Are you ready to immerse yourself in a real English conversation? Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com, and today I'm here with my husband, Dan. Hello. We are going to be talking about work, some of our work experiences, and some experiences that might relate to you as well. During this lesson, you're going to see some key vocabulary appear here, but I also want to encourage you, if you want to understand every single word that we're saying, you can click CC to view the full subtitles for this conversation.
And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet, which is here over Dan's face. You can download this free worksheet with all of today's key vocabulary, definitions, and sample sentences. Plus at the bottom of the worksheet, you can answer Vanessa's challenge question so that you never forget what you've learned.
You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today. All right, Dan, are you ready to get started? I'm ready.
Let's do it. Today, I have five work-related questions, including a little quiz about some work vocabulary that I don't know if Dan will know. Maybe he will.
Maybe you will know it. We'll see. We'll see. We both have non-traditional jobs, so we'll see what I know about work vocabulary.
All right. Let's start with our first question. All right, Dan, my first question is, tell us about your first job. What was it?
First job ever. Yep. Well, my first job was a paper route.
which is where you take the newspaper and you go and deliver it to your neighborhood. Now, I'm pretty sure that this was probably a job that my dad said, hey, the boys need a job, get them a paper route. And so I had no say in this and I was probably, I think I was 12. 12 or 13. So I was kind of young and we didn't do it on bikes or anything. We weren't able to chuck them out the, you know how There's like people on a bike and they throw the newspaper.
Oh yeah, in movies I've seen that. Yeah, we weren't allowed to do that. We were supposed to gently set it on the doorstep. Oh, that's real life. Yeah, I didn't like it though because I had to wake up really early.
They deliver the newspaper in huge stacks and we had to roll each one and put it in a bag. And then I had to walk the neighborhood really early in the morning. And my least favorite part by far was that people's dogs would just jump out and scare you.
And I remember one time I actually kicked a dog because it scared me so bad. And then, yeah. It just like jumped out at you and your reflex was to kick it.
Right. And it was like this big too and I felt really bad afterwards, but it really scared me. So.
Okay. First job. So because you were 12 years old, this is under the age that you typically work.
So were you paid under the table or how did that work? No, I don't think we were. I don't remember.
The details of getting paid. I remember it was not very much. Were you motivated by money at all at that point?
Like, oh, I get a job, I get some money, I can buy some toys. Yes, yes. I do remember that with that money, I bought a Nintendo 64. Oh, really?
Okay. So you made enough money to actually buy something pretty big? Yes.
I mostly bought video games at that point in my life. Okay. Okay. Those were the big goals back then. Okay.
Well, I think... How about you? What was your first job? For me, my first job was pretty typical.
I feel like maybe it's mostly girls, but a lot of Americans, when you're 13 or 14 years old, you start babysitting the neighborhood kids. So I babysit. The neighborhood kids, I think when I was 13 years old, the little girl across the street who now is probably an adult, she was just a baby, not super little, maybe like one or two years old.
And I would go over to her house when her parents went out on a date for a couple hours and I just played with her. And I remember... When she went to bed, when the baby went to bed, I guess I somehow helped the baby go to bed.
I would do the dishes for them, I cleaned up their playroom, I did some chores around the house that the parents didn't ask me to do. And every single time when the parents came home, they were like, Vanessa, you didn't need to do this, this is amazing! And I always thought like, well, what else am I supposed to do? You're paying me to be here to watch your kid and your kid's asleep.
But now that I'm an adult... That's why Vanessa is a good worker. Now that I'm an adult, if I paid a babysitter and my kids were asleep and I came home to a clean house... I would get on the floor and bow to this person. Thank you.
I love you. I know. Whenever our parents come and they do the dishes for us at the end of the day, whenever, like, after we're eating dinner and we're giving the kids a bath, it's so helpful. So those little things...
Yeah, that's my job, too, so I would be... extra thankful. Oh, the dishes? Yeah.
Yeah. So that was my first job. And I think it was pretty typical.
I was just paid in cash under the table, nothing official. And I babysat throughout all of high school, various kids. And to me, it always seemed like a pretty easy job.
Like being a parent is not an easy job, but being a babysitter, you're playing with kids. You're just doing the fun stuff. Depending on how many kids.
Yeah. And how nice they were. It gets harder every kid. Yeah.
add to that equation. I feel like though parents when they leave their small children with a babysitter they really try to at least the parents I want the families I watched they would be like all right here's all the toys we have a special snack and it's like a special occasion and Vanessa the babysitter is coming it's not like real life like when you're a parent. it's real life and you're doing the hard stuff. But as a babysitter, it was like fun times, party times.
Yeah. I babysat four a couple of times. Four kids?
Oh, how'd that go? It was pretty crazy. Yeah. How old were you when you did that?
16, 17. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
I was a little bit older. Was it like-And it was family friend. Okay.
Yeah. People that you knew. Yeah.
All right. Let's go on to our second question. Our second question is a little more of a modern question.
I want to know, would you rather work from home or at a workplace? So the workplace could be like an office or... In a coffee shop or like the location that the job is set at, what would you rather do?
Well, that really, really depends on the workplace, right? Because a lot of my jobs that I've had, like I worked at a factory on an assembly line. I'd rather work from home.
Than that, yeah. Maybe just like a standard office job. I kind of like the idea of like I work one day at the office and I work the rest of the days at home.
I like to get a little bit of that variety. But in general, I think I would choose a workplace just so because I like to be really active. So like my job now, I'm teaching children, elementary kids. So when I'm in a classroom, I got to be like really moving on top of it and, you know, basically on my A game.
I don't get that same energy. I just kind of fall into like a... I don't... Maybe a rut is kind of a too dramatic of a word, but I can more easily get into a rut at home. So you feel more motivated when you're on the location.
If the... Dan had a summer job one time in high school. Was it in high school? What job are you talking about? When you were working at Sony?
That was college, yeah. Okay. A summer job where you just-That was a factory. Tapped a TV.
For 10 hours a day to check in? Or move in. There was some variety. Sometimes we got to pick up the TV and put it on the table. Yes, that was a job...
10 hours. Every day. Yeah, that's a job that really makes you grateful for the other jobs that you have in life.
But this type of job, you'd rather... First of all, you'd rather not do, but also, if that's your comparison point, you would rather work at home. But in general, working... In the workplace is better for you.
Yes. For me, it's better. And, I mean, in our scenario, we worked together from home for a while.
And because both of us were working at home, it really turned into like... Our entire life is just in this house. Yeah, especially because we had young kids and we're working from home. It was really hard to have a community and get out because to get out with small children is already tricky and you're working. So I think you working at the school now just adds another wonderful layer to our family where we have a community.
You have co-workers. There's like more. Yeah, it's also a nice community. It's a nice work.
workplace. Yes. Some workplaces are not nice. That makes a big difference. Yeah, for sure.
I think for me-And how about you? Yes. Because I work for myself, I have my own business teaching you English, speak English with Vanessa, I'm going to answer neither. I don't want to work at home and I also don't want to work in a workplace. This is my ideal scenario.
Are you ready? She wants to be totally independent. She wants to work in space. I want to work in a castle overlooking a kingdom.
I want to, and I can probably do this in another couple years, work for my business. Great. But not at home. A couple last year when I was pregnant with my baby, I worked at a coworking space and these exist all around the world. Maybe you've heard of them, maybe you haven't, but it's like a really fun office.
So they try to make it cool because they want you to go there. And Everyone is working just on their laptops for their own jobs. Freelancers. Freelancers. Or maybe they're working for various companies or maybe they run a company.
And there's events, there's food, there's food trucks, there's like things going on. It's like the fun place to be. And this is, I think, my ideal where I'm working at the job that I want to work at, being your English teacher. And also... in a location where I'm around other people.
Working from home is so convenient with small children. I can, my baby's napping in the other room right now. I can nurse her.
I can help my kids. I can do those types of things. But when they're a little bit older, I'm out.
I want to go and be... out in a coworking space and this type of environment, I think is really healthy for me. If you couldn't tell, she is a people person. I like to be around other people, but I know some people can work, for example, in a coffee shop or this busy environment.
I cannot. If it's an absolute necessity, a requirement-Public place.... we have no internet at home and I have to get something done, yes, I can go to a coffee shop and get some work done. But that is not my ideal environment. I'm not productive in that environment either.
Yeah. Some people are. Some people thrive with the chaos and lots of stuff going on, but that's not my jam. All right.
So now, are you ready for a quiz? Oh, we're to the quiz? The next section is a quiz. Yes. All right.
These are some office acronyms. And an acronym, for example, is like BRB, be right back. So you might write this in a text message, you might write this in an email.
These are specifically things that you would write in an email in the office. Are you ready? I already think I'm not going to be very good at this. The first one is WFH.
I'll give you a sample sentence. Okay. This is a WFH position. Or I'm looking for a WFH position.
So this is work from home, which is increasingly more common since the pandemic. Yes, work from home. You got it. All right, the next one. You might see this at the bottom of an email.
O-O-O. This is the letter, not the number. O-O-O?
If you saw O-O-O. Orange, ostriches, orangutans. Uh, yes!
You got it! No, this is out of office. Oh.
O-O. When someone is going to be gone during usual business days, let's say you have a vacation, Monday through Wednesday, In your email system, you might write like a automated message that goes out to everyone. That's your OOO, your out of office message that says, I'm sitting on a beach right now. Haha, you're at the office.
I'll see you on Thursday. Something like this. For our school, in our chat, there's the little red dot in the corner that says they're out or not available.
Okay, same idea. We use Google Workplace, so you might be familiar too. Yeah.
Yeah, so OOO is like a common. There's some really funny out of office messages I've seen out there. Anyway, you can look those up another time. All right, the last one is... Only three?
There's only three. The last quiz is EOD. EOD? EOD. Would you like a sample sentence?
Sure. Okay. The sample sentence is, I need this finished by EOD.
Or I will have this finished by... EOD. Earlyest. Earliest? Even.
No. EOD. Uh-huh. Can you have this finished by EOD? And you would not say this.
You would write this in an email or in like a text. End of date. Oh, close.
End of day. Yes. End of day.
Yes. Yes. Can you have this finished by EOD?
Can you have this finished by end of day? So this is just talking about deadlines. And you might see this in an email.
You might see this in like a group chat like Dan was saying with your coworkers. There's Google Workplaces kind of chat about EOD. Great work.
So what? You got two out of three? Two out of three.
Great work. All right. Let's go on to our... And I'm not an office-y kind of guy.
Well, let's go on to our next question, which has to do with being on the other side, not just working, but being someone who... who is in charge of hiring other people. So at various times we've each had to hire people. And I want to know for you, tell us kind of the circumstance of why you were hiring someone, but also what were some of the key reasons why you hired someone or like the character traits that you were looking for in those people and what happened? So yeah, tell us about hiring people.
So when I hired people, I was working at a coffee shop. in downtown Asheville. And I got the manager's position there.
So I was kind of like, you know, middle management, we would say, where there was somebody above me, not so fun, especially this guy. But then I had a team working the coffee shop. And so I had to hire basically baristas.
And so the criteria I mainly looked for was, were they cheerful and presentable and did they seem with it as in would they be on time can they follow directions and orders and then of course you I always ask them about their previous experience and usually with like the most recent job they had I kind of asked like why did you leave that job to kind of get there like you want to hear like what their story is and then like pick up all those little signals that they're giving out so Yeah, I actually thought hiring was really fun, but... So if someone said, oh, I left my last job because the manager was awful and, oh, and they say bad things about their manager, then would you hire that person? No, no, of course not.
And yeah, I thought it was fun too, because it was kind of like, oh, I get to curate my team. Like these are the people I want to work with. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And the people who you hired also had to work well with the people who were currently working there. Because when you're working in a coffee shop, Everyone is working behind the counter. It's a very tight space physically. Yeah, you're public, but you're also like in that setting, you know, you're front facing, you're seeing everybody and you have to be cheerful.
But then when people walk out, you're also like a lot of times a lot of gossip builds up in these situations. You want to find people who are low drama, which can be difficult in the coffee barista industry, I will say. But you did it.
Tell us about that. I did it. The people you hired, did it work out? How did it go without saying any names in case they're watching?
I think all but maybe one of my hires were pretty good. Some of them were like slam dunks, I thought. Oh, okay.
Okay. Just like very with it people. They were with it.
One of them was the manager when I left. Oh, okay. Yeah. Some of them were kind of high strung, but that meant they were with it. Yeah, and then also for that coffee shop, most of the people who work there were women.
And so I had to kind of be a little careful. Who like that made actually hiring guys harder just because a lot of times if you get a guy who's single and giving off these signals, right, then it just ends up building this kind of like tension and drama. And so I was like, you know, the married guy there and like, you know, Dan's taken.
It doesn't matter. You know, whatever. I gave them relationship advice. But, you know. You wanted to hire someone who wasn't-From the married guy perspective.
You didn't want someone who was just going to flirt with the coworkers the whole time. You wanted a good environment for everybody. Yeah, because guys would come in from other shops and flirt with the girls there.
So it was like, they're already kind of messing up the jive. Men. Yeah. I think an important part about hiring someone is that if you have to work with a team, that they work well together.
And that was actually something I was going to say about the people who I've hired. So I've hired several people. to work for Speak English with Vanessa because one person cannot make all of this magic happen by themselves. So I'd say one of the key things that I look for now, I've had some not completely failed hiring experiences, but ones that didn't work out as well. One of the things that I've learned from that is if somebody can understand what you're asking for, And then either ask the right questions so that they can do it correctly or do it correctly the first time.
That is huge. So when I'm asking someone, for example, to help write some sample sentences for an English course, well, I can tell them, here's the vocabulary. Can you write two sample sentences per vocabulary word with a definition?
I can give them simple, small instructions like that. and see what happens. And if they do it perfectly the first time, okay. If they don't, I don't really care. It's that they ask the right questions like, oh, do you want a long definition or a short definition?
Or would you like it to be double space, single space? If somebody is thinking about those types of things, I think that, like you said, being with it and on it, great vocabulary words, but those are the most important. Because you can teach the other things oftentimes in various jobs. So an openness to learning. Yeah, openness to learning.
And like asking questions. Yeah, and when you give corrections, like, oh, I would prefer if you did it like this. Or can you change this to be like this? The next time, they also do that. So kind of cataloging the various changes that you'd like and being able to do it.
I know you've had somebody who didn't do that well. Yeah, I think... I don't remember. Some conversation.
It's really tricky to hire someone, especially for me because I've never-Looks like I'm blind really. Yeah. I don't meet them. Or did you talk to them? I talked to them on Zoom and stuff, but I've never really hired people.
A lot of these positions that I'm hiring people for, it's the first time I've ever hired someone for that position. So I'm learning what exactly is the job position. What exactly do I need? It's not this- company with a big long process for hiring various people in the same position. So I'm kind of learning from scratch each time.
But I think it's a good skill being able to hire the right people and have a good situation. There is something interesting that you did not mention and I didn't mention about hiring people. They're crazy. qualifications.
Oh, the qualifications. So if you are like a graphic designer, if you're of course like a doctor or something like this, you need some specific job related qualifications. That was always a little lower on the list for what I was hiring for.
That's interesting. Yeah. And I feel like for me, when I hired, for example, a writer. I want someone who has writing experience, but I didn't care if they had a certificate or a degree.
It was more, can they do a good job? And I feel like this is a little bit more of a modern hiring process. Lots of traditional jobs still want you to have this certificate, this degree, this qualification.
It depends on the technicality. My dad is an engineer, and he works in a, what would you even call it, a factory. It's not a factory, a workshop with like metals and big machinery and stuff.
And if he's going to hire an engineer, they need a certain kind of expertise to even have a baseline knowledge. Because if I walked in there, I'd be like, I don't even understand what is happening. You would not be hired. Right. Exactly.
Yeah. So for certain jobs, of course you need some kind of experience with the job itself. But I think a lot of jobs nowadays, they are looking for character traits. Especially if you're young, more than specific experiences.
But there are so many jobs out there. There's many different things. Totally depends on the field.
Yeah. All right. Are you ready for our final question of the day?
Sure. All right. I wrote it out here.
Our final question is one that many students have asked. Maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe bajillions of times. Oftentimes this question is asked to me, but I think...
can relate to both of us. How can you have a work-life balance with so much going on in your life? So we both work. We have three children.
We have two cats and nine chickens and a house and a big garden and yes, all of this. Boy, that garden. I'm just saying right now it's pretty busy.
It does take a lot of work. Yeah. So how can we have, how can you personally have a work-life balance? Yeah. So For me, because we both work, it was, it's important for me not to really get at this point in my life, like a full-time job.
So I have pretty much the perfect situation for me because it's like, it's professional, but it's not strict in its hours. So that really helps because I was able to negotiate getting Fridays off. all the time. Today.
Yes. And it's a non-traditional school. So they already kind of do something different on Friday anyway.
So just their flexibility for scheduling was really perfect for our situation. So while it's not as great for making money, it's good for work-life balance. So there's always, you know, costs and benefits, right? So I'm not making as much money, but I get to spend more time with my family.
And you. get the same vacations as our children because you have the same schedule and all of that. So, you're able to take care... You take the kids to school and manage their school life, which as parents know, managing your children's school life is a big deal.
Yeah. That's something that I kind of take for granted because yeah, I take Theo to school with me. Nobody has to drop him off or anything because he just goes with me.
So... And soon Freddy too. You know, so as far as like a general tip, that's not really going to work for a lot of people because you, that's a very particular situation. But, yeah, I would say that to accomplish work-life balance, you like, you need to either have both people working a little less or one person working dramatically less to be able to like take care of all the stuff around the house.
That's why it's common for, you know. The husband to work and the woman not to work. Not to work. Not to make money.
Yeah, not to make the money because, well, then you might be able to get a better work-life balance. Although, for each person, it's out of balance. So, I don't know.
It's actually pretty tricky. I think we do it, but we are able to do it because we have flexible jobs that we've sought out. We've also gone through a lot of transitions in our life where... oh, this isn't working, this is terrible, then you're kind of like reworking stuff and then you get into a better place. Yeah, I do feel like...
You've got to be able to be willing to change directions like that as well. Yeah, our parents had the very traditional husband works outside the home, makes the money, the wife stays home and takes care of the kids. Both of those are very...
It's an easy answer. Both of those are very difficult jobs, but I feel like between their generation and our generation, there was like a shift of... Both people working full time and now we're kind of switching to like, I feel like a lot of millennials, which is what we are.
How can we work less? Are trying to, yeah, kind of do what we're doing. I do think there's a lot of people, a lot of my friends who are our age in the US, they're both the wife and the husband are kind of mixing these traditional roles and not working both. full-time jobs or like yeah just trying to do things a little bit more outside the box and I imagine our kids when they're adults and like the next generations are just going to be like constantly evolving and shifting and trying to make things even more balanced because for me I work from home at the moment and technically my job could be Never ending.
I could always be coming up with new courses and new lessons and new ideas and the way that my brain works I always have new ideas. I swear every single time that I take a walk or I'm alone with my thoughts I have a million ideas. Dan's favorite thing is when I come to him and say hey hon I had an idea. His eyes go oh but I always have new ideas but It's not always healthy for me to be outputting a lot of work all the time because I have other things, other people, my children especially, in my life that bring me joy and need a lot of attention.
So I think the key for me, and I don't do this perfectly, so I don't know if I'm the best person to answer this. I don't think there is a best person to answer this, but I think the thing that works for me is to be 100% present with whatever I'm doing. If I'm working, I am in this room, this is our little office, the door is closed, I am focused on work.
Nothing else is going on. Maybe the kids are playing with someone else. They're always here, but they're with somebody else. Or if my kids come in here, I have to stop what I'm working on and look at them, work on whatever I'm doing with them, say hi to them, and then when they leave, continue working.
Just the other day. They were doing something else and I was doing some work and they busted in the room, Mommy, you're on the computer. Wow, I want to sit on your lap.
There were two children on my lap and I was halfway through finishing an email that I really wanted to finish. And there's no way. There is no way that you can do that if you have ever tried to do that.
So I, in my mind, I say, I'm not going to do that right now. I will wait five minutes, ten minutes. It's going to be okay. 10 hours. 10 hours.
It's okay. And focus on just whatever they need at that second. And then I can get back to it.
Because I think if you try to check your emails while you're also talking to your kids or doing something else, your brain is going to go crazy. Well, you know, a lot of parents probably hand their kids like an iPad or like turn on the TV or something. So. That's an option, but probably not great for your kids.
Yeah. So for me, usually I only do work whenever the kids are at school, sleeping, or with someone else. They don't really watch that much TV, so that's not really an option for our family.
But I'm trying to focus 100%, and that's also something I recommend with English, is when you are really studying English. If you're listening to a song in English, if you're listening to a podcast in English, that's like. fun stuff, right?
That's great. You're immersing yourself. But if you are studying vocabulary, you're writing out those sentences, you are practicing your pronunciation, focus on that.
Try to focus 100% of your attention and you'll do your best at it and you'll actually improve. If you're trying to do a million things at the same time, at the end, you're just going to feel frustrated. At least that's how I feel. I got nothing done because I was trying to do everything at the same time.
So I'm constantly trying to simplify my life because there's lots going on. So anyway, that's the roundabout answer for this very tricky question. In other words, you just got to figure it out somehow.
It's not a one size fit all answer. Absolutely not a one size fit all. And I think if your goal is to really have a work life balance, I think for most people it is.
But if that's something that you really want to prioritize, like Dan said, I think You need to dump out the bucket of all the things you have going on and decide what is absolutely necessary. That's a good strategy. What can we cut? What expenses can we cut so we can work less? What trips can we cut?
What work trips? What commitments? All of these things so that we can get down to just the basics. And then you can kind of build it up from there.
But I think a lot of times, like I know some people that feel like, well, I have to do this. I have to do this. And yes. Sometimes you have to do things.
But overall, trying to really cut back and decide what do I need to purchase? What expenses are necessary? Hobbies too.
What hobbies do I absolutely have to do? Some of them might be painful. Like I recently stopped watching hockey, which is my favorite.
Favorite sport? That kind of brought a little tear to my eye. But I just don't have time for it anymore. And maybe at another point in your life, you will have more... I can watch all the hockey games I want!
You'll have more figurative bandwidth. But for now, maybe in your life, if you're feeling really stressed by this work-life balance, lay everything out on the table. What is necessary? How can I cut back so that I feel more balanced and happy?
I think you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family, and yeah, you'll just be a better person for it. But I'm still working on that, Dan's still working on that, so take it with a grain of salt. All right.
Well, thank you so much, Dan, for joining me for this work conversation. Yes, you're welcome. Yes, we made it. Work. Thank you so much for immersing yourself in English.
These types of conversations are excellent for improving your vocabulary. All the words you saw down here. But something even better about these conversations is that it has been absolutely proven the best way to learn a language is through immersion and acquisition. This means that you don't really even know you're learning.
You're just picking up on all of the rules and the nuances and the ideas of English while you're listening to these conversations. So, you're welcome. I hope that you enjoyed this lesson, you learned a lot. Feel free to watch it as many times as you want.
And also, please download the free PDF worksheet over Dan's face right here with all of today's vocabulary, sample sentences, ideas. You can answer Vanessa's challenge questions so that you never forget what you've learned. and you can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today.
It is my gift to you. So thank you so much, dear. You're welcome.
I appreciate you joining me for this conversation. These are absolutely beneficial to our students. It's my pleasure.
And it's fun to talk with you about these types of things. Yes, indeed. Thank you.
You're welcome. Well, thanks so much for learning English with me. And let me know in the comments, what is your job? Tell us in the comments your job.
Do you have- work-life balance. Do you have work-life balance? Any tips for the rest of us?
And we'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. Bye. But wait, do you want more?
I recommend watching this video next, where Dan and I will talk about our daily routines, including something that Dan does every morning and I never do. What is it? Well, I'll see you there to find out.