Advanced English Conversation: Talking Jobs and Time Off (British & American English with subtitles)

- Hi, welcome back.

This is Jack from tofluency.com, along with me, Kate.

- Yeah, and today,

we are going to give you listening practice,

and we do this by just having

a natural conversation, in English.

And today our topic is going to be jobs.

- Yes.

- Jobs.

So be sure to check out the description

for the words and phrases that we use in this lesson.

And also check out tofluency.com,

because I have some great stuff there for you, too.

Okay, so today we're gonna talk about jobs.

We're gonna talk about the first jobs that we've had.

- Okay.

- Different types of jobs we've had.

And also, we're going to talk about our dream job.

So we can start thinking about that now.

But what was your first-ever job?

- So my first-ever job

was actually working at a sailing school.

So, eventually I became a sailing instructor

but in the beginning, I was just a helper,

so I would help move boats

and help people who wanted to rent the boats,

what to do and where to go.

So we rented kayaks and small sailboats

and small catamarans,

and that was the beginning of my working career.

- Very cool. - Yeah.

- How old were you?

- I was 15.

- Right.

Was that like a summer job?

- It was a summer job.

- And is that common around that age in America?

- I think that most, because we have a longer summer break

than a lot of other countries, I think it's pretty common

for American teenagers to have some kind of a summer job.

- Right.

So yours was working at a sailing school.

- Yes.

- But you didn't teach sailing at first.

- No.

- That came later. - That came later.

I had to work my way up to that.

And, well, of course, my very first job was as a babysitter.

- Yeah.

- Uh-huh, so I actually became certified to babysit,

and I babysat for our neighbor's children for several years.

- Yeah, growing up watching American movies,

that seemed quite a common thing, to babysit.

- Yes.

- And what age were you when you did that?

- I think that I got my certification when I was about 12,

so probably from the time that I was 12 until,

well, much later.

It was not a regular job, but every couple weekends or so,

I would do some babysitting.

- And before, did you know how to sail before

going to the sailing school?

- Yes.

So I actually started out as a student of the sailing school

which is how I learned to sail.

- Very cool, and I've been to that sailing school before.

- Yeah.

- Remember when you took me out on the, is it cata--

- Catamaran.

- Catamaran. - Yup.

- And I got soaked.

- You did. - Yeah.

- Did you like it?

- Oh, I loved it. - Yeah?

- Yeah.

You also took me sailing once in Athens, Georgia.

It was boiling.

- Yes. - That day.

But yeah, that's pretty cool.

And you were in sailing club, right?

- That's right.

- At university. - Uh-huh, yup.

- Or at college.

Very good, and how many summers

did you work at the sailing school?

- That's a great question.

I probably worked for four summers at the sailing school,

three or four.

- Cool.

Did you enjoy it?

- I loved it.

I still kind of miss it.

That's one thing that I think of

when the weather gets summery,

I think, "Oh, when am I gonna get out on the water?

"When am I gonna see my friends?"

(upbeat music)

Let me ask you a little bit about your first job.

- Okay.

- What was it?

- My first job was a paper round.

- [Kate] Okay.

- Do you call it paper route here?

- I think we would call it a paper round,

but it's a pretty uncommon job

for young people to have today.

- Right.

- I think that was something that people

older than our generation had.

- Right, well, yeah, it was very popular when I was younger.

We, my friend and I, we went to the local news agent

and we asked for a paper round job and we got one.

- Okay.

- And I think it paid around...

The first one I had paid nine pounds per week.

- That seems shockingly low.

- Well, yeah, it was a lot of money.

- Yeah, were you-- - When you're 12.

- When you're 12.

- Well, you had to be 13 to do it.

- Oh, were you 13?

- I think I might have been 12, I can't remember.

(Kate gasps) I was probably 13,

but it was, yeah, it was a cool job.

- Yeah? - It was fine,

'cause I started off doing the afternoon round,

and mine was so easy.

- Okay.

- I think, 'cause they start you on the easy route,

to begin with, it might have only been 25 houses,

and you wore this paper bag,

I think that's what they called it,

or paper round bag, you put your newspapers in there,

the Lancashire Evening Post,

and you just deliver them through the mailbox.

- Were they heavy?

- Those weren't, but then my next one was

I had to do it on a bike,

so you put your bag on your back, fill it with newspapers.

It was really heavy, and I went on a bike,

and the Saturday morning edition, especially,

was very heavy,

'cause they have those extra magazines in them,

and that was the morning one.

And I think that paid 14 pound a week.

It was more than any other paper round

because it was the hardest one, but I enjoyed it.

- So you got paid about two pounds a day?

- Yeah. - How long--

- No, well, six days a week,

I don't think I did the Sunday one.

- Okay. - But yeah, I was 14 and 15.

- How long did it take you?

- 45 minutes.

- Okay. - Yeah.

About 45 minutes, and then, yeah, after the paper round,

I know you want me to talk about this.

I had the milk round.

- I know!

You had a milk round.

- Yeah.

- Okay, I think that there is no one in our generation

in the United States who had a milk round.

- I wonder if they still do it in the UK?

- I don't know.

- It's not as...

I did read that they're trying to bring it back,

and if you're a little bit confused,

a milk round is when there's a milkman,

and he has a milk van (laughs)

and he fills the milk van with milk.

- With milk. (laugh)

- But bottles of milk,

and instead of going to the store to buy milk,

every morning, you have milk delivered to your doorstep

in these little glass bottles,

and they had different colored tops,

silver, red, and blue, I think,

and silver was whole milk, I think red was skimmed,

and blue might have been half and half

or something like that,

and we used to stand on the back of the milk van,

I think it's a milk van. - This is crazy to me.

This seems so dangerous.

- Well, it was, and at five a.m., we get picked up.

It took us two hours. - Wow.

- And yeah, so he'd shout out, "Two silver!"

So you grab two silvers, you run to the,

run, you can't walk, run to the door, put the silvers down,

take the empty bottles, and then put them back in the crate.

- Wow. - The milk crate.

And I did it, I only lasted a few weeks,

because it was the middle of winter.

(Kate shivers)

And my friend was small, so he could duck under the van.

My head was sticking out.

- Oh!

- And your hands were frozen,

because you're collecting those empty milk bottles

that were freezing.

- I cannot imagine that.

- Yeah.

- I can't imagine it.

- But that wasn't my dangerous job.

- What was your most dangerous job?

- At the driving rage.

- (gasps) Oh.

- Did I ever tell you about that job?

- I think you might have told me a little bit,

but clearly there's more to talk about.

- Well, so, at the golf driving range, I think I was 15,

and then I was doing the milk round

and then we realized that we could get paid

five pounds an hour, so two pounds fifty an hour,

to work at the driving range,

but they started all the new people in the wrong way.

- Uh-oh, what did they do?

- Well, they gave you one of those tubes to collect,

which you had to stab on the ball and go up.

I think it held probably 20 balls, this little tube,

and they'd say, "Okay, go to the 150 yard line,"

which is the most popular range to hit

when you're practicing golf, and go collect the golf balls.

And they did it, they put us out there at peak hours,

and they gave us a helmet, so like a motorcycle helmet,

and if you go to the driving range

and you see some kid with a helmet on collecting golf balls,

that's an immediate target.

- Oh no.

- So everyone would just aim for you,

(Kate gasps) and it was dark,

and you just didn't see these balls coming,

and they'd just hit you in the back, hit you in the leg.

- Was it really painful?

- Yeah, I mean, getting hit by a golf ball.

- Yeah.

- It's incredible that they did it.

- (laughs) Yeah.

- Before health and safety went crazy.

- Oh no.

- You could ban those kinds of jobs.

So yeah, that was a job I did for a little while,

but it got a lot better,

because I only worked Sundays after a while,

and the Sunday job was easy,

because nobody went to the driving range on a Sunday,

because they were playing golf.

- Right.

- But then you get in one of those carts.

What do you call that, the quad?

- We call them golf carts.

- Well, it wasn't just a golf cart.

It was more like a buggy.

- Like a dune buggy?

- Yes. - Okay.

- And then it had this thing on the front

where it would collect the golf balls,

so we'd collect the golf balls, no one would come,

and I would hit the golf balls.

- Yeah. - So it was a fun thing to do.

- Did your golf game get a lot better?

- A lot better. - I would imagine so.

- Yeah, a lot better.

I bought some golf clubs then,

started to play a lot of golf, yeah.

- Do you miss golf?

- I'm gonna start playing again. (laughs)

- Great.

- (laughs) So yeah, that was an interesting job.

(upbeat music)

What other jobs have you had after sailing school?

- After sailing school, to be honest,

most of my jobs have been teaching jobs.

- Yeah.

- So I've been an ESL teacher abroad and online.

I have also been an English language teacher

to American students, so I've taught English language arts,

which is like literature and reading and writing,

and I've done that in public schools,

and then I'm about to be an assistant teacher,

so most of my jobs have been teaching in one way or another.

- Yeah.

Yeah, we lived in Spain for a couple of years,

and we both taught English there.

- Yeah.

- Which then led to all of this now.

- All of this, yeah. - Yeah.

Did you have any jobs at college?

- I mostly would focus on studying,

and I was the captain of the sailing club.

and I had-- - Sailing club.

- Sailing club.

Well, it was like a sport

but it was also kind of an intramural--

- Yeah. - Recreational sport.

So we competed, but it was also

a lot of just more relaxed activity.

- Right.

- We weren't college competition.

- No, and that's important because, in the UK,

if you'd say, "I'm on the football team or the rugby team,"

it doesn't mean that much.

- Yeah.

- People don't watch this, but in America,

when you think of the football team.

- Team.

- Then 100,000 people are watching.

- Yeah, it's huge. - But the sailing club,

you only had, what, 20,000 watching?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- 20,000, no!

It was all very relaxed,

but we were competing against some schools

that had very competitive programs.

- Right.

- They beat us.

- Yeah.

- They beat us.

- Yeah. (laughs)

- So that was one thing.

I was doing some freelance editing.

So at the same time. - Oh, yeah?

That's right, you used to write books.

- Uh-huh, yeah. - Yeah.

I remember that.

Yeah, so I did a lot of,

I did some ghostwriting and editing

and that kind of work, too.

(upbeat music)

What has been your most challenging job?

- Most challenging?

The first thing that comes to mind

is teaching teenagers in Spain.

- Yes.

- Challenging in the sense of

it caused me the most amount of stress and frustration,

and it was quite difficult to keep them in line.

- Yeah.

- I'd say.

- Yes, I could see that being the case.

I would say that teaching has been my favorite job

and that it definitely has its moments of stress

and pressure from a variety of sources.

And then you mentioned

that we were gonna talk about dream jobs.

- Yes.

- What's your dream job?

- You know what it is, don't you?

- Is it this?

- Well, the idea of the dream job

is what you're not doing now, but you could do.

- You could do. - Yeah.

- Okay, so if you weren't doing this dream job,

what dream job would you be doing?

- A football manager.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- And why do you think that would be your dream job?

- Well, I would say football player,

but that's not gonna happen any more.

- Okay.

- Not because of my technical abilities,

but because of my age, and then, yeah, football manager.

Well, I actually grew up playing a lot of computer games

where you are the football manager.

- So like a soccer manager.

- It was called,

the first one was called Championship Manager,

and they rebranded it to Football Manager.

- Okay.

- And it's just where you're the manager of a team,

you buy players, you talk, you organize training,

you have the tactics going on, and then you play a game,

which usually is just text on the screen

telling you what's happening.

- Yeah.

- And I love it.

I used to play that for hours and hours and hours.

But I'd love to be a football manager

because firstly, I love the sport.

- Right.

- I think I'd be pretty good at it

if I applied myself. - I think you would, too.

- And I just find it really interesting,

trying to problem-solve all the time

and come up with tactics to beat a specific team.

I think the management would be really interesting,

to talk to specific players in specific ways.

- Uh-huh.

- And just to try and win things.

You know, to be successful at it.

- Sure, yeah.

- What about you?

- I think that, in many ways,

I am doing my dream job already,

because I'm continuing to teach,

I get to spend time with kids,

so all of that are things that I love,

but I think that if I was going to add

something into the mix,

I would like to work on my writing more

and be professionally recognized for that,

so that would be my goal, to write some books.

- Is it your goal?

- Yeah. - Yeah?

- Yeah, still very much so. - Cool.

(upbeat music)

Have you had any other jobs in the past?

- I think that more or less covers it.

I've done various things.

I've worked at an exercise studio,

I've done different permutations of teaching.

- Yeah.

- So teaching corporate clients,

teaching one-on-one lessons in English,

but yeah, there's a thread of teaching

kind of woven through it.

- Yeah.

I've had, I think I've probably had about 30 jobs--

- Wow. - In the past.

- Wow.

- Some of them have been temporary,

where I've been doing a lot of data input and admin

for three weeks at this company,

three weeks at a different company,

but I had that marketing manager job--

- Okay.

- For a couple of years before we met.

Call centers, I've worked in bars.

That was interesting.

I worked at the student union nightclub

when I was at university.

- I bet you would have some stories from that.

- Yeah, that was definitely an interesting time,

and I didn't really enjoy it.

- No?

- No, because you're sober and everyone's really drunk.

- Yeah, that sounds terrible. - And they're just, you know,

trying to get free drinks from you,

they never tip in England.

- Oh yeah. - Yeah.

- That's another conversation.

- I've done some cold calling, which is quite frustrating

because people don't want to answer the phone

and talk to you. - Yeah.

- What else have I done?

I was a porter in a hospital.

- Oh, yeah.

That one also is an interesting--

- There's some stories there. - Yeah.

- It was crazy.

Porter is basically where you transport patients

around the hospital, and then you tasks here and there,

and if people are getting aggressive,

then the porters go.

- Really?

So you were like the hospital bouncer?

- Well, I don't know why they asked me to go one time,

because I was really young, and very skinny,

and there were bigger guys than me,

and there used to be a couple of security guards,

but then they asked porters to go with them

if there was any trouble,

and some people are just crazy.

- Really? - It was--

- Aggressive? - Very aggressive.

- Maybe having a mental health crisis?

- Well, that, too, but I mean,

there was someone that I used to see at the gym,

and she used to work out for hours and hours

and then she was in the hospital once

and she started to get very aggressive with people.

- Uh-oh.

- And she threatened to put needles in my eyes or something.

- Oh my gosh.

- And then I saw her at the gym the next day

and she just came over

and she was my best friend all of a sudden.

- So you've been hit by golf balls.

- Yeah.

- You've been almost dropped off the back of a milk truck,

you have had to be a bouncer in a hospital,

and the hardest job that you've had

was dealing with teenagers. (laughs)

- Yeah, yeah.

- You've had some experience.

- Well, I'd say the most challenging one, actually,

was when I was the marketing manager,

because we used to run expensive campaigns

with very tight deadlines that had to get results.

- Right.

- And we were constantly advertising

in newspapers and magazines,

and I was in charge of getting the ads together,

choosing the right ad for the right magazine,

and doing all that kind of stuff.

That was very challenging, because of the deadline.

- But probably, now that I'm thinking about it,

that was probably the job where you built your set of skills

to be able to do the other things that you've accomplished.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music)

I wanna just quickly talk about time off.

- Oh, yeah.

- So to take some time off, which means to not work,

and this might be for vacation, for sickness,

for national holidays. - Yes.

- I think one of the biggest differences is

the amount of time off you get in America versus in the UK.

- Yes.

To be honest, there are many wonderful things

about living in the United States.

Paid time off is not one of them.

So I think that the average job, nine to five,

full-time job comes with about 10 days off a year.

- Yeah.

- And that doesn't include national holidays,

which there are a few national holidays,

but that's it. - Yeah.

- So 10 days off.

So if you get sick or if your children get sick,

or anything like that, it's really easy to eat through

the time off that you have-- - Do you get sick days?

- That's a great question. - Or does it depend?

- And to be honest, to be honest,

I'm not sure about it.

I think it's a different company policy--

- Right. - Depending on where you work.

- Right, and in the UK,

I remember it was 28 days paid leave.

Is that the right way to say it, paid leave, here?

- I guess so. - Yeah.

- Or paid days off. - Paid days off.

Yeah, 28 days, and I remember, actually,

when I was working in that marketing manager job,

by the way, they didn't give me the title

of marketing manager but I was marketing manager,

(laughs) I don't know what to say.

- I can call you marketing manager.

- So you'd look at your calendar for the year

and you'd have to get in there quick

to get the days that you wanted,

because you couldn't clash with somebody else

or with more than two people in a department,

and I remember I got them off for the World Cup in Germany,

which was well worth the time off.

- Sure.

- And that same year, the Leeds Festival,

and then I can't remember what else,

but yeah, you used to have to plan ahead

and say this date, this date, and get in early.

- So you would basically have about four weeks off?

- Yeah.

- That's pretty good.

- And more than that,

'cause the work, 28,

five, the five days out of seven.

- Oh, okay.

- So more like five weeks and three days.

- That's, yeah, that's amazing.

- Yeah, and then, but where we worked,

the factory used to shut down

between Christmas and New Year,

and you had to take those days off.

- Oh.

- That was one thing,

so you didn't have as much flexibility there,

but it was good to be off between Christmas and New Year.

- Do you think, and there are lots of studies

about productivity in the workplace and holidays,

do you think that your time off

helped you be more productive?

- Probably.

I think it's always good to get a break.

I might have been more...

Well, to be honest, I think for me,

it was more important about the working day,

and not taking breaks during the working day,

and not standing up, getting away from your computer,

getting a little bit of exercise.

I think that's more detrimental.

- That's hard.

Yeah, I could see that.

And I haven't had, really, an office job

where I was stuck in one place for all day,

but I know that when I have had a full work day,

just psychologically, I really prepare rewards for myself

throughout the day. - Yeah.

- So I'm like, oh, it's nine o'clock.

It's muffin time.

Time for some coffee and a muffin,

or like, oh, it's 11 o'clock-- - Yes.

- Gonna take that little walk around the building,

or whatever it is.

- Yeah, we did that when I was working in the office.

I mean, it's a very British example, but a cup of tea.

- Yes.

- You know, someone would brew up at 9:30,

and everyone would get a cup of tea.

And someone else would brew up again at 11.

- You do drink tea every two hours?

- Yeah, and that's what,

you know, that's the reward you're talking about,

to brew up and get a cup of tea.

- And to be honest, I miss that a little,

and I definitely miss having regular co-workers

over the summer. - Yeah, yeah.

- You know, just a couple of people

that you can really share jokes with,

and, you know, get to have that experience.

- I think it's important.

Yeah, and in the space that we're in,

there were some, I think you waved to somebody before?

- Yeah, I did.

- So there are other people who work here

in the different offices, so I do get that interaction.

- Yeah. - And it's important.

You know, working on your own sometimes,

especially when, you know,

when you're just talking into a camera on your own?

- Yeah.

- It feels really strange.

- But it's also amazing knowing that there are

all those people out there who are gonna watch you and--

- Yes. - Yes.

- But you don't feel that in this moment.

- Yes.

- It's a strange thing.

- But it's fun to talk to you, too.

- Yeah, it's all right.

- We're like co-workers right now.

- Yeah, we need to do this more often.

- Oh, yeah.

- So yeah, I think we can wrap it up there.

- All right.

- It's the beautiful time of the video.

- Woo-hoo!

- Kate's question.

- Okay, so my question is,

what is the most interesting job that you've had?

And also, what is your favorite part about working?

- Great.

Great, most interesting job you've had,

and your favorite park, part, about working.

Perfect.

- All right.

- All right, well, again, thank you so much

for spending this time with us.

If you want to get some resources based on this conversation

then check out the To Fluency program.

Full details will be in the description.

And why not share this conversation with a friend?

- Or a co-worker.

- Or a co-worker.

Very good, very good.

You can come again.

- Thank you.

- All right, well, thank you again for watching,

and we'll speak to you soon.

Bye-bye. - Until next time.

- Bye-bye. - Bye.

(upbeat music)