In 2008, I asked myself a question that took six years to answer.
I received a phone call from the Principal of Glendon College. He was calling to make me a job offer. He asked me to quit my job as a staff conference interpreter with the Government of Canada, to leave Ottawa and resettle in Toronto, and take up a faculty position at Glendon’s School of Translation. I did not find it an easy decision to make.
Accepting the position would mean leaving a wonderful group of colleagues behind. My fellow interpreters in Ottawa were (and are) special to me. The thought of not seeing them regularly — whether at work or socially — made me a little sad.
It would also mean giving up interpreting, at least as my primary working activity. Now, it is not easy being an interpreter. You have to cope with a great deal of stress, your failures and shortcomings are out there for everyone to hear, and the work is notoriously difficult. But when it goes well, interpreting gives you a natural high beyond compare. It makes you feel like you are on top of the world. It’s hard to give up!
What’s more, the job waiting for me in Toronto was — at the outset anyway — teaching written translation. It’s true that I do find translation mildly interesting. However, unlike interpreting, translation doesn’t make me want to get out of bed in the morning, and it does not put a spring in my step. Still, the School of Translation at Glendon had expressed interest in exploring interpreting as a new program area. So perhaps I wasn’t going to be completely turning my back on my favourite activity.
I accepted the Principal’s offer, but I silently asked myself a question: Would it be worth it?
I started at Glendon several months later as a new faculty member. I worked hard to adjust to a new rhythm of teaching, research and administrative work. I was still getting used to my new routine when a tantalizing opportunity danced on the horizon. An external body was hosting a highly competitive call for proposals. If I submitted a lengthy and rigorous proposal, I could be awarded at least some of the money I would need to start a new training program in interpreting.
It would be a lot of work to chase this opportunity, and I recalled my silent question from a few months earlier: Would it be worth it?
Fortune smiled on me. After a long and arduous selection process, Glendon was awarded the first envelope of funding. But keeping the funders satisfied was no mean feat. There were monthly reports to write, budgets to track, and financial audits to prepare. What’s more, one source of support would not be enough. To get a new interpreter training program off the ground, I would have to seek out other opportunities. So I set to work. I filled out so many grant applications that Glendon’s Office of Research Services had to dedicate an entire drawer in their filing cabinet just for my paperwork. My strategy was to keep throwing spaghetti against the wall until it finally stuck.
It was not an easy process, and there were no guarantees. I once again found myself facing a familiar question: Would it be worth it?
Eventually, my perseverance paid off. Glendon managed to attract multiple sources of support, and the interpreter training program that would become the MCI was slowly getting off the ground. I continued with my reports, and spreadsheets and audits. But I also picked up a new set of duties. I hired instructors, recruited student applicants, and guided them through the labyrinthine bureaucratic process of getting admitted to a large university. As our first cohort of students arrived, there were still more things on my to-do list. I had to advise students, teach classes, find scholarship money, and arrange internships. I worked long hours and sacrificed sleep.
As I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a tired face staring back, I again repeated my now cyclical refrain: Would it be worth it?
And so I continued my periodic soul-searching right up until this very week. 91ŃÇÉ« held its fall convocation, and the first cohort of MCI graduates would at last cross the stage and receive their diplomas and degrees. I had been in touch with our new graduates in the days leading up to convocation, and I learned some very positive things. One of our new alumni recently passed the Ministry of the Attorney General’s court interpreter test. Several more are going to take an important accreditation exam for conference interpreters in November. Two are working a great deal in the community interpreting setting. Four are getting a lot of contracts as freelance conference interpreters. Three are working as full-time employees of a Toronto-based translation and interpreting agency.
This was all very encouraging. But the pivotal moment came for me as I stood on the convocation stage. I watched as, one by one, our first group of graduates shook the hands of 91ŃÇɫ’s chancellor. This ceremonial act symbolized the conclusion of their university studies and the beginning of their professional lives. I saw the light of determination, of commitment, and of confidence in the eyes of these new interpreters. At that point, six years after I first asked it, I at long last had the answer to my persistent question.
“Yes, Andrew,” I muttered under my breath, “it was worth it. It was absolutely worth every moment of self-doubt, every long hour, every meticulous proposal, every audit and report, to reach this point in time. It was worth it to see this new generation of interpreters taking off and already soaring high in your beloved profession.”
Godspeed, MCI class of 2014. You have already made me proud.