English Rewind - 6 Minute English: Formality at work

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was first broadcast in June 2009 on the BBC Learning English website.

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Hello, this is 6 Minute English.

I'm Jackie Dalton and with me today is Neil Edgeller.

— Hello, sir! — Sir!

Very unusual, you don't usually call me 'sir', Jackie!

I don't usually, I usually call you Neil, don't I?

— Yes, you do. — And that's because we're colleagues

and the way we interact in the office is pretty informal, really.

It's quite relaxed, we just use each other's first names.

And the reason I called you 'sir' is because the topic of today's programme

is formality, or lack of formality at work.

So, do you work somewhere where you can behave in a relaxed way around colleagues,

or do you have to be very polite and maybe a bit distant?

Is there a dress code?

Yes, a dress code is the rules for what you should wear in a certain situation.

So if a restaurant has a 'no jeans' policy or dress code,

it means you have to wear smart trousers, you're not allowed in if you wear jeans.

Well, in a moment, we'll be talking a bit about things have changed for us here,

— but, first, I have a question for you. — Mm-hm.

A survey was carried out in Britain into dress codes at work

and I'd like you guess what percentage of people

said they'd prefer to be given a precise dress code.

In other words, would prefer to be told what kind of clothes they should wear.

Was it 5%, 23% or 85%?

Well, I don't think people like being told what to wear,

so I'm going to say 5%.

Well, we'll find out at the end of the programme whether your answer was correct.

Would you say the BBC World Service is a fairly formal place to work?

It's quite a serious place, but it's certainly not formal.

People wear pretty much what they want to wear.

And most people are on first-name terms, aren't they?

Yes, they are. That means they don't call each other Mr Smith or Mrs Jones,

they call each other Brian and Keith.

Walking around here most of the time,

people you see look pretty casual, don't they?

Yes, 'casual' means the opposite of formal,

another way of saying 'informal'.

Well, it wasn't always so.

Carrie has been around the BBC for nearly 30 years

and things used to be quite different when she joined.

How would she have to address her boss?

Well, when I started in the BBC, my boss was very formal.

He wore a suit and tie every day to work

and you had to call him 'Mr', so he was 'Mr Bowman'.

I wouldn't have dreamt of calling him Eric, which was his first name.

On the other hand, he didn't actually call us by 'Miss' or 'Mrs',

we were called by our first name because we were his underlings, we were his staff,

but the boss was always called 'Mr' or 'Mrs',

but, actually, on most occasions, it would have been a 'Mr'.

Did you get that? She had to call her boss 'Mr',

so they certainly weren't on first-name terms.

Well, Carrie also had to face even stricter rules after that.

What did she have to do?

A couple of years after I started at the BBC, I moved to a different department

and there was a lady in that department who ran an office

with about six or seven staff in it

and the staff had to ask permission if they wanted to go to the toilet.

They weren't allowed to just leave the office.

And in fact, she timed them sometimes too

and decided if they were too long in the toilet.

Carrie had to ask permission to go to the toilet.

Yep, to 'ask permission' means to ask if you can do something,

— if it's allowed. — Yes.

And in our office, we don't have that kind of regime any more, do we?

We don't have to ask permission if we want to leave the room for a while.

No, we, we can do pretty much what we want to do,

as long as we finish our work.

Exactly.

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Well, we're quite lucky, sitting here in our jeans or corduroys,

because there was a time when that would have been out of the question.

Listen to Carrie again.

What did newsreaders at the BBC used to have to wear while they were presenting?

Long, long before I joined, the newsreaders,

which at that stage would've been on radio rather than on television,

had to wear dinner jackets to read the news, even though nobody could see them,

other than the other people in the studio.

Neil, they had to wear dinner jackets,

even when they were on radio and no-one could see them.

Yes, a 'dinner jacket' is that very formal style of suit

that people wear when they go out to a formal event,

for example, at the Oscars or something like that.

It's that black jacket, black trousers and a bow tie,

not a normal tie, a very small bow tie.

This kind of suit is often called a 'tuxedo' as well.

A few decades ago in some workplaces in Britain,

this concept of 'dress-down Fridays' was introduced.

'Dress-down Friday' means that during the rest of the week,

you wear quite smart clothes, maybe a shirt and tie, possibly a suit,

and on a Friday, you can come in in your jeans, T-shirt, whatever you want.

You 'dress down', it's less formal.

Well, let's have a quick reminder of some of the vocabulary that we've looked at.

We've had 'casual', which also means the same as 'informal'.

We've had 'formal', which means the opposite.

'First-name terms', which means being able to call somebody by their first name,

and not 'Mr something'.

We have 'dress codes' which is the rules about you should wear.

We've had 'dinner jacket' which, Neil, you just explained,

a certain formal suit.

And we had 'to ask permission' which means to ask if you can do something,

if it's allowed.

And finally, the answer to this week's tricky question.

I asked what percentage of people in Britain

said they would prefer to have a precise dress code

and you said 5%, Neil,

and you were absolutely wrong.

It's 85%, believe it or not, which I find shocking.

Well, that's really disappointing.

People have got no imagination.

Exactly. So I can take it from that, Neil,

that you prefer to work in a fairly informal environment?

Exactly. I mean, what I'm wearing at the moment is what I wore in bed.

Well, that's all for this week,

but do join us again soon for more 6 Minute English.

— Goodbye. — Bye.

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