Article views: 80,251

In my Ottawa life , every Tuesday evening, I take two gym classes back to back—boxing and the pompously named “body sculpt,” which makes me discover muscles I didn’t know I had.

It’s fun. I love it.

But a couple of weeks ago, I ended up cancelling my second class—one of those nights when the first assignment landed in my inbox at 4 p.m., another one arrived while I was on my way to the gym, and a third one popped up right as I was standing in the locker room. All due the following morning, obviously. Welcome to the life of a freelance translator .

Work takes priority over muscles. I headed for the lockers at the end of boxing class.

“Are you leaving? You’re always taking this class!”

I turned around. I was changing into my translator clothes—jeans and a T-shirt—and she was presumably changing into her gym clothes, except first, she was busy taking off her jewelry.

Her look was very polished—the kind of polished that screams office day.…