The Aussie at Work

Friday

Friday was a great day at work. Not because I personally made any headway in my attempt to do relevant work at this job, but because I got to see the Aussie in action.

The morning was typical: There was a meeting. It was all in Japanese. The translation was probably inaccurate and definitely incomplete.

I did realize, though, that while I’ve been working away on what I thought was my big contribution to this project, the rest of the team has already completed the whole thing. Without me. Despite this, they still went through the motions of listening to me present my stuff, even though it was mainly a duplication of what they’ve already done. I said as much to the Pres. He just looked baffled.

As usual, I left the meeting with no idea what my next steps are, but with the promise of “I’ll explain later” from the Pres. Whatever. I need to move on to bigger and better things.

I was invited to join another meeting in the afternoon with the Aussie and about 15 other people. I was pleased to see that there was a woman providing simultaneous translation via wireless headsets, so at least I could understand what was going on. The Aussie barreled in, 30 minutes late, and said, “Right. What’d I miss?” Well, nothing, because the meeting couldn’t start without him. “Sorry. My diary has become completely useless. What’s this meeting about anyway?”

No one seemed to know. Something about a client we already have, or maybe a client we’d like to get, possibly expansion of existing business or something completely new. I couldn’t believe it. There were more than 15 people in the room and no one could tell him what the topic of the meeting was? Turns out, the Pres was delayed in getting to the meeting and he was the one who new. The Aussie just blinked a few times and said, “OK. Let’s talk about…” and just picked one of the probably 500 topics he knows are pressing. He was completely unfazed. When the Pres got there, we found out that we were in the right ballpark at least. But, after almost 2 hours of talking in circles around each other, in two languages, we concluded that we needed another meeting. With an agenda.

After the meeting, I ran into the translator in the ladies’ room. She told me that she’s been translating in the bigger meetings for the Aussie all week. Freelance, I asked? “No, I work for McCann in their TRANSLATIONS DEPARTMENT.” [For readers who don’t already know this. I work for McCann, too and never heard of any goddamned translations department.]

But the valuable thing I realized is that there is an opportunity for me actually get some new work experience through this whole company transition period. So, Monday, I start working on the Aussie. He needs to let me play in the sandbox.