TTMPS

It's been a little while since I was laid off, and enough time has passed that I have developed a very serious condition: Talking To My Pet(s) Syndrome (TTMPS).

What is TTMPS? I'll tell you. TTMPS is a condition in which the affected goes beyond the normal dialogue with their pets (sit, stay, there's a good boy/girl!, no!) and starts to:

a) think they and their pet understand each other
ex. Affected: Oh Fluffy, I've just been so lonely without a job or coworkers.
(Fluffy settles in next to the Affected)
No, it's not your fault. I know I'll always have you. Say, you want to watch King of the Hill?
(Fluffy's ears perk up slightly)
Yeah you do! I know how much you love that show!

b) use their pet's "voice" to talk for them in "conversation," essentially talking to themselves
ex. Affected: Fluffy, dear, how are you feeling today?
Affected (as Fluffy in a higher pitched voice): Ok, Mom, but I'd really like a cookie!
Affected: Oh really? Do you think you deserve a cookie, Fluffy?
Affected as Fluffy: Yeah, Mom, I do! I do!
Affected: Oh alright...

c) talk using their pet's "voice" to talk to other people
ex. Affected's friend, Claire: Oh, look! I think your dog wants to play with me!
Affected: Do you want to play with Claire, Fluffy?
Affected as Fluffy: Yeah, yeah! Please play with me!
Affected: Oh I think so, Claire! Here, grab Mr. Piggy by the leg. She really likes that.
Claire gets the feeling she's at a really bad one-man puppet show, but plays with Fluffy.
Affected as Fluffy: Yeah! And I really like the way you smell, Claire!
Claire: Ok, this is awkward...

I have voices for Emma and Sparki, and have invented their personalities based on what I presume to be a fantastic understanding of their behaviors. Emma has a high-pitched voice. She can be whiny at times, but is mostly fun, assertive, and a jokester.

For Sparki, I use a voice that is Eeyore meets boy going through puberty. He is grumpy and usually annoyed with Emma and/or the world, but he's a gentleman and a team player. He's also got a soft spot for tummy time.

Ok yes, this is a problem. Does anyone know the cure for TTMPS?
Get a job, right? Man, that seems to be the answer for everything these days!

Memory Monday: Lost in Translation

Ah, Memory Monday: The day of the week when I reminisce about an old job.

For me, one of the finer points of being in marketing research was analyzing the international open-ended answers from surveys. For example, one common survey question asks respondents to state the one thing that XYZ company could do to improve their service. Many surveys with these sorts of open-ended questions that let respondents type in their answers freely were administered not only here in the US, but abroad as well in countries ranging from India to Russia to France.

There are 2 memories we need to discuss.

Number one: My latest employer sometimes didn't have time to get these international responses translated. Really, they were just incredibly cheap. Luckily, though, the questions required short answers. As a result, my former employer decided that free online translation services, such as Babel Fish, would suffice.

For the first 4 days of my work there, I translated Russian, German, and Japanese responses into English using this amazingly inaccurate service. ALL of the translations were terrible and didn't really make any sense. I remember one example was something like, "With the net it needs [PRODUCT] just, the home delivery it does to the home." I'm sorry, what? I'm sure you didn't mean that, Hiromi from Toyko. What it is you did mean, well, we will probably never know.

Number two: My favorite encounter, however, with international translations was at my first job. They were a larger company, and spent the big bucks to have responses in other languages translated back into English by a professional translation company.

There was one project where the open-ended question required a long response, and it was my responsibility to go through about 100 of these and record some trends. Around translation 79, I was starting to get loopy, and so I thought I imagined reading "I knew in my technical heart" on the transcript. What? You knew in your technical heart? I was confused. Maybe this gentleman just meant he knew something in his heart? I read on, but that didn't seem to make much sense either. Something was literally lost in translation.

To this day I still say "I knew in my technical heart" as a saying...
...no one understands why or what it means, but for some reason, it warms me.

Over the years, there have been plenty of translation mishaps. It was a plus of working in the industry; a little something to look forward to amidst the cornucopia of crap. And now, if you ask me, "Do you miss it, Pam?" I would smile, almost wistfully, and say, "It's taken some time, but I've learned to live without the translations. No, it's the money I miss..." And so, the lesson here is "miss the money, never for the working," or at least that was what it said when I translated it in Babel Fish.

Memory Monday: Brought to you by Coffee

Ah, Memory Monday: The day of the week when I reminisce about an old job.

Today, we're going back to a time when I was fresh out of college. A time when I decided to try living without coffee. A time when, no longer living with my formerly ER-obsessed college roommate, I hadn't seen ER in a while. That time was day ten of my first real job, 9:30am.

The back story:
Over instant messaging, a coworker of mine (who was also my superior on certain projects) asked me to help him with a small task. He and I got along very well and were fast friends from day one. He was a native of Venezuela, though it is important to note that his English was better than my Spanish (or any other language) will ever be.

The conversation that followed on IM:
Awesome coworker: Hey Pam, I need you to {insert small task here} within the next half hour. I know it's short notice, but do you think you can do it?
Me: Oh yeah, I'll have it to you stat!
AC: Great!

I start on the project and am half way through, when AC asks...

AC: So, what does "stat" mean?

Feeling the awesome social responsibility to tell him the correct meaning of a somewhat commonly used English language colloquialism, I began to panic. "Why oh why did I use that word," I thought, "and more importantly, why oh why can't I remember what it means?!" So I made it up to buy myself some time...

Me: Stat means "ok," I think...
AC: Oh. Ok!
AC: I mean, stat!

Ohhhh that doesn't sound right! I could feel him latching on to the incorrect definition and trying it out. "Wait!" I wanted to scream. "Give me a minute!" That was when I heard my college roommate in my head, saying, "You idiot! Stat means 'immediately,' like Sooner Than Already Here - not 'ok'!" I typed hastily...

Me: No, wait! It means "immediately!" Sorry about that!
AC: Oh, alright! Thanks!

Phew! I had saved him! Our IM conversation ended and I felt helpful.

But I hadn't saved him. The "ok" definition stuck with him and every time he meant to say "ok" henceforth, he said stat. I corrected him the first couple times, and we laughed about it. But when I heard him doing it in conversations down the hall, I knew I had lost the battle...the battle with my own stupidity. Now every time I hear "stat" I think "I'm an idiot!" and turn bright red.

What's the lesson? Contrary to what you might think, it's not "watch more ER." The lesson I learned from this experience is to never swear off coffee again.

What this really means...

I just realized that not having a job presents me with a very serious problem:
When am I going to learn my Italiano!?

Si, Italiano!

Thanks to Christmas, I'm not only listening to NPR during my drive, I'm learning Italian too! I got this wonderful time-passing set of CDs from my parents for xmas called "Drive Time: Italian" and I have already learned so much...

la machina e grande
(the car is big)
la caza e piccola
(the house is small)
il mio motorino e veloche
(my motorbike is fast)

These are all VERY useful things!

I love it when I get in repeat mode and repeat something I'm not supposed to. For example:
CD lady: Ascoltati e ripeteti (listen and repeat). Snack- il spuntino
Me: eel spoontino
CD lady: small pizza- una pizzeta
Me: una pete's eta
CD lady: sandwiches- i panini
Me: ee panini...wait that's sandwiches plural! Wow, I never knew---
CD lady: cheese- il formaggio
Me: oh right, eel for-ma-joe
CD lady: lesson seven
Me: lesson seven...doh!

I also love it when CD lady throws me for a looper.
We'll be doing our listen and repeat thing, and everything will be going alright. But then she'll say something like "devo fare una prenotazione al ristorante per favore" and I'm supposed to repeat this. I try, I really do, but it comes out like "devo farr...me na prezoni...a...ante...per favore." I know my per favore's when I hear them, thought, you gotta give me points for that.

I can't wait to learn how to say "You are the worst boss ever! I quit!" in Italiano!