Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1176, Limits to Advancement at Work.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1176.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode we're going to hear a dialogue between Gloria and Sam about getting a better job at your company.
Let's get started.
Did you hear that Manuel is quitting?
He took a job with another company.
I'm not surprised.
He came up against the glass ceiling and he decided to jump ship.
Really?
I didn't know he was bucking for promotion.
He's been trying to become a manager for three years, but other people have been promoted over him or they've hired from outside the company.
I didn't know that.
I was aware of the wage disparities within the company and the gender pay gap within each department, but this is news to me.
Haven't you noticed that people who take extended leave to have children or try for some type of work-life balance are passed over for plum assignments, raises and promotions?
There are definite limits to advancement.
I thought it was just favoritism on the part of the bosses.
Their friends got promoted and other people didn't.
Why are we still working for a company with such unfair policies?
Speak for yourself.
I'm giving notice today.
The title of this episode is Limits to Advancement at Work.
Advancement would be getting a higher level or going to a higher level.
In this case, getting a better job at the company where you work.
Gloria begins by saying to Sam, did you hear that Manuel is quitting?
He took a job with another company.
Sam says, I'm not surprised.
He came up against the glass ceiling and he decided to jump ship.
The term glass ceiling C-E-I-L-I-N-G refers to a limit on how far you can go in your career, in your job, for reasons that have nothing to do with how good you are at your job.
In other words, it's a limit that is unfair and imposed by or placed by someone else, perhaps the rules of the company or the culture of the company.
The term was originally used to refer to the idea that women and some racial and ethnic minorities were not able to get better jobs because of some sort of discrimination against them.
The ceiling of a room is the top of the room.
A room has a floor, a ceiling, and typically four walls.
A glass ceiling, if you can imagine such a thing, would be one that you couldn't see if you looked up, because it's made of glass.
Unless, I guess, the glass was dirty.
But anyway, the idea is that you wouldn't notice it.
It wouldn't be something you could see.
But if you actually went up to the top of the room you would hit the glass ceiling and wouldn't be able to go any higher, any farther up.
And that's.
You can see the metaphor here for what might limit you in a company that discriminated against you for some reason related to your sex or your race or some other reason.
Sam says that Manuel came up against the glass ceiling, meaning apparently he had had been discriminated against, and he decided to jump ship.
To jump ship.
S-H-I-P is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to quit your job or to leave an organization and to go to another job with another company or organization.
You could also use this phrasal verb when you leave or quit some job or organization, even if you don't have another job.
I guess I've heard it used more often in a case where someone has moved to a different company, say.
Gloria is surprised to hear that Manuel is having these problems.
She says, I didn't know he was bucking for promotion.
To buck B-U-C-K for promotion or to buck for a promotion is to work hard to try to get a better job within your company.
Sam says he's been trying to become a manager for three years but other people have been promoted over him.
To be promoted, P-R-O-M-O-T-E-D, means to get a better job within a company.
The verb is to promote.
Sam thinks that other people have been promoted over Manuel meaning, instead of Manuel getting the job, other people have gotten a job that Manuel wanted, or the company has hired from outside their own company, finding someone from another company.
Gloria says, I didn't know that.
Then she says, I was aware of the wage disparities within the company.
Wage, W-A-G-E, refers to how much you make per hour.
A disparity.
D-I-S-P-A-R-I-T-Y is a difference between two things, or two people, or two groups of people.
Wage disparities would refer to differences in how people are paid.
The idea here however, is that not only are people paid differently, but once again, they're being paid differently for some reason.
That doesn't seem fair.
That might be discriminatory.
Apparently that's what's happening at this company where Sam and Gloria work.
Gloria says she was aware of this, this case of wage disparities and the gender pay gap within each department.
The word gender, G-E-N-D-E-R, has changed meaning over the years.
We used to use gender in talking just about languages such as French or Italian or Spanish, where the nouns have gender, feminine and masculine.
However, more recently, the word gender has come to replace the word sex to refer to men and women.
So instead of talking about sex discrimination, people talk about gender discrimination.
There's another political idea behind the change in the use of the word gender, which has to do with whether Something called gender is the same as something called sex, biological sex but I won't go into that discussion here.
For us, the important thing to know is that gender pay gap refers to differences in the way men and women are paid at a company, based on whether they are men or women.
That's the idea.
The word gap, G-A-P, is a difference between two things.
In this case, between the amount of money you're getting paid by the company.
Gloria says she was aware of the wage disparities within the company and the gender pay gap within each department or part of the company.
But this is news to me.
That is, it's news that Manuel was trying to get a job and that he was not successful.
Then Sam adds haven't you noticed that people who take extended leave to have children or try some type of work life balance are passed over for plum assignments, raises and promotions?
There are definite limits to advancement, Sam says.
The word extended e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d means long or longer than normal.
A leave.
L-E-A-V-E is a period of time when you leave your job, but you are planning on coming back.
You may leave for a month or two months or maybe even longer.
But the idea is that you're not quitting your job.
You're going to come back and work for the company.
You may be paid during your leave, or it may be an unpaid leave where you don't get any money from your company, but you get your job back when your leave is over.
So an extended leave would be when you stop working for your company, usually for several months.
People may take an extended leave when they have children.
A woman may take what is called a maternity leave.
That is when she has her baby.
She may decide not to work for three months or six months, or perhaps longer, and then go back to work.
Fathers are also sometimes given leave in companies.
We would call that a paternity leave, I guess.
But you may take an extended leave for some other reason.
According to Sam, people who take extended leave to have children or try for some type of work-life balance are passed over for plum assignments.
A work-life balance is when you try to usually not work as hard so that you can enjoy your life more.
It relates to the attempt by some people to have a good family life as well as a good work life.
He says people who take Extended leaves for work-life balance are passed over for plum assignments.
To be passed over means that you are not given something, but the next person is.
Manuel apparently has been taking extended leave and is surprised that he's being passed over for plum assignments.
A plum, P-L-U-M, assignment is a very good assignment, a very good job.
Anything that is plum is good or attractive.
Plum is also a kind of fruit, of course.
But here it means a very good job, a very good assignment in the company.
These people who take these extended leaves are also being passed over for raises.
A raise, R-A-I-S-E, is when you get more money for doing the same amount of work.
There are definite limits to advancement, Sam complains.
And I should think there should be, if you're taking extended leaves and then expecting to get paid the same as people who don't get extended leaves.
But maybe I'm crazy.
Gloria says, I thought it was just favoritism on the part of the bosses.
Favoritism, F-A-V-O-R-I-T-I-S-M, is when you like one kind of person or one particular person for reasons that don't seem fair, that have nothing to do with that person's qualifications.
Gloria thought the reason some people were getting raises and promotions was because the bosses were promoting and giving raises to their friends.
Sam says well, that's certainly true, but that's only part of the story, meaning that's not the only reason this has been happening.
Gloria complains, why are we still working for a company with such unfair policies?
Unfair is not fair, not just, not treating everyone equally.
A policy is the rules or the regulations that a company follows, the way that the company does business.
Gloria is wondering why she and Sam are still working for this apparently unfair company.
Sam says, speak for yourself, meaning he's not going to continue working for this company.
I'm giving notice today.
To give notice means to tell your company that you are quitting, that you are no longer going to work there.
I'm not sure if Gloria and Sam's company will be all that disappointed to see them leave.
But there you go.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Really?
I didn't know he was bugging for a promotion.
He's been trying to become a manager for three years, but other people have been promoted over him or they've hired from outside the company.
I didn't know that.
I was aware of the wage disparities within the company and the gender pay gap within each department, but this is news to me.
Haven't you noticed that people who take extended leave to have children or try for some type of work-life balance are passed over for plum assignments, raises and promotions?
There are definite limits to advancement.
I thought it was just favoritism on the part of the bosses.
Their friends got promoted and other people didn't.
That's certainly true, but that's only part of the story.
Why are we still working for a company with such unfair policies?
Speak for yourself.
I'm giving notice today.
There are no limits to your English if you continue to listen to the wonderful scripts by our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Don't take an extended leave from listening to ESL Podcast.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
