Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 176, Time Off from Work.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 176.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Remember to visit our website at wwweslpodcom to get the learning guide for this podcast, which includes the complete transcript definitions, sample sentences, additional cultural information everything you want in the learning guide.
Today's podcast is called Time Off from Work.
Let's get started.
My buddy from college Jack, was getting married and our friend Rob was planning a bachelor party for him in Vegas.
It was going to be the last weekend of the month and I wanted to go.
The trouble was I was scheduled to work that weekend.
I needed to get the time off from work or I was going to miss out on all the fun.
I have some vacation leave but company policy requires that my boss sign off on any leave we take.
I've heard of companies doing that for longer periods of leave like maternity leave or a leave of absence.
But our company does that even for vacation leave.
I thought about just calling in sick that weekend.
I do have a lot of accumulated sick leave, but I didn't think my boss would appreciate me leaving him hanging.
In the end, I just asked him straight out, and, to my surprise, he said, Okay.
Now, I just need to get ready for a wild weekend with the guys.
I can't wait.
Music This podcast is called Time Off from Work.
Time off from work is when you don't have to work.
Someone says I want some time off, or I want some time off from work means they want to take a vacation or have a break from work or from whatever it is that you normally do.
Some of you sleep all day, so you would take time off from being lazy.
No, I'm just kidding.
My buddy from college the story begins was getting married and our friend was planning a bachelor party for him in Vegas.
Well, my buddy, B-U-D-D-Y, is an informal term for my friend.
Sometimes we even say my bud.
Usually when we're joking, we'll say, oh yeah, my bud Jerry, my friend Jerry, my buddy Jerry.
Well, my buddy's name is Jack and he was getting married and our friend Rob wanted to have a bachelor party for him.
The word bachelor, B-A-C-H-E-L-O-R, it means the person who is getting married, the man who is getting married is called the bachelor or an unmarried man.
Anyone who's not married who's a man can be called a bachelor.
A woman is called a bachelorette, but that word is not quite as common as the word bachelor.
So you can say, oh yes, I'm a bachelor, means I'm not married.
Well, a bachelor party, in this case, is a party for a bachelor who is going to get married.
And traditionally there is a party, usually with just the men, the male friends of the bachelor, who will be called, when he gets married, the groom.
The groom, G-R-O-O-M, is the man who's getting married.
The woman is called the bride.
Well, in this bachelor party, usually it's a few days before the actual wedding.
And the idea is this is the last chance for a man to have fun before he gets married.
So if you are going to get married, you must have a bachelor party, because once you get married, well it's all over.
The bachelor party then, is going to be in Vegas V-E-G-A-S.
And Vegas stands for Las Vegas, which is spelled L-A-S, although we usually pronounce it loss, like an O, So L-A-S, V-E-G-A-S.
Las Vegas is in Nevada and it is famous, you may know, as the gambling center of the United States, where people can gamble.
They can play cards and other games and win money, usually lose money.
At least I do.
Well, Vegas is also famous because it is kind of a place to have a good time, to enjoy yourself.
And it's located in the state of Nevada.
It's about five hours, six hours here from Los Angeles driving.
And it's usually very warm most of the year.
So Las Vegas is a fun place to visit, especially for adults.
Well, the bachelor party is going to be in Vegas or Las Vegas.
It was going to be the last weekend of the month.
The last weekend of the month would be the last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of a month.
The fourth week in most months.
And I wanted to go.
The trouble was I was scheduled to work that weekend.
Notice that expression, the trouble was, comma, and then we begin a sentence.
You could say the trouble was that I had to work this weekend.
They mean the same thing, but sometimes we use that expression the trouble was, or the problem is, or sometimes just the thing is I have to work that weekend.
It's a way of getting the attention of the other person.
Usually we use that when we are going to say something that is a problem, that presents a problem to us, that we can't do something because of something else.
So that expression.
The trouble was I was scheduled or I was supposed to.
The plan was I was to work that weekend.
So of course I needed to get time off from work.
I needed a break, a vacation from work.
If I didn't, I was going to miss out on all the fun.
To miss out on means that you will not be part of, you will not be able to participate in.
We use that verb uh, in a couple of different ways.
Someone says well, be sure, be sure not to be late for the dinner, otherwise you will miss out on all the good food, you will miss out on the fun.
We can even say don't miss out, meaning don't miss out on the good things that will happen.
Well, here i'm worried, i'm going to miss out on all of the fun.
Well, I have some vacation leave.
The word leave here, L-E-A-V-E, means the same as a break, time that you don't have to work.
There are different kinds of leave.
One kind is vacation leave, when you are able to take time off of work to go on a vacation.
Another kind of leave is a maternity leave.
Maternity, M-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y, is when a woman is going to have a baby and she can get, in most companies, maternity leave.
So they give her maybe six weeks, two months, up to usually six months' time.
It depends on how much the woman wants and how much they will give her.
And they will pay her her salary.
They will pay her for working, but she has this time off to have her baby.
There's also now, it's less common, something called paternity leave.
And paternity P-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y means the father gets time off from work to help with the new baby.
So you can get maternity leave, and in many places you can also get paternity leave.
The words maternity and paternity come from Latin words.
Mater means mother in Latin.
That's where we get maternity from.
And pater in Latin means father.
And that's where we get paternity leave.
Or paternity, rather.
Well, in my company, we have a policy that that requires that my boss sign off on any leave we take.
The expression company policy is one that you will hear a lot of in American businesses.
Someone will say, well, you can't do that.
Why?
Well, it's company policy.
You can't take your... shirt off at work?
I hope not.
That is company policy.
Well, company policy in my company requires that my boss sign off on any leave.
To sign off on something S-I-G-N off O-F-F two words.
To sign off on means to approve, to say yes.
And usually this is something that a boss or someone who is in charge will do.
It could be something like a vacation request, as it is in this case.
They could sign off on buying something new for the company.
They approve it.
Someone may even use this expression to say, are you going to sign off on this?
No, I'm not going to sign off on that.
And that can also mean I don't agree with it.
It's not something that I believe in.
But here it means to give permission.
So my boss has to give permission if I am going to take any leave, any break from work.
I've heard of companies that require the boss sign off on something like a leave for longer periods of time.
And we give two examples of a longer leave.
A maternity leave, as I said before, is usually six weeks, often three months or even six months.
Vacation time is going to be much shorter.
In the United States, vacation time tends to be two to three weeks in most companies.
That's how much vacation leave you get each year.
Longer leaves are sometimes called a leave of absence.
A leave of absence, A-B-S-E-N-C-E.
And that's when you take time off from work But you normally don't get paid.
So you take time off of work and you don't get paid.
Now, in maternity leave, you often don't get paid either.
I said that companies will pay you, but sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
A leave of absence usually is when you take time for some personal reason or some other reason that you don't want to quit your job, but you need time off for something else.
And so you can take a leave of absence, perhaps to take care of your father or your mother who is sick.
Those would be possible reasons for a leave of absence.
You want to make sure that you can watch all of the World Cup soccer games, so you take a month leave of absence.
In our company, however, we have to get approval even for something like vacation leave.
I thought about just calling in sick that weekend.
To call in sick means that you call your boss and you say, oh, I'm really sick.
I can't go to work.
And sometimes, of course, people call in sick when they're not sick.
You would never do that, but some people do that.
So calling in sick means that you are calling and saying, I can't work today.
I'm too ill.
I'm too sick.
There's a football game on.
No, I'm too sick.
Well, I say here that I have a lot of accumulated sick leave.
We've talked about vacation leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, leave of absence.
Another kind of leave is sick leave.
And sick leave you can guess is time the number of days you get where you can still get paid and you can call in sick.
Again, it depends on the company.
Sometimes it's five days a year.
Sometimes it's ten days a year.
Here at the Center for Educational Development, I think it's like 25 minutes.
That's it.
Well, in most companies, though, you get more than 25 minutes to be sick.
So you can accumulate your sick leave.
To accumulate, A-C-C-U-M-U-L-A-T-E.
To accumulate means something similar to save up, to save all of your sick leave.
You can accumulate anything that is physical.
You can accumulate paper.
You could accumulate clothing.
You could accumulate clothes.
Computers, the idea is that you have a lot of them, that you keep having more and more and more.
Well, accumulated sick leave is when you don't use your sick leave.
Maybe from last year.
You didn't use any sick leave and you had five days last year and you have five days this year.
Well, some companies will allow you, will permit you to accumulate your sick leave.
So now you can have 10 days in one year because you didn't use your sick leave last year.
That's accumulated sick leave.
Well, I could have called in sick with my accumulated sick leave, but I didn't think my boss would appreciate me leaving him hanging.
To leave someone hanging, H-A-N-G-I-N-G, means that you abandon someone.
You leave someone without any help.
So the person is expecting you to help them and you decide not to help them, not to go in to work, for example.
That would be to leave someone hanging.
They're not getting any help from you.
Well, I say that in the end, after all of this thinking about it, I decided just to ask him straight out.
To ask someone straight S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T out O-U-T two words straight out means to ask them directly.
To just ask them without any other sort of excuses or any other plans to be direct with someone.
I'm going to ask you straight out.
Did you talk to my girlfriend last night?
I'm asking you directly.
You better say no.
Well, my boss says yes.
He says, okay, I can take my vacation leave.
Now I just need to get ready for a wild weekend with the guys.
A wild W-I-L-D weekend would be a weekend a Friday, Saturday and Sunday that you would spend going to parties and, in this case, gambling in Las Vegas.
That's a wild weekend.
The guys here means my male friends, men who are friends with me.
The word guys can sometimes mean both men and women, boys and girls.
You can say, okay, you guys, especially with the word you.
You guys means informally men and women.
But if you say the guys or the girls, I'm going out with the guys tonight.
That means my male friends, no women in that case.
And in a bachelor party, traditionally, there is no women.
Well, almost no women.
Now let's listen to the story this time at a native rate of speech.
My buddy from college Jack, was getting married and our friend Rob was planning a bachelor party for him in Vegas.
It was going to be the last weekend of the month and I wanted to go.
The trouble was, I was scheduled to work that weekend.
I needed to get time off from work or I was going to miss out on all the fun.
I have some vacation leave, but company policy requires that my boss sign off on any leave we take.
I've heard of companies doing that for longer periods of leave like maternity leave or a leave of absence, but our company does that even for vacation leave.
I thought about just calling in sick that weekend.
I do have a lot of accumulated sick leave, but I didn't think my boss would appreciate me leaving him hanging.
In the end, I just asked him straight out, and, to my surprise, he said, okay.
Now I just need to get ready for a wild weekend with the guys.
I can't wait.
The script for today's podcast was written by Dr Lucy Say of the Center for Educational Development.
Thank you, Lucy.
Remember to visit our website at eslpod.com.
You can get a free copy of the dialogue and story part of our script by going to the website and clicking on the name of the podcast.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
