Lost in Translation
First day at a new job in a foreign country
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The office is open-plan. This is the first thing I notice, because open-plan means that everyone can see me standing at the entrance, smiling in the specific way you smile when you have no idea what is happening around you.
A woman comes toward me. She says something in Dutch. I have been learning Dutch for four months and I understand approximately none of what she has just said.
I say: 'Goedemorgen.' Good morning. This is one of fourteen phrases I can say with confidence.
She responds with what seems to be a very long, friendly sentence. Inside my head: nothing. A complete absence of language. A white room with no furniture.
I smile again. She smiles back. Then she gestures for me to follow her, which I do, grateful that gestures are universal.
My desk is near a window. This is good. I sit down. My computer asks me for a password in Dutch. The error messages are in Dutch. The keyboard has keys in slightly different places than I am used to and I keep pressing the wrong ones.
At eleven o'clock there is a meeting. I go to the meeting room. There are nine people. They speak Dutch for forty-five minutes. I understand the word 'project' and the word 'email', both of which are the same in Dutch as in English. I nod at appropriate moments. I believe I nod slightly too much toward the end.
Lunch is eaten together in a kitchen area. Someone offers me something. I say yes without knowing what it is. It turns out to be a very specific type of Dutch liquorice that is extremely salty. My face does something I cannot control. Two people laugh, but kindly. One of them, a man named Lars, says in careful English: 'It is an acquired taste. Here —' and gives me a biscuit instead.
Lars teaches me three useful phrases before the afternoon begins. I write them in my notebook and practise them silently while staring at my computer.
At five o'clock, I leave. Outside, in the grey Dutch afternoon, I breathe the cold air and feel completely exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with work.
But Lars said he would show me the good coffee place tomorrow.
I think I will be okay.