Today was one of the days where I had to submit some proposals for contracts for one of our clients... and everytime I have to do that I feel like I'm seriously in one of those action movies a la Mission Impossible or something. The documents are taken in high security briefcases or containers, or triple-sealed envelopes... depending on the size. So today we were taking the documents to a French client company. I went along with the account representative for that client. The rep is French, speaks English, and speaks a good amount of Portuguese. At the office, we communicate in English...
So we get to the client's office, we submit the top-secret files, and the rep decides that I should meet one of the top contract managers from that company... another Frenchman who has a long-standing relationship with the Rep. I'm gonna call him Mr. E. So Mr. E comes to the reception to meet us, and after Rep introduces me by saying something like 'This is Elisa from our contracts department, she speaks English and Spanish and French, and a bunch of languagues,' I was like 'that's not quite...'and they burst into animated French conversation... talking about upcoming projects and all this stuff. I was concentrating so hard trying to keep up with the conversation... reading their lips and trying to use every strategy in the book, lol. But at some point, Mr. E asked a question that went something like "What's the name of the guy that's responsible for the chemical solutions we're using for project such and such? I can't remember his name..." and I actually understood his whole phrase... without missing a beat I piped in "D.K" and they looked at me like if I had been part of the conversation all along and agreed "Ah, yes, D.K." and they totally kept going like nothing. I was like, Wow... I'm so mad at this situation right now. But anyways, I got the jest of the conversation and gave myself a mental high-five for following along just enough to not be totally lost, hahaha.
Anyhow, that was the most interesting thing that happened to me today... just thought I'd share.
3 comments:
aaahhhaaaahaaa omg elixer u rock!
im never going to travel outside the usa without you ever again u were our ghetto translator in greece!...ya math wiz! edna is texting and talking to me in a lot of portuguese ooo la la pariiis
LOL! I never thought lamda, psi, and theta would come in so handy!
Larkin is responsible! And I'm laughing at your story: Hiiiilarious... Until they ask you to present some sort of oral report to the French company!
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