a little progress report on the targets I set myself:

• Desk stretches: thanks to @bonnjill, a translator I had the good fortune to meet via Twitter and the blogosphere, I have discovered Workpace. This neat little (fairly unobtrusive) program that reminds you to take regular breaks from your desk and prescribes a series of exercises you can do (best thing about working from home: only the cat can see me do these .  I usually obey Workpace and now take regular 5 minute breaks every hour or so. Gold star! Thanks Jill!
• Sitting position: well, not much of an improvement. My tendency to sit cross-legged at my desk has been my default setting for so long that it may take a lot of time and persuasion to change that…but still, at least I’m actually moving about more now (see above).
• Getting daylight: hmm, another one I need to work on. Work has been very busy lately and sometimes there literally isn’t time to get out while it’s light, but I do try to at least get out into my garden (especially to water the herbs and rocket leaves I optimistically bought a few weekends ago)
• Water: all good in this department I think. Gold star.
• Lunch: plenty of tasty food eaten, yum. Away from the desk? Not so much…that’s the problem of having too many interesting blogs to read   Today, even though I ate my food at my desk, I did manage to get to the gym beforehand, so that must count for something. Half a gold star.
• Working late: hmm, a difficult one for a freelancer. My hours are not set in stone, so sometimes I will work later because it suits me. It’s hard to judge exactly how long my hours are each week, in that sense. A lot of time is still spent on the PC, but if I’m going to use a computer in the evenings or weekends, I’ve begun to make serious efforts to limit this and to use my laptop in a different room in order to offer some time away from the four walls of my office.
• Holidays: this has been the funnest target of all! I’m off to Portugal next week for a bit of R&R, and I’ve also booked my other half and I into a guest house for a night away from the city for our wedding anniversary shortly afterwards, and I’m currently compiling reams of bookmarks for places to go in the summer*.  I’m resolute that none of these holidays will involve me working, as we remember how that went last year. Two gold stars!

One of the first things cubicle-bound people normally ask me about freelancing is whether I find it hard to resist the temptations of daytime TV. After I ask them whether they’ve actually seen what’s on offer on daytime TV these days, I tell them that actually the biggest problem for me is resisting the temptations of my office, crazy as it sounds. I actually NEED programs like Workpace to be told to get up from my desk every now and then. So, I was relieved to read today that I’m not the only person who has this problem, Paul Boag wrote an inspiring guest post today on Ramblings of a Remote Worker called The Reality of Home Working.

I thought that Paul’s helpful hints about a homeworker’s workspace were spot on, especially about the importance of having a separate space to work in, if possible. I have a separate room in our flat where I can work with a nice big desk (upgraded recently – very good move) and proper office chair.

Sarah Dillon also wrote two great posts about this very recently on her blog, in which she asked readers to share pictures and descriptions of their home offices. Fascinating to be able to peek at other people’s offices! Everyone really does have a working style that suits their particular lifestyle and needs.

My next target is to try to put the ‘free’ back in my freelance lifestyle and being to work on a slightly more mobile basis. After a recent crisis with my wireless internet connection I decided to purchase a mobile broadband dongle so that I can do this more. I also decided that, even though I have quite enough space, that didn’t mean I needed to clutter it up with paper and machines. For example, I have a web-based fax service for that reason, rather than for reasons of not being tied to my office. In in all, although there are many ways for me to work away from my fixed desk now without it necessarily affecting how I work, like Sarah I still find that that working from a fixed home office for the majority of the time suits me best right now.

* On a separate note: In the interests of frugality (buzz word of the year already), our holidays this year will mainly be camping ones. Sites like Cool Camping show that you don’t need to spend a lot of £ to go on holiday in comfort and style.

“Arse, poo and widdle.” With this unholy trinity of coy expletives, Stephen Fry introduced us to the joys of Twitter earlier this month

By far the most disappointing report on Twitter that I’ve witnessed was on Newsnight yesterday evening. Apprarently Baroness Greenfield has piped up and said that communicating online is contributing to a rise in autism and is increasing the social isolation of children. Paxman had a couple of ‘experts’ on the show to discuss this. Watching this discussion felt a bit like watching the blind leading the blind, since nobody really seemed to have actually used Twitter or any other social media tool, despite professing to be experts on the matter. My favourite quote from one of them was “Children could be writing to people in another country who they’ve never met before”. Shock! Horror! Damnation! As someone who works at the global interface, I couldn’t quite understand why it would be such a terrible outcome for children to communicate with other children in different countries/cultures, provided that is done in a safe environment (remember internet parental controls?). My other half, equally bemused by the discussion, said to me “What about at school when we all had penpals abroad?”.

In reality, however, it’s not actually children who are using Twitter.  I’ll do my best to try to dispel that myth and others about Twitter here:

• Twitter is just for kids/teenagers/people under 25. Stats show that Facebook is still mostly used by the under 35s, but heavy users of Twitter are in fact more likely to be in the 25-45 age bracket. There is even a sizeable number of over 65s using it. I would (as have others) suggest that this is because the majority of Twitter users are on Twitter because they are mainly using it in connection with their work.
• Tweeters just send text messages to themselves to tell Twitter what they’re doing all day (I actually heard this description last week). Anyone who does that too much is pretty much an instant ‘unfollow’ for me – the most productive aspect of Twitter is that it helps people share news and information about their fields of interest or their occupation, with the occasional anecdote about their personal lives thrown in to show that they’re human.
• Twitter stops people from going out into the world and socialising in a normal way, and destroys peoples’ social skills. As with any new-fangled, revolutionary device, there is an initial ‘craze’ period, and a period where everyone scratches their head and worries that it signals the end of civilisation as we know it. I wasn’t alive at the time, so you’ll have to do your homework on this one, but sources tell me that people were worried about this when the telephone was invented too.

Twitter can help people build a ‘community’ of like-minded people, yes. This is a ‘community’ in the traditional sense of the word, nothing more sinister than that. That ‘community’ is a very valuable virtual water cooler for those of us who work freelance. I’m not sure how others working in open plan offices, for example, use Twitter. Perhaps they use it to reach out to virtual ‘colleagues’ beyond their immediate co-workers. That’s what it’s all about, folks. COMMUNICATION. BUT you still can’t beat socialising in person, and I’m pretty sure that most ‘normal’ Twitter users still do that. Perhaps even with someone they initially met on Twitter and found they had a lot in common with. There have always been reclusives,  and there always will be, with or without social media.

Feel free to share any other myth shockers you’ve come across, or even ones that you believe to be true.

There are of course things I’d like to look at and improve on in the 2nd year.  Surprisingly, most of the things I’d like to work on revolve around allowing myself adequate time away from the computer to relax and recuperate. I’ve learned, on reflection, that although mobility and flexibilty are a freelancer’s best friends, working whilst on holiday is not necessarily a great idea for your sense of sanity.

I think most of us fail at taking time out of our daily routine to focus on our own wellbeing, rather than just the wellbeing of our business. This is a serious and potentially costly misjudgement. YOU are your business’s greatest asset, and to neglect that asset could damage your business.  Without sufficient breaks, holidays and mental (i.e. doing something different to your primary skill) and physical exercise, you are not giving yourself the regular M.O.T. you need to keep running your YOU-BUSINESS efficiently.

I should practice what I preach. I’ve been guilty of allowing myself to sit in front of the computer for ours on end without taking a break or stretching, and sometimes days go by without leaving the house. It’s great that I can be so enthralled in my work that it doesn’t even occur to me to move myself away from it, but I usually find that if this goes on for too long I find myself feeling a little less well-adjusted than ‘normal’ (not to mention that my weight has been ballooning out of control, and my eyesight has deteriorated rapidly).

So, to kickstart my new approach, I plan to implement the following into my ME-BUSINESS:

• Do 5-10 minute stretches at my desk every 60-90 minutes
• Check my sitting position at my desk every so often (I’m guilty of sitting cross legged at my desk)
• Get out of the house at least once a day – get some daylight!
• Do some form of exercise for at least 30 minutes everyday – even if this is just walking around the block
• Drink plenty of water
• Eat a proper lunch, and eat it away from the desk at least twice a week
• Try not to work too late into the evening, and plan something completely different (i.e. not computer bound) after work
• Allow for at least 22 days’ holiday a year (I’m ashamed to say that last year fell woefully short of this)

Shouldn’t be too hard to achieve, right? I’ll keep you posted.

To kickstart your own healthy new YOU-BUSINESS,  take a look at the excellent tips in this article on Freelance Switch.

A debate is currently raging across the British media concerning this news story, and the wider issue of new mums of all ages and social statuses who for whatever reason decide to return to work rather more quickly than is ‘normal’. Most new mums are entitled to at least 3 months’ leave following the birth of their child (except freelancers, of course – how long we choose to take it entirely at our own discretion, or rather, how long we can survive on the state Maternity Allowance).

The Guardian encouraged a debate on the issue, with numerous writers (all women, I might add) being very forthcoming with their views on Dati’s decision regarding her newborn. I began reading the comments with a fairly neutral attitude. But, as I read on, I found myself  forming a much stronger opinion…but not the one I expected.

Contrast this view of one writer:

Dati is someone who has a serious job to do and it really doesn’t matter whether she’s postnatally flabby or annoyingly thin when she does it. It’s not unsisterly to be slim and it doesn’t make you unfit for public service. As for the health consequences of going back to work so soon, it’s not as if she is a hod carrier, or a firefighter, or a teacher – she’s a government minister and if she feels up to sitting down at a desk and attending meetings shortly after giving birth, bonne chance to her

With this one:

Then there was the businesswoman who spent her labour on her Blackberry because she didn’t want to look like “a slacker”.  I’ve also spoken to despairing midwives who see women missing out on the vital, once-in-a lifetime experience of bonding with their newborn.

Machismo of this sort by women in prominent positions makes others feel guilty about exercising their rights. It also deters women from striving to reach the top. There are precious few women in leading business roles and many of them are single or childless. It is easy to understand why that is if they are expected to start working almost immediately after birth.[...]  As a society, we should encourage our leaders to show that it is possible to take proper maternity leave and hold down a high-profile job.

To my surprise, my major reaction was disappointment at some of the criticism levied at mothers. Although many of the responses made some very salient points, these points risked being lost amongst the emotionally charged tone of the writing. Why does this, as women, upset us  quite so much? Why are we still hounding each other for the decisions we take in motherhood? Why do we feel that motherhood is an issue where we are all entitled to pass judgement on each other?

Sure, there are things about the way some women choose to begin motherhood that would not work for everyone, but is it really fair to haul them over hot coals for deviating from what we perceive to be ‘normal’? This particular observation really stood out:

[...] you have to wonder where feminism has taken us when women are judged because they don’t conform to the current view of what a “good mother” looks like

France has excellent maternity provision, much more generous than the UK. But in France reactions have been even stronger, especially among women’s rights organisations. A spokeswoman for one of the major women’s rights organisations in France said ‘c’est un scandale‘. This is a somewhat  misplaced agenda for a women’s rights organisation, surely.

This is such a contentious issue and feelings clearly run very deep; there aren’t many things that offend humans more than when others take issue with their parenting style.  What saddens me is that people, especially women, are so very quick to pass judgement on how other women choose to return to work after having a baby. After all, I don’t think child neglect is an issue here – we can probably quite safely assume that Ms. Dati has employed a suitable-qualified nanny.

One of the most surprising things for me in this story was that I found myself agreeing with a columnist in The Times (!). Melanie McDonagh on Friday really hit the nail on the head for me when she said: ‘[...] real women are infinitely various, their circumstances even more so.’ The debate continued in The Sunday Times today, again with some pretty reasonable and pragmatic arguments put across. I still don’t have a very strong view for or against Ms. Dati’s decision. All I hope is that soon the day will come when the image of the ‘perfect mummy’ is no longer idealised and women do not vilify each other for not conforming to it.

This week, true to form, this is exactly what blogs, podcasts and newspapers have all been doing. I thought it would be nice to share with you my ten 10 list of what I’ve been reading and listening to, and learning from, in my own little office this week:

1. 2008 in photographs (these are seriously impressive)
2. An interview with Chris Durban at Speaking of Translation on how to realise your earning potential as a translator
3. On the same site, interviews with several people about how the current economic situation is affecting translators’ workloads (it’s not all bad, far from it)
4. How to say Merry Christmas around the world on Lexiophiles
5. The 5 stages of Twitter acceptance
6. Concepts of social identity in translators and speakers of multiple languages
7. Words of the Year 2008
8. One linguist’s ’syntactic pain’ over Strictly Come Dancing (for what it’s worth, the name of that program makes me want to emit a big ‘ugh’ too)
9. Health and fitness advice for Grumpy Home Workers
10. Looking back at whether I’ve played my cards right in my first year of freelancing with 9 Tips for Brand New Freelancers

I’ve found plenty of food for thought here; reasons to be pleased with my progress and things to improve on (especially, ahem, fitness) in the next 12 months, my place in my own industry of choice,  and not to mention the wider global situation in general. All that remains now is to wish the blogosphere a merry, restful and reflective festive period.