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There are countless categories of translators out there and surely all of them would agree that this poster is a faithful representation of reality. I've found it somewhere on the Internet, by the way. There are many around, one for each profession imaginable. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, there is little to add in way of comment. I’d like to make a few points, though. Needless to say that Google Translate has got many people spellbound, but few will think I hope that this very unusual, albeit sometimes useful, automatic translation tool is bound to replace the human translator. As for dictionaries, it saddens me and irritates me to think that some punters still think that owning a few old-fashioned bilingual dictionaries automatically turns anybody with a grasp of a foreign language into a translator. What do you say about Brussels? Who wouldn’t like to end up in the European Mecca for modern-day translators as a well-paid in-house member of the translation staff? If only! But it isn’t that easy! I take my hat off to conference interpreters, they do a great job and they have to deal with an incredible amount of pressure and stress in the booth. But the reality I’m most familiar with is that of the freelance technical translator and the guy in the poster looks like my twin-soul. Or how do you think the translator feels when a client sends him a massive document on Friday evening, just before he or she heads off to the seaside or the mountain chalet or a luxury resort (the client, that is, translators are so badly paid that they can only dream of luxury resorts) and asks for early delivery first thing on Monday morning? You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned the editor. Well, thank goodness that, for better or for worse, I don’t have one. And Brescia is not such a bad place to live and work after all.