This is the Business English Podcast episode 214.
What are you tied up with at work?
Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All -Ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting or your office party, this is real business English with your favourite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle coming to you from New York City and Colorado, U .S .A.
At GMC, ignorance is the furthest thing from Bliss.
Bliss is research, testing, testing the testing until it results a not just one truck, but a whole line -up.
The 2025 GMC Sierra lineup featuring the Sierra 1500 Heavy Duty and EV because true Bliss is removing every shadow from every doubt.
We are professional grade visit GM c dot com to learn more.
Hey Michelle, what is shaken?
Hey, Lindsay, not too much. How are you?
I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.
I'm excited to be on business English today.
What are we getting into today Michelle?
Me too. Well, Lindsay.
This is kind of an awkward question.
Have Have you ever had to sever ties with anyone in the workplace?
No, luckily I don't have any enemies or anything like that.
I feel thankful for that.
I really haven't. Have you?
Give us the dirt? No, not at no. No. Well, when I was working at a startup, there was a young man who was working with me and I didn't set of our tithes with him, but there was a, there were a lot of problems and they ended up severing tithes with him.
So, and yeah. But. Yeah.
Yeah. So, Lindsey, we are going to talk about helpful business expressions that use the word tithe because there are actually a lot of them.
Yeah, I'm excited. I love it when we come up with a word and we see that it is everywhere.
It's all over the business English world.
we're going to show our listeners exactly what they need to know today, but guys before we get into that, hit that follow button, you know?
We know there are a few listeners who have not quite hit follow yet, but the benefit of hitting follow is that we drop right into your listening queue.
So we'll be there for you three days a week.
You don't have to go find us and remember to listen.
We just drop right in, it makes it easier to make business English a habit where we can finally get to great business relationships, great connections.
and that happiness that we look for, right?
So pickle. Well, right.
Yes, do it. All right.
So let's go to it, but also guys, if you haven't listened yet, uh, we have this great episode, this is episode 202 of the business English podcast. What can you say good when you agree in English?
And I remember that was a great listener question.
So listen to that as well.
Nice. All right. So let's get into it.
Where do we see this word tie all over being, tell us about this here Michelle, let's get started.
Well just quickly, when we talked about severing ties, that means you end relationship.
You end up a professional relationship.
So that's sever ties.
So let's do another one, hands are tied.
Here's this one. You man, my hands are tied totally.
So for example, I'd love to help you, but my hands are tied.
I don't have any room in the budget.
So there's nothing we can do.
My hands are tied. Yeah, that's exactly right.
You can't do something.
Maybe you would like to do it but because of some condition, you can.
I mean, I think of someone's hands literally being unable to move because they're tied.
So it's good for saying you can't do something.
Exactly and then another one, guys write these down, you know, make sure you've got these on a list, tie down.
So to keep something from happening or to restrict it, when is this good, Michelle?
When does this come on?
I think this is good for talking about a schedule or a job situation.
So I mean, for example, she wanted to leave but she felt tied down to her company because of the amazing benefits.
Okay, interesting, right.
Yeah, so that happens a lot in the American workplace here in the US, you know, a lot of times, not every time but a lot of times your health insurance is tied to your employer.
And that was I think part of the whole argument for Obamacare and more nationalized health care that people wouldn't have to feel like they had to stay at their job even if they were unhappy.
Yeah. Because for the health care, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Okay. Or, I mean, if you're scheduling something you could say, let's tie down a date.
Okay. Let's tie down a date.
Yeah. I like to say instead of tie down in that case, I like to say let's nail down a date.
Nailed a lot. I just like that better.
But it's personal preference, Michelle.
Yes, exactly. Another one is to tie together.
Okay. So, this is to connect some things.
So, this would be really good for planning a meeting, agenda or a presentation or a report.
This is good for planning.
Yes. So, for example, let's tied all together at the end with an infographics.
And that's important, you know, just in the same way that on this show, we tie it all together with a takeaway for you all, At the end, and we want you to know what is the most important thing if you can remember one thing today or remember this.
It's important when you're giving a work presentation to do that too.
What really matters to your employees, right?
Yeah. Absolutely. Summer is here.
And Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dressed season ever, from beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe.
Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango, Skims, Princess Polly and Made Well.
It's easy too with free shipping and free returns.
In store order pickup and more.
Shop today in stores online at norchedome .com or download the Nordstrom app.
OK, Michelle, let's get into another one.
Well, this one I just just we already did.
Server time is fun again begin.
This is the one I asked about in the beginning.
Their clients severed ties with them over the mistake they made with the files.
Um, so yeah, not so good.
What I think about that when I think about several ties in the corporate world, I think about a lot of times companies.
And maybe there's not an issue with that employee.
But if you get laid off if you work for big corporation, it's like immediate, your email address is canceled right away.
You're asked to leave the building because they're concerned you might take a client file, you might take like contacts and you have the information.
security, uh, yeah, privacy concerns or just like competitive concerns that you might go out, start a consulting company and take all the contacts.
Right. And so, you do hear about that happening, like within a few hours, you've left the building and your email address is canceled, um, that does happen for sure.
So that would be another never there.
Yeah. So it doesn't mean that there's some kind of personal issue.
It just means that is the process that that company has to go through to adhere to their legal commitments.
Right. Yeah, guess harsh, but, Lindsay which of these do you think you're most likely to use?
Well, like I said, I like nail down actually better than tie down.
But you like nailing more than you can be like, yeah, I would say.
You know, I like tie together because I like, you know, it's nice when we get into the weeds into these details and then we can elevate ourselves and come back up to a takeaway or weighted tie things together.
So I really like Ty together.
I agree. That's my favorite too.
Yeah. That's a good one.
So do we have a role play then for our listeners today?
Let's do it. Here we are co -workers planning a meeting for our team.
All right. OK. So let's plan this out.
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry I didn't meet with you earlier, but my hands were tied.
Mabel cornered me and asked me tons of questions.
Mabel. OK. That's OK.
So, how do we tell the team that we want to sever ties with the new client?
I know, that's gonna be tough.
It's just, they're tying us down from reaching our goals.
You don't have to convince me.
Well, how about we tied together with what happened last year?
It ended up working out in the end.
Sounds like we have, we're serving a client, but we want to stop their contract.
Right. Oh. Yeah. It's a fair point.
I mean, if any of our listeners, I know some of our listeners, you guys, working consulting.
Obviously if you work for big consulting company, it's not necessarily your choice to sever ties with the client.
But if you're more of an independent consultant, you can pick and choose your clients based on what's in your wheelhouse.
Is this, you can fire your clients technically, right?
If you have a lot of choices, you can do that.
Yeah, well, it makes me think of like, you know, when you go on a job interview, people think of it as they're interviewing me.
But sometimes you also have to think you're interviewing them.
And that puts some of the power on you 100%.
And the choice goes both ways and so your both sides are checking each other out, okay.
Yes, yeah. So let's go through this.
I don't know that we would be saying tie all the time in a regular conversation but for the purpose of the roleplay and yes I did choose the name Mabel because Lindsay we've talked about that my names should be more creative.
So I've now I'm always thinking of an extra creative name.
crazy creative name, I like it, I like it.
So here we go we're planning this out.
And then you said yes, sorry to me with you earlier but my hands were tied and then Mabel cornered me was asking me quite, so that means I was restricted.
There was something I could do, yes.
Yes, yeah, there was something I could do.
Yes. Yes. And then you said how do we tell the team we wanna sever ties with the new clients.
So we don't wanna work with them anymore.
Yeah, that's hard. Maybe the team has already really deep into a project And it's gonna be discouraging for the team.
And so how do you do that?
That's not an easy conversation.
And you said, I know, that's gonna be tough.
It's just they are tying us down from reaching our goal.
So maybe this client is so needy, so demanding that they're literally contacting you 24 hours a day.
So you can't take on other clients.
Right? Yes, yes, yes.
And then I said, how about we tie it together with what happened last year?
so we're kind of wrapping it all up where we're connecting it.
Yeah, so figuring out how to explain kind of off ramping this client prematurely and tying it in with kind of a story that actually the company and the individual workers benefit from it, right?
So that's a delicate thing for sure.
Yes, yes, what's it take way today Michelle when it comes to tie the world it's everywhere, it's everywhere.
Well, I mean, when you think of time, you think of tying your shoe laces, tying something, tying something upright, these things in general, it's something that was looser and then it becomes more restricted.
So we just think of the theme there, and in general, in general, these expressions match with that.
So yeah, try and think of the theme here, maybe not all of them perfectly, but yeah, tying down tying it together.
So it kind of goes along with the idea.
Yeah, and actually, I hadn't thought about this before Michelle, but for personal examples, I feel like I often used the words the bonus for today to be tied up.
Do we teach that one?
I'm really tied up with.
No, I should have done that one.
Well, it's good. The good thing our listeners are still on the episode listening in.
I think, I just recently said this when someone said, do you have time for XY Z next week, I'm really tied up this week with our P &L summaries from the year or goal planning for 2024.
Can we meet next week.
I'm really tied up with ads.
Busy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a really good one, guys.
So right that one, that one.
That's a bonus. All right.
OK. All right guys, this was fun.
Yeah. Good stuff. I'll see you on business English again.
Very soon. All right, bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English.
A podcast just for you, the high -achieving global professional.
Want more from all ears English?
Don't miss our biggest and best podcast with eight million monthly downloads.
Just search for the all ears English podcasts and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency American culture grammar and so much more.
Or, tap the link in the show notes.
Remember, we believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Follow the All -Ears English podcast now.
