Probably One of the Strangest Things I've Ever Had to Do for Work

Yesterday morning, I walked into the office to the news that we needed an emergency recording of someone saying the word "toy" in Mandarin (玩具). The vocabulary word was added at the last minute (after the recording of the English-Mandarin pronunciation guide was already done), so we had to scramble and come up with a creative patch job to add the word. Anyway, I was the only Mandarin-speaking person on site that day, so I gamely undertook the task. Oh, and I was supposed to sound like a 6-year-old Chinese boy.

It may seem like a simple enough task, but our office building is not an ideal environment for audio recording. Drooper found out from Facilities that there was a so-called Privacy Room on the third floor, so we headed there with his microphone and digital recorder. The Privacy Room turned out to be a small, dark closet equipped with a chair, a desk, and a phone. I imagine its main purpose was for personal phone calls (since most of us are in cubes). So, we set up and did a couple of takes, but the ambient noise was actually quite loud. See, the Privacy Room was right next to the elevators and a stairwell. As a result, we frequently heard sounds of gears turning, echoing footsteps ("Damn high heels!" Drooper exclaimed), or voices and laughter. Unfortunately, these background sounds got picked up by the mic.

Drooper came up with a way to combat the ambient noise. He said that if I didn't mind, it would help if I threw a jacket over my head & did the recording under the jacket. This project was just getting odder and odder, but hey, it had to be done. So Drooper ran downstairs to get his jacket, and a short while later, I was huddled under a large leather jacket in the weird Privacy Room, saying "玩具" multiple times into a handheld mic. Truly, this had to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever had to do for a job! But, the task was accomplished, so all's well that ends well!