Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 496, Driving a Company Car.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 496.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode, which will help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Driving a Company Car.
It's a dialogue between Michael and Robin that uses a lot of vocabulary related to driving a car for your work, for the company you work for.
Let's get started.
Shall we?
No, this is a company car.
Getting to drive one is one of the perks of my new job.
Does your new position call for a lot of driving?
It does.
As the regional supervisor, I have to cover a large territory.
I'll be visiting all of the affiliates across the state.
Well, I'm only supposed to use it for official business, since the company deducts the standard mileage allowance on their taxes.
But there are ways to account for any extra miles I log.
You mean you fudge the mileage numbers?
You could say that.
It's no big deal.
Everybody does it, or so I've heard.
You know, I've been meaning to ask you, do you want to go with me to San Diego this weekend?
That depends.
Are you taking your company car?
I was thinking about it.
In that case, no thanks.
I don't want to be an accessory to whatever rules you're breaking.
Suit yourself, but what's a company perk if you can't take full advantage of it?
Michael and Robin are inside of a car, and Michael says, shall we?
This is a rather formal, polite way of asking someone whether he or she would like to join you in whatever you are doing.
It's used to ask someone to do something with you.
Among friends or family, to say shall we?
Is sort of a joke, because of course the language would be too formal.
Michael says, shall we?
And Robin says, oh, this is nice.
Did you get a new car?
Michael says no, this is a company car, a car owned by a business, but that is used usually by one employee, sometimes perhaps more than one, but usually one.
Michael says getting to drive one, one of these cars, is one of the perks of my new job.
A perk, P-E-R-K, is something that you get from your job in addition to money.
One of the perks of working at ESL Podcast is getting to know people from all over the world who email us and some of whom actually have visited us here in Los Angeles.
Robin says, does your new position call for a lot of driving?
To call for is a two-word, you guessed it, phrasal verb, meaning to require, to need.
Call as a verb has many different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Michael responds that his new position does call for a lot of driving.
He says, as the regional supervisor, I have to cover a large territory.
Regional is related to the word region, which is a larger area.
Here in the United States you have, for example, the region of the Pacific Northwest, which would be the states of Washington and Oregon.
So a region is a larger area.
In many countries you have different provinces or states, but you also have regions that usually have more than one province or state in them.
Michael is the regional supervisor, the regional boss, which means he has to cover a large territory.
To cover a place or an area, have different regions and regional managers that go around and travel to each store and talk with the local boss, the local supervisor of that store.
Michael says he has to cover a large territory.
A territory is, in this case, an area that is assigned to one person or to one group of.
It's an area that one person or one group is responsible for.
At least that's one meaning of the word territory, especially if we're talking about businesses.
You may have salesmen and women who work for the same company, but they have different territories.
They don't sell to the same people.
They sell to people who live in different areas.
Michael says I'll be visiting all of the affiliates across the state.
An affiliate.
A-F-F-I-L-I-A-T-E is a person, business or organization that is connected with some other business, person or organization, but not necessarily a part of it, not necessarily in the same place or with the same leader.
In this case, Michael is visiting the affiliates of his company, the company he works for, I should say.
Robin says does that mean you can drive the company car anytime anywhere?
Michael says, well, I'm only supposed to use it for official business.
Official business is something that is related to your job, something you are required to do for your position, for your particular work.
That expression is sometimes used in talking about government workers.
People such as the police, for example, who are going to a place.
They may say I'm here on official business, meaning I'm here as part of my job, something I have to do.
But it can be used more generally to mean things that are related directly to your job, that you are required to do.
Michael says the company he works for deducts the standard mileage allowance on their taxes.
To deduct means to take off of, to remove from, to reduce from.
The standard mileage allowance here in the United States is the amount of money that you can claim on your taxes, that you can put on your taxes for using cars for your official company business.
For example, if I work for a company and I need to drive...
400 miles to talk to someone about something related to my company.
I can use that driving as part of an expense.
In other words, I can say this is something that I had to pay for.
But you can only pay a certain amount and the US government every year tells you how much you can deduct, how much you can say that you spent per mile.
I believe in 2008 it was 58.5 cents per mile.
So if you drive 400 miles you could claim.
You could say on your tax forms that you spent 234, based on the standard mileage allowance.
Mileage refers, of course, to miles.
It's the distance.
It's the amount of driving that you do, the number of miles that you drive.
Michael adds, but there are ways to account for any extra miles I log.
To account for something means to explain something, to have an explanation for something.
What accounts for the fact that all the women in Los Angeles are beautiful?
The answer is that they all look like my wife, The most beautiful woman in the world.
I hope you're listening, honey.
Back to our dialogue.
Michael says that he can account for any extra miles that he logs.
To log here means to write down something as it happens over time.
In this case, it means the number of miles that he drives when he writes down the distance that he had to drive.
That is to log your miles.
Sometimes the verb can just mean to actually drive.
Someone may say, I logged in a lot of miles yesterday.
I drove a lot.
Robin says To fudge F-U-D-G-E as a verb means to change a number slightly, usually for some dishonest intent.
When you are trying to lie to someone about something, someone says, how old are you?
And you say, oh, I'm 29, right?
You're fudging your age.
You're not really 29, but you want this woman to believe you're 29.
Anyway.
So Robin is asking Michael if he is fudging his mileage numbers, if he's putting down the wrong amounts.
Michael said, you could say that.
It's no big deal.
You could say that means that's probably or possibly true.
But he says it's no big deal.
It's not something to worry about.
He says everybody does it.
Or so I've heard.
The phrase or so I've heard is used to show that something that you just said is something you heard from other people, but you don't necessarily know that to be true based on your own experience.
Michael says you know, I've been meaning to ask you do you want to go with me to San Diego this weekend?
Robin says, that depends.
Are you taking your company car?
Michael says, I was thinking about it.
Robin says, in that case, no thanks.
I don't want to be an accessory to whatever rules you're breaking.
An accessory here means a person who helps someone else do something wrong, break the law, someone who helps a criminal break.
Accessory has several different meanings in English however, very different from this.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Michael says, suit yourself.
Meaning, if you don't want to go, that's fine with me.
This expression suit yourself is usually used when you offer something to someone and the other person says no.
And then you're a little angry, you're a little mad.
They said no.
So you say, oh well, suit yourself, whatever you want to do.
Michael says, what's a company perk if you can't take full advantage of it?
Meaning, I have this company car, I should be able to use it for my own pleasure.
The government unfortunately doesn't agree with that philosophy.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed, shall we?
Oh, this is nice.
Did you get a new car?
No, this is a company car.
Getting to drive one is one of the perks of my new job.
Does your new position call for a lot of driving?
It does.
As the regional supervisor, i have to cover a large territory.
I'll be visiting all of the affiliates across the state.
Does that mean you can drive the company car anytime, anywhere?
Well, I'm only supposed to use it for official business, since the company deducts the standard mileage allowance on their taxes.
But there are ways to account for any extra miles I log.
You mean you fudge the mileage numbers?
You could say that.
It's no big deal.
Everybody does it, or so I've heard.
You know, I've been meaning to ask you, do you want to go with me to San Diego this weekend?
That depends.
Are you taking your company car?
I was thinking about it.
In that case, no thanks.
I don't want to be an accessory to whatever rules you're breaking.
Suit yourself.
But what's a company perk if you can't take full advantage of it?
The script for this episode was by someone who never fudges the numbers, or so I've heard Dr Lucy Say.
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.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
