You’d think being hired to speak to foreign shareholders in ten different languages would be the most stressful part of the job, and you’d be…barely right, but at a very close second is finding out what our company actually does. Everyone knows Lawrence Corp, of course. Everyone in Melbourne probably has a gimmicky-yet-useful L-Corp gadget somewhere in their home, and far beyond that of course. But they have so many business partners, and I have to get to grips with who I’m meeting, where they’re from, and what language they speak. I’m not going to screw up on my second day by greeting the Japanese delegation in Korean.

Apparently there’s a big deal going on with a few stainless steel fabrication companies here in Melbourne, which wouldn’t usually be my job- they pretty much all speak English- but all these investors are coming to the meeting, so…that is my job. Yeah apparently L-Corp are unveiling some new innovation that’ll make stainless steel welding safer and reduce workplace accidents. It’s like… a bubble suit, of some kind? A person doing welding or fixing snapper racks to the side of a boat can slip it on, it doesn’t restrict their movements, and if there’s some sort of welding incident, the suit is completely fireproof and can protect from many types of injuries. If it works, marine welders won’t even have to wear masks.

And that’s all great, but now I’m frantically going over my dictionary collection and finding out how to say ‘marine stainless steel welding’ in Norwegian, and ‘bubble suit’ in Spanish. I’m definitely being kept on my toes. There isn’t even a word for ‘stainless steel snapper racks’ in Urdu; I’m having to collate a bunch of local phrases to try to achieve the same meaning, which is just as I was taught in language school, but…phew. Second day, eh?

Good thing I love my job already.

-Lance