Portrait of an ideal interpreter

Is there such thing as an ideal interpreter?

I think it must be a robot not yet inveneted with a superior knowledge of several languages and all possible areas of science, technology, literature, business, you name it. He never gets tired, has an excellent sence of humor, reacts very quickly to what is being said and at the same time he is invisible to others. Yes, yes, really invisible. Suppose in the future, when they come up with such a robot, they willl already have a technology to make him invisible. This feature may be turned on or off depending on the client's preference. Clients may order female or male robot interpreter, depending on their mood, and of course the technology stepped so far ahead that this service is really inexpensive.

What do we have in reality right now? We have human interpreters with different personalities, different appearance, pleasant or unpleasant, humans with thier own opinions, who get tired, irritated, stressed, emotional, grim and all other things that humans posess, be they positive or negative. Like all other professionals some of us are good at what we do some are not very. But we still do have an advantage over those ideal robots: personalities are enetertaining. They bring colors and variety into the business world, plus their superior knowledge of different languages. And they try to be all those robotic, but fail every time, which is not a bad thing, may be?

Why I like my work? I learn something new every assignment, new information about different areas of life, science, techology, products, services, people. I learn something new about myself as well. Interpreting is a never ending learning process.

I used this painting of the great Russian artist V. Perov "Fomushka-Sych" (1868, Ttetyakov Gallery) just because I like it.