The boss asked me if I could be the interpreter a week ago, a French customer would visit our factory on March 20, 2008.
I told him it was no problem if just talking about import and export, but, for mechanical or photoelectric issues, I didn’t have any confidence in me. He said that’s no problem.

After that day, he didn’t give me any information on the visit,even not mentioning anything about the visit, and I thought,maybe the visit had been ancelled.However, just two hours before off duty yesterday afternoon, he gave me a folder with about 30 pages. I repeated that I didn’t have any confidence in myself, because I didn’t know much about the product and the industry, I didn’t know how to read the mechanical drawing and I didn’t know the terms. But the most important thing I dared not tell him that I hadn’t been an interpreter for about 5 years!

He didn’t think what I’d told him was a problem and insisted asking me to be the interpreter. I only have one night to make preparations. Frankly speaking, I was scared. I visited the customer’s web. Oh, my God! It’s a multinational corporation, public company listed in Paris, and their products are of high-tech. What should I do? I really don’t know much about the professional except some English words.

Being home at 8pm, the TV show <周恩来在重庆> was on. I could not resist , even though I had no time to read those ducoments. “The customer would come in the next afternoon, I still had a morning to read”.

To my surprise, during my bus trip to the office this morning, the customer called my mobile and said he would like to visit us in the morning, if we could arrange. I was scared! My God! I hadn’t finish reading those documents, what should I do? 这样我会S得好难看的.

I had no choice but to inform the boss and then told the customer we could accept the change. And then he insisted going to our factory by taxi instead of our picking up. Getting out of the bus immediately, I took a taxi going to the factory in a hurry. I was really afraid the customer would get to the factory earlier than I do.

The young taxi driver understood I was in urgent condition and drove the car very fast. I got to the factory before the customer did. I felt a little relief. And at the time, the boss’ wife told me something about the customer, and the present situation between our two companies.

About 20 minutes later, the French man arrived. He is a very tall man-I guess about 2 meters’ tall, about 50 years old. 我真服了他!一个人第一次来中国,第一次来深圳就自己打的到一个陌生的地方,还坚持不让我们去接,怕麻烦我们. 我为了不误事,提前给他打预防针: I am new here, and I don’t know much about the product. “it’s no problem, I will speak slowly, we will get on well.” He said politely with understanding. 刚开始,我很不熟悉他的口音,他说得很慢,感觉到他说得很辛苦.后来结合文件,结合图纸,慢慢地他不用喝水润喉了.参观完车间之后他说的东西我大部份能解释得清楚了.但也感觉得到,他一直试图把一些很专业的东西尽量用简单的单词表达.他真的很体贴人,一点都不摆架子和耍性子,尽管是大公司的高级经理人.
整整三个小时,我神经高度紧张,生怕理解错什么导致生产出错.直到PE人员和QA人员都点头说彻底懂怎么做了我才松了口气.

五年了,这五年我在深圳过的是什么日子啊?!得到了什么?失去了什么?得到的是坏脾气,岁月的痕迹,和一些使我维持生活的money,但我失去的却是我大学毕业之后确立起来的自信和技能.

过三十了,还不算老,再慢慢一样样捡起来吧.

自勉于2008.3.20