Nowadays Posnania is better known as a giant shopping centre in Poznan, but I remember it better as a large, international construction site. I worked there as a translator and assistant for one of the general contractors, in the construction site office employing around 100 people on a permanent basis. The 260,000 m2 construction site (twice the size of an average shopping mall in Poland) was huge, with as many as 12 cranes. As the investor and the general contractor were both French companies, interpretation between the French-speaking management and the Polish-speaking contractors was a daily necessity at the site office.
I was responsible for interpreting the morning coordination meetings at the construction site, site inspections, meetings with constructors and architects and meetings between the general contractor and the investor. Meetings often took place in unusual surroundings – on the roof of the shopping mall in the scorching sun or at the entrance to the car park in thick mud, with deafening whirring and clattering of construction machines. This was where I learned to translate swear words perfectly.
