Billing

There are so many great things beginning with B.  I could be writing about beauty.  Or bread and butter.  Or babies or basil or beaches.  And instead I've chosen billing because it's twenty past ten and I've just gotten in from work and it's all because of quarter-end billing.  Without a doubt everyone's least favourite time of the year and they keep managing to cut our time even shorter by not allowing any leeway if one of our few precious days to get through billing falls on a bank holiday.  And yet we have to all keep on doing it because, let's face it, if the clients weren't getting bills to pay, none of us would have jobs to go to in the mornings.  But I could easily live with a job where this was not one of my tasks.

So I need to start moving forward on my plan to have a plan in place by the end of next year to move to a different area, even if I haven't managed to actually do move by then.  Carla, over at Half-Dozen Daily, is running an April savings challenge and although I can't join in since I get paid monthly and my money for April is all already spoken for and/or already gone to savings, I did say that I would set myself a mini-goal of searching out a course to do in September.  I really want to get the IHK translator certification as it would allow be to become a state-certified translator, allowed to translate things like birth certs, marriage certs and so on.  And, although you don't officially need anything to just to general translations, it's always nice to have another piece of paper in this land that loves pieces of paper.  This is, after all, the country where you are expected to hand in copies of your school diplomas (that's school, not college) along with your college stuff and references when starting a new job.  Even if you've already been working for twenty years.

Having the translator's certificate would mean savings for me because I'd be able to use it to do some freelance work to supplement what is likely to be a far lower salary than I earn now if I move in the direction I want.  I am badly out of practice at doing exams though and that is one thing I will really need help with.  Even just writing with a pen for long periods of time is something I am completely out of practice at.  And the exam involves translating both from and into your foreign language so I badly need an intensive grammar course to go over all of those things I was lazy about learning in school.  I'm actually pretty good most of the time - it's only when I stop and think about it that I start tripping up.  And at least I made some progress today by going onto the IHK website and downloading information on the exam, including the two places that offer preparation courses.  Next step is to find out what courses those places have on offer next September.  Although the end of September is not only quarter-end, it's our financial year-end too so you can imagine the billing fun we have then!