20 lessons learned in 20 years of business
As EVS Translations UK approaches the celebration of its 20th anniversary in February, its founder and CEO, Edward Vick, has been joining us on the blog each week to speak about the business and life lessons learned from the UK chapter of his international business. This week, we focus on the UK team itself. Daniella Panayotova takes some time out to talk about her experiences.
I started with EVS Translations in 2016 in Bulgaria, and in January 2018, I came to the UK office. My position is translation engineer. At the beginning, it seemed like this would be very similar to what I was used to doing – working with texts.
My experience
I started my career during the previous century, “the crazy 90s” as we call them in Bulgaria. Those were difficult times when most people preferred job security over risk taking. Your work life was considered successful if you got to retirement without undergoing major shock and change. Jobs with minor risks and challenges were the most attractive.
During my career, I have worked predominantly as a graphic designer. For over 25 years, I designed and created templates, created layouts for printing magazines, books, brochures, and newspapers. In the publication industry, I got used to tight deadlines and pressure. Putting to use my years at a German language high school and my Russian language major, I also worked on multiple freelance projects translating from German and Russian into Bulgarian. So when I joined EVS Translations, I thought it would be easy swimming for me – desktop publishing in the context of translation.
Me in translation
Working as a translation engineer at EVS Translations has required me to step out of my comfort zone.
I learned that rather than being a simple exercise, translation is a huge field of study in its own right. It is a complex industry involving various processes, procedures, quality guidelines, teams of specialists, and software. Although relevant, my previous work experience covered only a part of what translation preparation involves. I had a lot to learn: about CAT and segmentation, how to navigate translation software, and whether translation memory suffers from amnesia…
While getting used to all the new aspects of the work, I also made the move from my home country Bulgaria to Nottingham. This was a huge change for me, since I had never lived abroad before, but I’m extremely happy with the choice I made.
Comparing my previous work as a graphic designer and my current role as translation engineer, I’m impressed by how quickly both fields develop and progress. There’s no time to feel bored, there’s always so many new things to learn, practice, and master. I was glad to discover that I could apply my skills and experience as a designer in my role as a translation engineer. Nowadays clients don’t ask just for a translation but look for a fully finalized document – translated, formatted, and properly assembled. It’s been very satisfying for me to combine my skills and interest in design with the newly acquired knowledge of the translation business. It has allowed me to build on my existing strengths and to push myself to be inquisitive, to not stop learning, and to look forward to new challenges.
Lesson learned: I learned to not fear change and the unknown, to not hesitate to take on new challenges, but rather to seek them out and embrace them, and to avoid getting stuck in my comfort zone. I’m very grateful to the EVS Translations teams in Sofia and Nottingham for their support and for giving me the opportunity to learn this lesson.
