Francophone Environment

Yesterday I received an email from the HR rep at another company in my home town, requesting that I resend my resume. (My Gmail account has been losing attachments. What's with my tech karma these days?) I suppose she liked what she read, because this afternoon we had an impromptu call.

What was interesting about the call was that whereas her email had been in English, she purposely threw me for a loop by conducting the call in French. I barely had time to switch gears, which I admittedly need to do after my going-on 10 years in the States. Anyway, it turns out that while the ad was for a Technical Writer to document in English, 90% of my work would be conducted in French. So she was gauging whether my French skills were up to snuff and if I was comfortable with operating in a Francophone environment.

I was truthful that my comprehension of technical subjects in French is minimal, given that my career has been conducted solely in English. I subsequently haven't expanded my French tech vocabulary beyond the level of a computer catalogue. But I figured that by working in such an environment, my vocabulary would certainly increase quickly. In any event, she was pleased with our call I suppose, as she scheduled a phone interview with the head enchilada of tech and some other minion for later this week. Her emails subsequent to our call, both to communicate the interview schedule and to request samples, were (of course!) in French.

Better get used to it, eh? And I'm beginning to think that maybe it really is in the cards for me to return to Canada after all!