Post-Reading

A Complete the following sentences from the text:

1) Being a boss isn’t just a matter of ..… ; 2) The art of good management is ….. ; 3) Be clear about each team member’s ….. ; 4) A good manager delegates ….. ; 5) The way you dress can ..… ; 6) Be enthusiastic about your work and ..… ; 7) If you criticize someone’s work, ..… ; 8) Work together to find out what ..… ; 9) If you have doubts, don’t be afraid of ..… .

B Explain the following in English:

1) be (put) in charge of people; 2) be approachable/accessible; 3) be neglected and overlooked; 4) encourage feedback; 5) take on the job; 6) assertiveness training course; 7) make more of an impact; 8) Vagueness smacks of a general lack of confidence; 9) get straight to the point; 10) Never harp on one mistake; 11) Bluffing at work is the equivalent of lying; 12) Nobody is indispensable.

C Comment on the meaning of the two phrases:

1) As a modern-day Boadicea (historical allusion).

2) Do unto others as you would be done by (from the Bible).

D Find in each paragraph at least 2 sentences which convey the

key ideas of the article. Compare your choice with other

students.

E Discuss the following:

1) What makes a bad boss? Draw up a profile of factors. 2) Are there differences between men and women as leaders? 3) Are people who were leaders at school more likely to be leaders later in life? 4) Do you think leaders are born or made?

F Write down a summary of the article.

Text 3

Pre-Reading

To make decisions about a job or career, you often have to choose between personal goals and responsibilities to others. A choice based on one’s own need for fulfillment might be attractive but rather personal, aiming at individual satisfaction. On the other hand, a career decision which is based on following the traditions and needs of one’s family or community might be less appealing but more socially important and useful.

A Discuss the following:

1) Is it easy or difficult to choose a professional career?

What factors may influence this choice?

2) Sometimes people who have already entered a certain

profession, give it up and start something totally new.

Can you name any reasons for that?

B Make sure you know the meaning of the phrases ‘O-levels’ and

‘A-levels’ with respect to the UK secondary education.

Reading

Read through the text “Life at the Bottom: Hard-Up, Tired but Content” and do the exercises that follow.

Life at the Bottom: Hard-Up, Tired but Content

To most people, changing jobs means stepping up the ladder: more money, a higher position, travel perhaps, more perks, the next rung on the way to a so-called better life. So why change?

Marian Thiel has been changing jobs ever since she first started working at the age of 18 when she was a sales assistant in a fashion store in Bristol. She had left school with three O-levels – Art, English, Needlework. By 1998, at the age of 31, she was senior executive in charge of public relations at Chester Barrie, a fashion menswear house in Crewe. She was on a salary of 13,400 pounds – plus perks. She had a secretary, a company car and first-class travel expenses. She went to the hairdresser once a week (paid for, of course) and on the strength of her job and prospects had got herself a three-bedroomed semi on the river at Congleton.

“I used to have my nails painted just to look better”, she says now, almost in disbelief, “and I used to take taxis everywhere so my hair didn’t get wet or blown about. I was out every day for lunch or dinner with customers. I was out of the office on business four days out of five, very often in London, France, or Germany. If I went to Scotland, I flew – and there was always a chauffeur and a car to meet me.”

About two years ago she gave it all up to become a nurse. Her pay during her first year as a student State Registered Nurse at St. Stephen’s Hospital, London, was 250 pounds a month: 160 pounds went back to Cheshire to pay for her mortgage. Suddenly she was living off 90 pounds a month – and no expenses. “I used to walk along the streets of Westminster crying,” she says. “Of course, it was my decision not to let the house go – just because you make a break you don’t have to give up everything.”

She has now moved back to her house in Congleton in Cheshire, having transferred to a local hospital for the last year of her training. The pay is a bit better now – 360 pounds a month with overtime – but the hours are long and she finds the work physically exhausting. There are certainly no trips to the hairdresser, no spending sprees.

So why did she do if? What happened to the normal job pattern? She is patently not someone who has just opted out of the rat-race. She admits she loves the good life, and offered the chance of a job at 20,000 pounds tomorrow, she would jump at it. “I could pick up and live again as though I had never been poor,” she says. But, she goes on, she feels we all have a debt to society. “It’s rather like the land,” she says. “The times we are living in now are very materialistic, everyone’s on the make, everything’s got to be brighter and newer. We’re all taking things out and never putting back. And what happens if you do that to the land? You get barren soil. I certainly never wanted to be a nurse, but I realized that I had to give instead of just take.”

Victoria Hainworth