When I started working at my current job, I was paired with a more experienced mentor in the same department, a Japanese guy who goes by the nickname “Ricardo” (a name he acquired in his eight years in Panama). Together we formed a two-man translation team that handled most of the translation work for our division. This arrangement worked pretty well. I handled the J-E tasks; he took care of the E-J. Life was good.

Yesterday Ricardo was transferred to another division, one where his responsibilities do not involve translation. I remain in the same department as before—and I seem to have inherited his workload. Lucky me!

The difficulty this poses for me is that now I am more or less expected to handle translations in both directions, which is somewhat outside my comfort zone—and my competence, to be honest. Sure, I can translate information into Japanese if I have to, but I wouldn’t say that I’m very good at it.

My colleagues assure me that everything is fine. “You understand Japanese with no problem,” they say. “Naturally, you can write it, too!” In my view, this is like saying, “You understand Shakespeare, so naturally you can write like him, too!”

At any rate, I’ve lost a good teammate, which happens from time to time in any job. Losing Ricardo certainly will make the game more challenging.