Written and Posted by Christian Angermann, German and English Translator.
I achieved all the things I intended and many more. I improved my communication skills with colleagues and clients over the phone, in person or via email. Dealing with stress in such a busy office where I sometimes had to care about several jobs at the same time while being friendly and calm to clients and colleagues.
I have worked in all kinds of jobs for several companies before and couldn’t imagine that a job at the office could be so exhausting. After a while I learned how to set priorities and deal with stress in a professional manner.
The two supervisors were perfect role models for dealing with several tasks at the same time while remaining relaxed. The opportunity to work with a diverse staff was absolutely great and everybody was very helpful and nice. Not just the staff at the office, but also interpreters and translators who were very understanding when I didn’t know how to express myself on the phone or didn’t catch what they meant to say.
In the beginning I often had to pass the phone to another staff member when these problems occurred especially if an English native speaker was on the line and talked very quick using vocabulary I never heard before, but in the end I was very confident and fluent. I have the impression that people in the UK are more welcoming, open minded and friendly as people in Germany in general.
It is very easy having a little small talk with strangers and most persons I talked to seemed to be interested in meeting new people. The subjects I was trained in include nearly everything which one has to know to run an own translation agency.
I am very thankful and pleased for the trust and confidence the team put in me and would recommend Absolute Interpreting & Translations to other students who plan to complete an internship in the UK.
