Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 569

In this podcast episode, we focus on workplace English expressions that professionals use in everyday work situations. You will learn how these expressions are used in meetings, emails, and conversations with colleagues. Each example is explained in clear English to help you understand meaning, tone, and appropriate use at work.

This lesson is ideal for Business English learners, professional English students, and anyone who wants to improve English for work, office English, and corporate communication skills. It is also useful for learners preparing for IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge English exams, where formal and professional language is often tested.

By the end of the episode, you will feel more confident using natural workplace English, communicating clearly with coworkers, and sounding more professional in international business environments.

Transcript

Hi there. This is Harry. And welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language. Preparing for those proficiency exams, your interview in English, or just helping you to have better conversational skills for your conversations with your friends or with your colleagues in the office. So anything that you need, you know where to contact me on www.englishlessonviaskype.com. And always very very happy to hear from you. Okay. And in this advanced English lesson we're looking at advanced vocabulary and expressions, dealing with work, the wonderful topic of work, the thing we all like to do, or some of us and most of us like it. Some of us don't. But we have to do it Monday to Friday, and for some of us, Monday to Sunday.
So it's can be difficult. So these are advanced vocabulary and expressions dealing with work. Now we've got 12 okay. So I'll go through them one by one. And then I'll give you some examples. So here they are a working schedule or schedule. You can pronounce it both a schedule schedule work to rule work to rule. Working conditions your working conditions.
My working conditions overtime workaholic to take time off work. Committed to work. Dedicated to work. Then I'll explain the difference between both committed and dedicated. Reliable to be up to your eyes in something, and then finally to be snowed under the two expressions to end, to be up to your eyes and something and to be snowed under. Okay, let's go through them one by one a working schedule.
Well, working schedule is usually what you have to do from day to day, week to week. Sometimes are working schedules or schedules are very set and fixed, and we know exactly what we have to do every day of every week, of every month. And sometimes the schedule can get boring because it just becomes a habit and never, never changes.
So Monday you do this, Tuesday you do that, Wednesday do a bit of this and that and so on and so forth. Sometimes people like to have a flexible schedule, so they know they're going to be in work Monday to Friday, but they're not going to do the same thing day in, day out. Or they may ask the boss, can I introduce or there's some variety to my schedule because I'm really, really getting bored doing the same thing time and time again.
And that's the beauty of work. If you can find something that gives you some variety in your schedule so you don't get bored, but unfortunately it doesn't always happen that way. So working schedule is the list of the things that you have to do. Often we sit down on a Monday morning and we set out our schedule for the week, our to do list that can be a schedule.
And then on a Friday, we tick off the list and see what are the things that we actually achieved and what things we didn't achieve that we might have to carry forward to the following week. So our working schedule work to rule well. Normally people work from a fixed hour in the morning to a fixed hour in the evening, say from starting at 830 or 9:00 and finishing at 5 or 530 or even 6:00.
So that's their working day. But more often than not, people come in a little bit earlier and they leave a little bit later. So the working day is quite flexible and mostly they don't mind because they just want to get the work done. So a few minutes here, a few minutes there, it doesn't really matter. However, if work is very unionised, that there are unions as supporting the workers, they might instruct them to work to rule.
If they're having a discussion or an argument with the bosses where they want more money, so they instruct their members. Don't do anything more than you normally do. If you start at 9:00, then don't start at 8:45, start at nine, and if you finish at 5 or 530, then finish at 5 or 530, don't work any extra. Sonia.
Work to rule. It means you only work the hours as set out in your contract. No more, no less. Until such time as the bosses and the unions have agreed on whatever they are disagreeing over, whether it's an increase in salary or some other incentive. Okay, so to work to rule means only to work the hours that are written down in your contract, and you don't give any free time to your employer.
Okay, work to rule working conditions. Well, it's a question we will ask. What are the working conditions here? Are they good or are they bad? Typically in the modern world, in the Western world, working conditions are pretty good. Yeah, people work in an office and they use the modern offices. They've got modern equipment, well heated. They're looked after where they get tea breaks, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, whatever it takes.
And there are certain rules and regulations by which employers have to employ you. So the working conditions are really important. However, in some other countries that might be third world countries, the working conditions are indeed questionable. No health and safety or any aspects like that. So they have very poor or bad working conditions. So the working conditions are those conditions you expect to have when you accept the job normal working conditions, acceptable working conditions.
But unfortunately in poorer countries, it's just a question of having a job to get some money. And the working conditions are secondary. They don't even count. Okay, working conditions, overtime, overtime is that time, that extra time that you give to your employer that he approves and agrees to pay you. So if you work overtime, you usually get more money.
You might get what they call time and a half. So you get, you know, an hourly rate or an hourly rate. Plus something for working overtime or if indeed if you have to work extra time on a Saturday or Sunday, then you might get double or triple the normal daily rate because you're working in your social hours. Okay.
So, overtime is that period outside the normal working week. So if you start at nine and finish at five, anything before nine or after five is considered to be overtime over your working day, and you're entitled to get additional pay for that overtime workaholic wall. Well, this is one of those famous words people use. You know, we can be shopaholics or whatever they are, but a workaholic is somebody who is really, really anxious to work all the hours that he can find that he never stops.
He works really early in the morning, late at night, and he's just married or wedded to his particular job. And somebody said, oh, Mike. I mean, he's impossible. He's a workaholic. Every time you call him, he's busy. When you call around at his house, he's working. You meet him on a Saturday. He's working. He's a workaholic. He's going to make himself sick or he's going to collapse.
Something is going to happen. He's a workaholic. Somebody who spends all of his time working the opposite to take time off work, which is something we all should do from time to time. Whether it's our statutory entitlement for the weekends to take time off work, whether it's a holiday entitlement to take time off work during the summer, whatever it is, we should enjoy it because it helps us to recharge the batteries.
But sometimes we have to ask, particularly for some time off work, to attend to some personal matter. Perhaps you have to meet the principal of the school and the only time he has available or she has available to meet you is during your working hours. So you have to ask your boss for some time off work for that.
Or indeed, you might have to go to the doctor and you need time off work. Okay, so time off work. The next two words I'm going to take them together. Committed and dedicated, committed and dedicated. When we are committed to a work, we make a promise. Okay, so we're committed to work on a project. So if you've told your boss you'll work on the project, you'll work on it until it's finished.
You might not like it, but you've promised and you've committed to do it. When we are dedicated to a work, then we are really, really something much deeper. It's a passion. We are dedicated to being a doctor because we are passionate about helping people. We are dedicated as a teacher because we are passionate about helping people to learn.
Okay, so committed and dedicated are often seen as similar and they will be looked on as synonyms of each other. But the main difference is that when you are committed to something, you make a promise that you will do it. I'm committed to work here for the next two years. I've given an undertaking and indeed they've promised to pay me a bonus.
So really, really, I don't see myself working anywhere else. He's a dedicated teacher. He loves his job. He spent hours and hours and years, you know, building up his career. He really loves teaching those kids. He really loves to see them doing well. And he's always anxious that they do well in their exams. He's a dedicated teacher now.
You can be dedicated and committed or you can be committed and dedicated. But there is a difference. As I said, that key difference is that when you you're committed or you make a commitment, you make a promise. When you're dedicated to something, it's far deeper. It's a real love, a pride, a genuine desire to do as much as you can do in that particular career.
Dedicated okay, reliable. Well, work that's reliable is work that, you know, is always going to be there. Yeah. All my job is really, really reliable at that. There's always room for teachers the always job openings for teachers. Yeah. Or if you're good with your hands like an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter. There's always reliable work because people always need something fixed in the house, something that they cannot do themselves or they don't want to risk doing them themselves.
So that work could be considered as reliable. Or indeed, the person can be reliable. Okay, when we are referred to as a reliable employee, it means the boss can rely on you to turn up on time. It can rely on you to complete the job, and he can rely on you to complete the job without somebody standing over you.
So you don't have to be spoon fed, or you don't have to be babysat throughout the project. Okay? So to be reliable so the work can be reliable, that is always going to be there. You as an employee can be reliable because you turn up on time and you are committed as the word we used before a somebody that gets the work done reliable.
Now we've got two expressions and these two expressions. Again I'm going to take them together because there are similarities. So to be up to your eyes in something. And then the second to be snowed under the effectively mean the same. So if you tell your friends, oh, okay, I've had no time this week at all, I've been up to my eyes and paper since Monday morning.
I really don't know where the work came from. Every time I turned around there's another document or another email in my inbox. Yeah, so I've been up to my eyes and I'm really, really sorry guys, that I didn't turn up on on Wednesday for the football game, but just it was just impossible. And by the time I got to Friday, I was so exhausted.
I just went home and I went to bed. But I'll be there next Wednesday. Okay? So to be up to your eyes and something means to be really, really busy. Okay. So literally up to your eyes and to be snowed under means exactly the same. I've been snowed under since we came back from the holidays and everything just took off.
Me was really quiet over the summer, but since the beginning of September, I don't know where the work's come from, but everybody is snowed under. We're all working flat out, and in fact, I think I'm going to have to work at the weekend just to get through some of these emails. So to be snowed under and to be up to your eyes on something really means to be so busy, you don't have time for anything else.
Okay, so there the expressions. Now let me go through these particular words and expressions one more time. As I said, it's advanced English. So these are advanced words and expressions connected with work a working schedule work to rule working conditions overtime, workaholic to take time off work. And these two words that have similarities committed and dedicated and the difference between them committed and dedicated, reliable.
Reliable work. Reliable worker. And then the two expressions to be up to your eyes and something and to be snowed under. Okay, so you've heard them. If I've given you the explanation, I've given you the examples. So try and use them yourself. 1 or 2 of them, or 3 or 4 them. Whatever you you feel necessary. You know the drill by now.
If you don't understand them, come back to me. I'll help you again with more, examples if you need them. I've given you the address where you can contact me and as always, really, really appreciated when you watch and listen. So as always, this is Harry saying goodbye until we meet again. Join me again soon.