You're listening to ESLPod.com's Using English at Work.
Lesson 10. I'm your host, Dr.
Jeff McQuillan, from the Center for Educational Development.
In the ninth lesson of using English at work, we learned vocabulary related to leaving the office at the end of the day.
In this tenth and final lesson, we're going to talk about socializing with coworkers.
We'll get started by listening to our story first at a slow speed.
When I walk past Van's desk on my way out of the office, I see that he's talking to a group of people.
He stops and asks if I want to go with them to Happy Hour at the restaurant and bar down the street.
It has been a busy week and I need to blow off some steam.
On top of that, I don't have any big plans for the evening, so I say yes.
Eight of us walk down the street to Steve's Cantina.
We find a table in the back of the bar and look at the drinks menu.
Happy Hour is from 4 to 7 pm and the drinks are half price.
We order our drinks and I go to get some snacks and appetizers.
I look at the food that's available and I see a lot of deep fried foods and chips and dip, so I load up and go back to the table.
One of the guys, Brian, starts to grumble about work and to badmouth the boss.
I'm in no mood to talk about work, so I change the subject.
I ask everybody what his or her plans are for the weekend.
Diana says that she's planning to kick back and relax.
Rodrigo said he has a hot date.
Van tells us a funny story about the last date he went on that didn't go very well.
We have a good laugh over it.
We all have a great time at Happy Hour and it's a good way to kick off the weekend.
Our final story begins with me walking past Van's desk as I'm leaving the office.
I see that he is talking with a group of other people.
He stops me as I walk by and asks me if I want to go with them to Happy Hour at a restaurant and bar down the street.
A Happy Hour is a short period of time, usually one, two, perhaps three hours in the late afternoon and weekdays when many bars have drinks and food that cost less than usual.
Bars have Happy Hours to get more customers to come in for a drink after work.
Most Happy Hours are in the early evening around quitting time between for example 5 and 7 or 5.30 and 7.30.
It's been a busy week for me and I need to blow off some steam.
To blow off some steam means to get rid of strong emotions and stress that have been building up over time.
After the end of a long stressful week many people need a way to blow off some steam and relax.
That's one of the reasons I'm interested in going with Vaan and the other people to Happy Hour.
If you and your wife have been fighting a lot recently for example you may want to play some sport with your friends to blow off some steam to get rid of that stress.
Usually that doesn't work but you can try it.
I agree to go to Happy Hour so I can blow off some steam but I also have another reason.
I say on top of that I don't have any big plans for the evening.
The phrase on top of that means in addition also or moreover.
In other words it's been a busy week.
I need to blow off some steam and in addition I don't have any big plans.
When we say we have big plans we are talking about something that would be exciting or interesting to do.
You may have big plans for your career or you can have big plans for building a new house.
Something big and exciting.
But I don't have big plans for this evening so I say yes to Vaan's invitation to go to Happy Hour with him and my other co-workers.
There are eight of us in the group and we walked down the street to a bar called Steve's Cantina.
Cantina is a Spanish word used to mean a bar.
We find a table in the back of the bar away from the door, far from the door and we look at the drinks menu.
At this bar, Steve's Cantina, Happy Hour is from 4 to 7 and the drinks are half price.
When we say something is half price it's being sold at 50% or 1 half of the normal price.
For example a $20 shirt at half price is $10.
After we order our half price drinks, I go to get some snacks and appetizers.
An appetizer is a small amount of food that is usually eaten at a restaurant before your main meal or your entree.
It's usually something small like a cup of soup, a salad, if you are at a bar perhaps some chicken wings.
I go get snacks and appetizers while we are waiting for our drinks to arrive.
I look at the food that is available and I see a lot of deep fried foods and chips and dip.
Deep fried food is food that has been cooked in a lot of hot oil for a certain time.
Secondly it has a brown color after it's been cooked and is crunchy or slightly hard on the outside.
Deep fried food tastes very good I think but it can also be somewhat unhealthy, not good for your health, for your body.
Dipping and dip is a plate with a lot of potato chips or perhaps tortilla chips that are fried in oil and salted.
The dip is a creamy sauce.
For example the sauce may be made with onions and sour cream.
There are many different types of dip.
We use the chips to pick up a little bit of dip and then we eat the chip and the dip together.
I love chips and dip. When I see a lot of deep fried food and chips and dip I load up and go back to the table.
To load up means to put a lot of something on your plate or perhaps in a container or something that can hold other things.
For example if I'm moving from one apartment to another I would load up my car with things from my old apartment to take to my new apartment.
I'm putting as many things as I can into my car.
When I get to my new apartment then I would unload or take those things out of my car and put them in the apartment.
In this lesson I'm loading up by putting a lot of food on my plate.
Then I go back to the table where my coworkers are and I say I'm going to eat this all by myself.
You can't have any. No, I don't say that.
I'm a nice person so I let them eat the food also.
One of the guys or male coworkers is Brian.
We use the word guy to informally refer to a man.
Brian starts to grumble about work.
To grumble means to complain quietly or sometimes not so quietly about something.
You're not saying it very loudly so that everyone can hear you but you're indicating that you are unhappy by the things you say.
In this case Brian is grumbling probably talking about the reasons why he doesn't like his job.
Brian also starts to badmouth the boss.
To badmouth someone means to say bad things about another person.
It's never a good idea to badmouth someone because that other person may hear you or people that you are talking to might tell that person, especially if that person is your boss.
When Brian starts to grumble about work and badmouth the boss, I'm in no mood to talk about work.
If someone is in no mood to do something, it means that he or she does not want to do something.
They're not interested in doing something.
If you feel sick for example, you probably are in no mood to go outside and play in the snow or simply to go outside.
I'm in no mood to talk about work, meaning I don't want to talk about work since it's Friday and it's the beginning of the weekend.
So I change the subject.
To change the subject means to say or do something that gets people to stop talking about whatever they're talking about now and begin talking about something else.
If your wife or husband asks you to do something that you don't want to do, you may change the subject so perhaps they'll forget about it.
That's what I'm doing here.
I'm changing the subject so we can talk about something else, not work.
To do that, I ask my co-workers about their plans for the weekend.
Diana says that she's planning to kick back and relax.
To kick back means to stop working and start having fun.
I like to kick back after a long day by sitting on my couch and watching a baseball game, at least during the summer.
To kick back is a somewhat informal expression.
In our story, Diana is going to kick back and relax.
Rod Rigo says that he has a hot date.
A date is a romantic meeting between two people and a hot date is a date with a very attractive or sexy person.
Unfortunately not all dates can be hot dates.
Next Vaughn tells a funny story about the last date he went on that didn't go very well.
Vaughn's story is about something that went wrong on his date.
We have a good laugh over his story.
To have a good laugh means to laugh very loudly and for a long time about something that is funny.
Many people go to comedy clubs or watch funny movies because they want to have a good laugh.
We all had a great time at Happy Hour and it was a good way to kick off the weekend.
To kick off means to start something with some action or event.
You might kick off a party with some good music or kick off a conference with a keynote or introductions.
We've kicked off or begun the weekend by going to this Happy Hour and having a lot of fun.
Now let's listen as I describe how I socialize with my colleagues again.
This time speaking at a normal speed.
When I walk past Vaughn's desk on my way out of the office I see that he's talking to a group of people.
He stops and asks if I want to go with him to the Happy Hour at the restaurant and bar down the street.
It has been a busy week and I need to blow off some steam.
On top of that I don't have any big plans for the evening so I say yes.
Eight of us walk down the street to Steve's Cantina.
We find a table in the back of the bar and look at the drinks menu.
Happy Hour is from 4 to 7 pm and the drinks are half price.
We order our drinks and I go to get some snacks and appetizers.
I look at the food that's available and I see a lot of deep fried foods and chips and dips so I load up and go back to the table.
One of the guys, Brian, starts to grumble about work and to badmouth the boss.
I'm in no mood to talk about work so I change the subject.
I ask everybody what his or her plans are for the weekend.
Diana says that she's planning to kick back and relax.
Rodrigo says he has a hot date.
Van tells us a funny story about the last date he went on that didn't go very well.
We have a good laugh over it.
We all have a great time at Happy Hour and it's a good way to kick off the weekend.
That's the end of our tenth and final lesson.
It's also the end of our course.
I hope that you've enjoyed listening to this course as much as we did putting it together.
Please visit our website at ESLPD.com to find other courses to help you improve your English.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening. This course has been a production of the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at ESLPD.com.
This course was produced by Dr.
Jeff McQuillan and Dr. Lucy Saye.
Happy Right 2008.
