Talking about rumours

Talking about rumours

Listen to two people talking about a colleague to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Will: Kiera, have you heard John isn't coming back and they might even fire him?

Kiera: No! I knew he was away but I thought it was for personal reasons?

Will: I'm pretty sure that's not the full story. Have you ever worked with him?

Kiera: A long time ago, but … well, I've heard stories about him for years.

Will: I've never worked with him directly but I know people that have and they say he was always shouting and screaming, threatening to fire people. And Susanne told me he took credit for one of her ideas. She had this idea for a project and she brought it up at the monthly creative workshop and he liked it – everybody did. But she saw the notes from the meeting and there was no mention of her name anywhere. John had agreed with her and repeated some of the things she said and the notes made it look like they were his ideas in the first place. He made her do all the work planning it, then when the project actually got started – it was that cars one – Susanne was moved to something else.

Kiera: It won an award, didn't it?

Will: Yeah, but Susanne didn't get to share it – there was zero recognition of her contribution. She was furious but she couldn't do anything about it. Not if she wanted to keep her job.

Kiera: Yeah, it's almost impossible to report people who are as high up as John is, or was.

Will: How did you find working with him, then?

Kiera: Well, you know what you said about him shouting at people? I've been in meetings with him and we all learned to keep our mouths shut. It was horrible. People were genuinely afraid of him.

Will: Did you ever see him stealing people's ideas?

Kiera: It was never that obvious. He was a genius. He had incredible vision but, you know, there was a whole team of people working with him. Not every single idea came from him and after a while it's not easy to say, 'Oh, this idea was mine and this idea was yours.' For me, the bigger problem was that you could be in his good books and then suddenly, with no explanation, you were out. And if you were out, life got very difficult.

Will: I heard women in particular had a hard time working with him.

Kiera: Yeah, well, like I said, you had to stay in his good books. So, if there was a comment that made you feel uncomfortable, you didn't say anything.

Will: Did that happen to you?

Kiera: Not to me, no, but we all knew … and no one said anything. And I was lucky I didn't have that much contact with him myself.

Will: They're doing a full investigation so I suppose a lot of these stories are going to come to light.

Kiera: I hope so. I really hope he's not coming back.

Discussion

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Language level

Average: 4.4 (35 votes)
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Profile picture for user Azizollah-P

Submitted by Azizollah-P on Thu, 21/03/2024 - 11:10

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In my opinion, there are plathora of indispensable features that a good boss should have and some of them are more crucial than the other ones. First of all, a good boss should have great vision to forecast the trends for the betterment of the company. In this way, he can set some goals, give profit warnings and many other efforts to increase the profit margin. Effective communication skills are quintessential while talking about a good boss. If a boss has this skill in his skill set, he can give clear instructions to his employees which in turn will save several human resources like money time and energy. Finally, a good boss should keep both his employees and colleagues motivated. By this, he can encourage them to achieve short-term and long-term goals set by the company. On the other hand, a bad boss, undoubtedly, lacks all these skills. Moreover, he doesn't have good relationship with his fellow workers and employees.

Submitted by amroelwan.com on Sun, 10/12/2023 - 19:08

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In my opinion a boss needs to control people and care for his workers and have everything under control and fire bad workers that have bad intentions and also be in everyone's good book that's what makes a good boss in my opinion

Submitted by Emilio Treviño on Sat, 26/08/2023 - 21:57

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In my opinion a boss need to control and make people to respect him but being a nice person and talk and be a nice person, a bad boss makes him becasue your so hard with your employs and you dont have a nice realtion with them

The students in all schools have rumors and they scared but the most important thing is that they have respect on those rumors.

Submitted by A01287416 on Fri, 25/08/2023 - 17:44

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I think a good boss should have contact with his employees. A boss should listen and lead everyone correctly

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Submitted by Ramiro Solana on Tue, 08/08/2023 - 23:17

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A good boss knows how to lead his team by establishing a clear sense of purpose and providing the tools people need to achieve their goals. On the other hand, a bad boss is one who only thinks about his own personal goals and uses people as tools without taking into account their needs and expectations.

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Submitted by Anwarow on Mon, 31/07/2023 - 20:20

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for me i don't like being boss i would rather be a leader. Bosses give an order and mostly they don't help to their employees to work effectively, and shout with aggresively. but leaders are more friendly.

Submitted by Hiiba on Mon, 24/07/2023 - 17:02

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For me i think a good boss have to be friendly with his employees and also make them feel comfortable on their work place so they can also give much better when they are working.

Submitted by YukinonYui on Mon, 17/07/2023 - 09:25

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I haven't had experience in the work field yet. I have no idea what a boss is supposed to be. But in my personal opinion, what makes a good boss is that they listen, encourage colleagues, and also take credit for their employees.

Submitted by Artyev on Tue, 23/05/2023 - 01:14

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As for me, a good boss contacts with his employees and helps him in different situations. For example: in case if employee`s kid is ill, good boss should give a medical leave, especially, when kid is too small. A bad boss is always nervous, angry, shouty, and you can't have a calm conversation with him. If I understand that my boss is bad, I immediately quit a job and then go looking for a new.