Walking on eggshells

By Rita Pacheco*

When I came to work at INESC Porto as a translation trainee, I came face to face with my own personal limitations. Firstly, I didn’t know much about the Institution and, secondly, I was surrounded by strangers, which is always a bit frightening.

When I became aware of the Institution’s importance and the intelligence of the people I was going to work with, I confess that I felt a bit intimidated. I had finally realised the responsibility of what being part of INESC Porto’s team entails.

I was entitled with the task of taking what happens at INESC Porto across borders, which is a bit daunting, yet encouraging and exciting at the same time. And since my translations aren’t just for those living outside of Portugal, but also to the foreign students carrying out their post-graduation studies in Portugal, I couldn’t take an excessively British or even American cultural position.

When I am translating, my responsibility isn’t just to myself. In fact, I must take other people into consideration, trying to realise if they will understand the message I am trying to get through.

And, as a translator, that is exactly my task: to be able to understand how “other people” think, putting myself in their shoes. This leads to a perfectionist way of working, characterised by never ending research, revision and even more research… and also by an intense and fierce self-punishment when I think that I could have done so much better.

This is where I realise how important the translator is, even though this job is so neglected. Translating is more than a mere transposition of ideas from one language into another. To translate is to create a whole new text from an original idea.

This is why I tell my friends that, at INESC Porto, I am “walking on eggshells”. I understand the responsibility and the expectations that are placed on me. Therefore, “walking on eggshells” is a nice way of saying that I feel like a soldier “standing to attention”, a rookie soldier that does not want to make any mistakes during the military training. I’m not saying this because people put any kind of pressure on me. That is not the case at all. I say it because I put that kind of discipline on myself.

So, “walking on eggshells”, I go silent, in an attempt to be effective. Striving for any kind of perfection is, obviously, an illusion. Therefore, I cannot promise that I won’t fail. However, I can still promise that I will try to dignify the Institution that welcomed me temporarily, always wearing the institutions colours proudly.

*Collaborator at the Communication Service