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tranfree issue 9 - 18 December 1999
Translator Occupational Hazard: Back Pain - It CAN AND WILL affect you too - unless…By Alex Eames I've spent the past six weeks on my back with acute back pain. I'm not telling you this to get your sympathy. I'm telling you this so that you realise this terrible affliction can and will affect you too if you do what I did wrong. We've all read books about sensible working habits and thought, "yeah, yeah, yeah that's for the weaklings!" Let me tell you this - if you work too many hours at your desk, without breaks, for long enough it will happen to you too! Basically, setting up and running translatortips.com and translation-agencies.com and keeping ALMAL going over the last 12 months has meant that I have been sitting too long at my desk without proper breaks and without much exercise. So if you get really busy earning money remember this...
Or, more importantly,
And that, I hope will drive home to you how important this message is. I am lucky (if you can see it that way) because translatortips can virtually be run from the sofa or floor. I have a very nice DELL notebook that I can use to still get some work done on my back. But if we're talking about paper work - forget it! (That reminds me I still have to do my tax return!) I don't know about you, but most of our translation work still comes in by fax. I quite simply wouldn't be able do it properly on my back. So if you were in this position what would you do? Enough said! So what can be done to prevent this situation from happening to you? Mary Maloof has the answers in the next section.
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