Workplace
Locate and analyze your workplace, that is, the place where you sit to translate or interpret.
LingoCall’s Ergonomics Guidelines for Interpreter/Translator Workplaces.
Translators and interpreters spend many hours sitting. It is important to take care of certain basic aspects to ensure our occupational health. Stress and workload are not the only factors that cause injuries, they are also generated by the lack of ergonomics at work. The important thing is that we all understand that we can do many things to avoid them.
It is not necessary to invest a lot of money to get an ergonomic work environment, we can use several homemade tools to modify our surroundings without having to empty our pockets.
Do not forget that when we translate we are extremely focused and we may forget our body position. We then have to make a conscious effort to rescue ourselves from a position that can injure our bodies. We must consider that, regardless of the position in which we choose to work, any part of the body can always be in an inappropriate position, so we have to move! Nor should we forget those parts of the body that, although we are not using them, are there and count to ensure our occupational health.
Adapt your standard workstation with ergonomic elements or homemade artifacts that allow you to comply with the following positions:
Your feet should not hang. We suggest adding a footrest or, failing that, telephone directories, drawers, small tables or benches, to prevent the weight of hanging feet from generating circulation problems.
NOTE: The recommended dimensions of the footrest are 33 cm (13”) deep, at least 45 cm (18”) wide and inclined between 10 and 25 degrees. The support surface must be anti-slip, as well as the base of it. If a suitable footrest is not available, a piece of wood, to which a type of rubber or any non-slip material will adhere, can solve the problem.
Your knees should be at a 90-degree angle so that your whole body is rested. Remember that you are working with your brain, your eyes and your hands, the rest of your body should not make any additional effort.
Your back should be straight. Imagine that you have a rope above your head and pull it frequently to straighten yourself out. Surely little by little you will be twisting, the important thing is to remember the rope and straighten yourself as often as possible.
Let your elbows rest at a 90 degrees angle, with your shoulders relaxed. If this position is not adopted, eventually, your shoulders and neck will begin to manifest pain.
Adjust the table so that its height is where your elbows bend. The idea is to keep your shoulders from rising and hurting after several hours of work.
Locate the screen between 45 and 70 cm (18” to 28”) from your eyes, to avoid eye strain. Keep that distance. It is very harmful to be too close to the screen.
Lower the screen brightness, to the screen because we do not really need it. The eyes easily gets used to working with less brightness.
NOTE: Permanence in front of a monitor for a prolonged period of time causes visual discomfort, burning, itching, headaches, etc. A good habit is to divert view from the monitor every half hour and blink to protect eyes from drying.
Set the screen to a position and height, so that the eyes and neck do not move too much up, down, or sideways.
Make sure not to make any unnecessary and unconscious efforts such as stretching the neck towards the screen because we believe that this way we can see more clearly and understand the text better.
Remember to blink frequently because the screen has a hypnotizing effect. If we do not blink our eyes do not irrigate and tend to burn and hurt. (Visual fatigue and dry eye, may be long-term consequences).
Set up a routine pause to stretch your legs, arms, blink, take your eyes off the screen, get up and move your entire body.
Stretch your spine, it is not designed for a sedentary life. The vertebrae are not irrigated unless we are in motion!
Your computer´s sound system must be adequate for you to be able to do your job well and to guarantee there is no noise interference of any kind. In this respect and in the case of LingoCall, it is necessary for the interpreter to have a good quality and stable internet connection, to avoid overhearing when listening. Also, work with a headset (integrated hearing aid and microphone) of good quality and professional level.
By avoiding pain and injury we improve our productivity. If we are in pain when translating, we will probably lose focus, we will translate less, and with lower quality. If we take care of these factors, surely we can perform the 8 hours of effective work. We must stop once and for all that bad habit of working too many hours, and at the wrong time! Unless it is a special occasion. If we give ourselves time to relax, rest, entertain ourselves, we will surely start a new day with a fresher head and we will be more productive.
We recommend working no more than 6 hours per day in the interpretation or translation activity and have at least one day of rest per week. The ideal would be to have 2 days.
In addition to all this, it would be important to complement our daily routine with a exercise. We, ourselves, are our best instrument to monitor our occupational health, let’s monitor our positions and correct them. These requirements do not respond to a whim or a desire of diva/divo, but they obey to a very specific reason: to take care of our future, to take care of ourselves now to be able to work more years. The idea is to avoid any type of corporal damage to prolong our professional useful life, and the balance and well-being in our daily life.
