Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 412, Corporate Spying.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 412.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
You can go there and download a learning guide for this episode, an 8-10 page guide that gives you all of the vocabulary definitions, new sample sentences, additional definitions not found in this audio podcast, cultural notes, comprehension checks and a complete transcript of everything that you hear.
And in the process they'll use a lot of different vocabulary to talk about spying and corporate secrets.
Let's get started.
I'm really having second thoughts about hiring a firm to do corporate spying for us.
I don't want to do anything that's ethically questionable.
We have no choice but to do it.
All of our competitors conduct corporate espionage.
I understand spying on our competitors, but I draw the line at having us snoop on our own employees.
We wouldn't unless our backs were against the wall.
I know you're thinking about Hewer Plackett hiring investigators to find a leak in their company.
I'm sure it was a hard decision for them, but they couldn't allow anyone in their own company to leak trade secrets.
True, it was necessary, but I don't like being deceptive with our own employees.
I won't allow wiretaps or any invasion of privacy.
Our first priority would be damage control, not privacy.
In any case, we're not making a decision to spy within the company right now.
We're only after our rival's information.
The investigators we're hiring know the difference between legal and illegal spying.
They'll schmooze at trade shows, scour legal records, and do other things like that.
They'll know where to draw the line.
I hope you're right.
I don't want to end up on the front page of the Times.
Our dialogue begins with Joaquim saying When someone says they have second thoughts about something, They mean that they feel like perhaps they made the wrong decision, that they need to change their mind about something.
You are reconsidering an issue.
Joaquim is having second thoughts about hiring, paying a company, a firm, to do corporate spying for them.
Corporate Spine is trying to find out as much as you can about another company, including information that may not be publicly available.
Joaquin says, I don't want to do anything that's ethically questionable.
When we talk about something being ethical or the adverb ethically, we mean right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral.
Lying, according to most people, is ethically wrong.
Or we might just say it's unethical.
When someone says it's unethical, they mean it's not ethical, it's not right.
Joaquim says it's ethnically questionable.
Something that is questionable is problematic.
It is something that may be right but may not be right.
It may not be very clear.
Dawn says we have no choice but to do it.
We have to do it.
All of our competitors, the people who have similar companies, conduct corporate espionage.
Espionage is E-S-P-I-O-N-A-G-E, is just another word for spying.
To send somebody to find out secret information about another organization, another person and, of course, another country.
Joaquim says I can understand spying on our competitors, but but I draw the line at having us snoop on our own employees.
The expression to draw the line at something means that this is the last thing you are willing to do, the most extreme thing you are willing to do.
So you may do a lot of different things, each one moving more and more towards a point where you don't want to do any more.
For example, someone may cheat on an exam in a teacher's class and the teacher says Okay, I'm going to forgive you.
Then the student cheats again and the teacher says I'll forgive you this time, but I'm going to draw the line at two times that you cheat.
After that, I won't forgive you.
That's to draw the line at something.
Joaquin draws the line at snooping on his own employees.
To snoop, S-N-O-O-P, means to spy.
It means the same thing as spying on someone, getting secret information from them.
Sometimes we use the word snoop to refer to something that isn't quite as serious as as spying, trying to find out information about another person, but it's not exactly trying to get secret information about them.
So snoop is often used as a more informal, perhaps less serious kind of spying.
Dawn says we wouldn't, meaning we would not snoop on our own employees unless our backs were against the wall.
The expression, to have your back against the wall, means that you do not have any other options.
You have only one thing that you can do.
You are desperate.
Our backs are against the wall.
We have to do this.
We have no other choice.
Don says I know you're thinking about Heward Plackett hiring investigators to find a leak in their company.
Don is talking about another company called Heward Plackett, which of course is not a real company, although it does sound a lot like a famous computer company that was spying on its own employees and finding information about them.
But that's just a coincidence.
This other company then had hired investigators to find a leak in.
A leak is someone who is giving secret information to people outside of your organization or company.
It's allowing secret information to somehow end up in the hands of another person outside of your organization.
This is a problem in government, when the government tries to keep secret information and then somebody takes that from inside the government and gives it, for example, to a newspaper.
That would be called a leak problem.
The word leak has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
So Don is saying, yes, I know you're thinking about that other company.
I'm sure it was a hard decision for them, but they couldn't allow anyone in their company to leak trade secrets.
Trade secrets refers to secret information about how you do your business, how you conduct your business.
Trade secrets would be anything that a company doesn't want other people to know.
For example, Coca-Cola doesn't want anyone to know its recipe, how it makes its soda.
That would be a trade secret.
Joaquim says true, it was necessary for this other company to snoop on their own employees, but I don't like being deceptive with our own employees.
To be deceptive means to lie, to not tell the truth.
So Joaquim doesn't want to lie to his own employees.
He says, I won't allow wiretaps or any invasion of privacy.
Wiretaps W-I-R-E-T-A-P-S is when someone listens secretly to your conversation, either on the telephone or in a building somewhere.
They're listening and usually recording your conversation without your knowledge.
This is something that the government in many countries, including this country, has done with its own citizens to get information about them.
This is a very controversial issue in the United States.
Wiretapping American citizens or others to get information, usually for reasons of national security, or at least that's the official reason.
An invasion of privacy is when someone violates your right to keep your personal information secret.
Privacy refers to a situation where no one can see you or observe you or know about what you are doing.
An invasion is normally when one country goes into another country using military force, an army or a navy, for example.
Here, invasion of privacy, however, means that your privacy has not been kept.
Someone has been observing you without your permission.
Dawn says our first priority, our first thing that we need to do, the most important thing, would be damage control, not privacy.
Damage control is when you try to make a bad situation look better than it is, to make it as good as you can.
So something goes wrong and your company, for example, makes a product that doesn't work.
Well, you want to do damage control.
You want to make sure the problem is not any worse or gets any worse, perhaps by refunding the money to all of your customers.
Don says in any case, we're not making a decision to spy within the company right now, inside the company.
We're only after our rival's information.
Rival is another word for a competitor, a person or company that you are competing against that perhaps sells the same kind of thing as you do.
Dawn says the investigators we're hiring know the difference between legal and illegal spying.
They'll schmooze at trade shows, scour legal records, and do other things like that.
To schmooze means to have a casual, informal conversation with other people, usually so that you can get to know more important people, so that you can make contacts.
Another verb we use here would be to network, to meet other people in your particular industry, your particular field in order to find more information or perhaps to get a better job.
There are a lot of reasons why someone might schmooze.
To scour S-C-O-U-R means to look through many things, trying to find a very specific piece of information.
Scour has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
Dawn says these investigators know where to draw the line.
Joaquin says, I hope you're right.
I don't want to end up on the front page of the Times.
I don't want, at the end of this situation, for my name or picture to be on the front page of the newspaper the New York Times.
Usually in the US, when someone refers to the Times, they're usually talking about the largest or one of the largest national newspapers the New York Times.
There are however, many newspapers called The Times, including here in Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Times.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm really having second thoughts about hiring a firm to do corporate spying for us.
I don't want to do anything that's ethically questionable.
We have no choice but to do it.
All of our competitors conduct corporate espionage.
I can understand spying on our competitors, but I'd draw the line at having us snoop on our own employees.
We wouldn't unless our backs were against the wall.
I know you're thinking about Hugh or Plackett hiring investigators to find a leak in their company.
I'm sure it was a hard decision for them, but they couldn't allow anyone in their own company to leak trade secrets.
True, it was necessary, but I don't like being deceptive with our own employees.
I won't allow wiretaps or any invasion of privacy.
Our first priority would be damage control, not privacy.
In any case, we're not making a decision to spy within the company right now.
We're only after our rival's information.
The investigators we're hiring know the difference between legal and illegal spying.
They'll schmooze at trade shows, scour legal records, and do other things like that.
They'll know where to draw the line.
I hope you're right.
I don't want to end up on the front page of the Times.
The script for this episode was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
How does she write such good scripts?
Well, that's a trade secret.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us 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 2008.
