a Talking to Co-Workers ¨ I missed the meeting. Can you fill me in? ¨ I had a doctor’s appointment so I missed the meeting. What happened? ¨ I couldn’t make it to the meeting today. Anything interesting I should know about? ¨ I missed the meeting. Was there anything new? ¨ Matt looks pretty upset right now. Do you know what’s going on? ¨ Did something happen recently? Matt looks pissed off. ¨ I think Matt is mad about something. Do you know what it could be? ¨ Matt talks to me like he is mad all the time. Does he do that to you? ¨ Does Matt talk to you like he is upset? Or is it just me? ¨ It’s not you at all. He talks to me that way too. ¨ Matt is way too moody. ¨ If he knew what he was doing, we wouldn’t be in this mess. ¨ What is wrong with Matt these days? ¨ He is having one of those days again. I think his manager just gave him a hard time. ¨ What do you think about our manager? ¨ He gets too mad easily and he doesn’t really help us out that much. What do you think? b Asking for help or offering help ¨ I finished my project already so I have extra bandwidth. Let me know if you need help with anything. ¨ You’re doing the analysis on ABC Company? I did that last year. If you need any help, just let me know. ¨ I’m pretty familiar with your project so if you have any questions, feel free to ask me. ¨ I’m having trouble implementing Plan A on ABC Company. Can you look at my work and see if I am missing a step? ¨ Can you help me analyze the finance data? This is my first time and I don’t want to screw it up. ¨ Do you have a few minutes to help me with the data migration tool? I can’t figure it out. c Complaining about another co-worker to a co-worker ¨ Have you worked with Jake yet? He can’t do anything right. ¨ The problem with Jake is that he doesn’t know that he is an idiot. ¨ I remember helping Jake out so much, and then he stabs my back. ¨ I don’t think he does his own work. He goes around asking everyone to do a portion of his work and says he did it all. ¨ If you have to work with Jake, remember the things I told you. ¨ Is management blind or am I being too sensitive about this? ¨ I think the manager likes him because he kisses her ass all day long. ¨ The manager is blind because he is a total brown-noser. ¨ I can’t believe this company is paying $75,000 a year for this fool. d Complaining about the company ¨ This is a dead end job. I don’t see much of a future here. ¨ I hate the redundancy. It’s so boring. ¨ Work isn’t exciting for me anymore. I am doing the same thing over and over again. ¨ This company doesn’t care about employees that much. I haven’t received a fair raise in 3 years. ¨ I don’t know if it is my manager or this company, but I’m really getting sick of my job. ¨ How do you tolerate all the political bull shit in this company? ¨ What do you think about all the politics in this company? ¨ The politics suck here. But it is the same for any large corporation. The best way to deal with it is to take advantage of the rules. ¨ I don’t know how much longer I can take this job. I’ve been thinking about applying to a different company. ¨ Have you ever thought about leaving this company? ¨ What company do you want to switch to? ¨ I started applying for other jobs. There are a lot of positions open. ¨ I’ve been looking for jobs on monster.com. They have a lot of positions available. e Talking about work experience ¨ What did you do before working here? ¨ I worked at ABC Company. I was a market analyst researching what the user wants in portable devices. ¨ I was over in the sales department on the second floor. I was in charge of overseeing the sales made by all the sales associates each month. ¨ I was a software engineer at Sun Microsystems. I created internal tools using Java to help automate the recruiting process. f Talking to Coworkers – Interactive Practice ¨ A: “Hey Jack. How is your day going?” B: “Just finishing the project. Other than that, not much. How about you?” A: “I’m just about finished for the day. I have one more task to do, but I wanted to take a break first.” B: “Did you have to work with Jake on that project?” A: “Unfortunately, yes.” B: “Oh my gosh. I feel so sorry for you.” A: “Don’t remind me. I’m just glad it’s over.” B: “Yeah. I remember when I worked on the data conversion tool with him. Everything he did, I had to re-do. It would have been faster if I did it alone.” A: “That’s exactly what happened to me. It took me longer because I had to re-do everything he did. That really pissed me off.” B: “Next time the manager wants me to do a project with him, I’m going to tell him that I will do it myself.” A: “That’s a good idea. Hopefully, the manager will realize how useless he is.” B: “Exactly. If you’re not busy, you can do my work.” A: “Ha ha. I got enough to do.” B: “Yeah. I’m just kidding.” A: “Aright dude. I better finish my work. I’ll talk to you later.” ¨ A: “Hey Jordan, did you go to the team meeting this morning?” B: “Yeah. The manager presented a new project to us that we’ll have to do.” A: “Damn it. I shouldn’t have missed that meeting, but I was stuck in another meeting. What else did you guys talk about?” B: “Everything else was the same. We talked about progress of current assignments, due dates, about hiring another worker, that’s all.” A: “What’s the new project about?” B: “It’s hard to explain. She sent out mail to all of us. You can just review the document she sent out.” A: “Ok. I’ll do that.” ¨ A: “Hey Bob, do you have a few minutes?” B: “Sure. What’s up?” A: “I’m having problems with my computer. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” B: “Let’s go take a look at it. Oh. Here is the problem. You have a boot sector virus. Install the anti-virus software. That should take care of the problem.” A: “Great thanks. ¨ A: “How is your day going?” B: “The same as usual. How about you?” A: “Me too. I’m getting sick of work man.” B: “I’m already past that stage. I was sick of this shit a year ago.” A: “What are you still doing here then?” B: “It pays the bills.” A: “Why don’t you find another job?” B: “Well, I thought about it, but if I put in two more years, then I get a good pension. I can’t give that up. Anyway, this job is boring, but at least it’s easy.” A: “Well, you’ve been here for eight years. You have some things to stay for. I’ve only been here for two years. I can’t see myself doing this for another two years. I want to gain more experience in other areas.” B: “Have you brought this up to the boss? Maybe you can go into management.” A: “They usually want a person with an MBA degree or a person willing to put in 80 hours a week.” B: “That’s what it takes man. Either this or that.” A: “Yeah. I better think about what I want. Why didn’t you go into management?” B: “It would have taken too much time. I have a family that I want to spend time with, so it wasn’t worth it for me. But you’re single. You can put in a few good years and put yourself in a good position before thinking about settling down.” A: “You have a point. I’ll see what my options are. Hopefully the manager will help me out with my career.” B: “She’s pretty cool about that. Just be honest with her and she’ll show you some doors.” A: “That sounds good. Thanks for the advice.” B: “No problem. Good luck.”B: “The same as usual. How about you?” B: “I’m already past that stage. I was sick of this shit a year ago.” B: “It pays the bills.” B: “Well, I thought about it, but if I put in two more years, then I get a good pension. I can’t give that up. Anyway, this job is boring, but at least it’s easy.” B: “Have you brought this up to the boss? Maybe you can go into management.” B: “That’s what it takes man. Either this or that.” B: “It would have taken too much time. I have a family that I want to spend time with, so it wasn’t worth it for me. But you’re single. You can put in a few good years and put yourself in a good position before thinking about settling down.” B: “She’s pretty cool about that. Just be honest with her and she’ll show you some doors.” B: “No problem. Good luck.” |