Blue Book Trainee

from ROUX - Issue 11, Feb 2024

Its natural habitat and dietary habits

Also: What it has learnt blued, mostly about itself

by Zoltan Tajti

Jānis Laucenieks is from Latvia and was a fellow translator trainee during my traineeship tenure at the European Commission (EC) from October 2016 to February 2017. We were stationed in Luxembourg and had spent five months at the EC’s Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) – me in the Hungarian, him in the Latvian department.

Jānis was kind enough to sit down with me to talk about what prompted him to apply for the traineeship, how he spent his Luxembourg months, and what he has learned from his traineeship experience.

First things first: why did you apply for the traineeship?

I had just completed my second Bachelor. A friend of mine had done an EC traineeship, and she loved the experience, so I thought I’d give a shot at applying. I was a fresh graduate of Musicology then but my first Bachelor’s was in International Communication, and I had had a few courses in interpreting and translation. Thus, I chose DGT –which meant that if I got accepted, I would move to Luxembourg, as most of DGT is stationed there.

What was the experience like?

I learned a lot about myself. Most importantly, I learned that I love working with people, and do not like sitting in front of a screen very much. I am very social, and I like it when my work is not fully individual.

Also, I now have a firm grasp of how the EU works and what its institutional structure is. Because of that, I now also understand better how Latvia – my home country – fits into the framework of the EU. I have since found this knowledge very useful.

Were you involved in any activities outside work?

I was. Trainees are taken care of very well by the EC; a part of this is providing a framework of subcommittees they can join for various purposes. There are subcommittees for all kinds of things: culture, entertainment, language learning, and also charity. I was involved in the charity subcommittee.

We organised intercultural dinner events, pub quizzes and charity concerts for our fellow trainees from the then-27 EU member states. It was a very rewarding experience. It was during my subcommittee work that I realised how much I need people around me in my work, and how much I love being in an international environment.

Has the traineeship experience had any influence on your life since?

I would say so, yes. I applied to the traineeship on a whim and expected to develop my translation skills, then go home. Instead – as I’ve already mentioned – I learned a lot about myself, which is the most important thing one can hope for during any experience in life.

I also learned that we need to jump on opportunities and let ourselves be surprised by what the experience brings; and by how things seem to always fall into place. When I returned to Latvia I started a Master’s programme in Management of Culture. Then, I worked a bit for the Riga circus, because one of my friends suddenly became its CEO and she was very passionate about it.

I researched the development of contemporary circuses, and thanks to that, I got the opportunity to spend a year in San Francisco with a scholarship.

My learning experience was manyfold: Firstly, I have learned that it pays off to jump on an opportunity because you never know what advantages it will bring. Secondly, I have also learned that the best opportunities always come as surprises; they do not follow an expected curve of events.

And thirdly, I have since learned that knowledge is always convertible – whatever you learn, whatever skills you acquire, you will most probably be able to apply them in environments and contexts very different from where and why you acquired them in the first place.

So.. Was the traineeship worth it?

Oh, yes. It most definitely was – concluded Jānis, and we hung up on Zoom. Just like that. That’s a lie, though, we did talk about shared memories at DGT. Joy, joy, joy. We once shared a playground.