agentpigeon

I'm very familiar with the various Video Relay Services (HOVRS, Sorenson, Viable, etc.), but I have not often had the pleasure of observing/hearing interpreters from those companies in action. I rather suspect there already has been some talk in the forums about which service is best, but I'm interested specifically in which one consistently has the best interpreters, not the best services overall. Several times I've seen an VRS interpreter at work, and not always does he/she seem to really interpret - he/she seems a little bored. That may or may not be understandable.

Consider times when you've used/observed a VRS interpreter at work. Does he/she seem like he/she is really interpreting - displaying all the intrinsic emotions necessary, transferring everything appropriately into the target language? This question is, admittedly, extremely subjective in nature, so I ask that you use your best judgment. Which company do you think consistently has the best VRS interpreters?

This question is open to all, regardless of hearing status (as I am Hearing myself).

Deafness

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Etoile

If you switched the word "bored" with "exhausted" I'd be right there with you. I'm a VRS interpreter, and I do my best work early in the day. After a few hours I am just trying to make it till the end of the day, and my interpreting suffers for it. We don't get nearly as many breaks as community interpreters; VRS is a much more demanding job (physically and mentally). I did some community work recently and I was amazed by how easy it was rather than the constant stress of VRS work.

I agree with you that VRS interpreters aren't always doing their best work, and it's for a lot of different reasons. I don't think boredom is necessarily the most common one.

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"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." -Gandhi

agentpigeon

Huh. Yeah, I suppose at the end of the day VRS interpreters *must* be exhausted. I know regular interpreting is demanding, but I guess I hadn't realized it is the same for VRS interpreters. Do you normally have calls one after the other with no break at all in between? That must be intense. Do the companies not give longer breaks to interpreters because the interpreters are in such high demand?
I'm still interested in which company offers the best interpreters, for whatever reason. Since VRS interpreting is so intense, I guess that long breaks might play a major part in it!

Etoile

Yes, calls do come in one after the other, you get maybe 10-15 seconds in between calls during the regular workday. Obviously it is lighter in the evenings and on weekends, but during regular working hours the call speed is very intense. We do get breaks of course, but not usually between calls - it's not unusual to do over 10 calls between breaks, at least where I work. And again, only 10-15 seconds between each of those calls. Yes, VRS interpreting is just as demanding as community interpreting, if not more so!

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"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." -Gandhi