Hello and welcome back to my slow English podcast.
Today, I will be having another interview with my sister, Brianna.
We'll use real English expressions you can use at work or in daily life.
Listen for phrasal verbs and expressions and see how many you catch.
Today, my sister and I are talking about burnout and the balance we need between work and life.
Have you ever taken on too much at work or school?
Definitely.
Last year i was working full-time and studying for a certification at night.
That's a lot.
Did you ever feel burned out?
Um yes, by the end of the month i was exhausted.
And do you normally take on too much?
Uh yes, i do take on too much.
I like to do as much as I can, but the problem is I usually end up feeling burned out.
And did you ever have to put in extra hours?
Sometimes.
Sometimes I've had to put in extra hours from maybe a time I was more productive or a time I was less productive.
And how did that feel?
It was very exhausting.
I was very tired at the end of all of it and I lost a lot of time for my hobbies and what makes me happy.
And have you ever let something slide because you were too busy?
Sometimes I'll let my sleep schedule slide or I'll let my workout schedule slide because I'm too busy with other things.
Yeah.
So normally, would you say you bite off more than you can chew?
Not always, but sometimes.
Do you think more so in life or in work?
Probably more...
Well, I would say those kind of go together in work and in life.
So if I bite off more than I can chew in work, then my life is affected and vice versa.
Yeah, I've been there too.
Once I actually had to meet three deadlines in an afternoon and I didn't even have time to take a break.
I tried to catch up over the weekend, but honestly, I think I should have just taken a day off.
Because when I sacrifice my weekends, that's when the whole week goes wrong.
I think I need a break.
Everybody needs a break.
Yeah, sometimes it's important to just slow down and admit that you can't handle the pressure.
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Yeah, that's exactly it.
We need to slow down.
Yeah, I feel like when you're under pressure, it's always best to take a break instead of forcing yourself to catch up on work that you just didn't finish when you were supposed to.
Personally, me, I work a lot better under pressure.
If I don't feel pressure, I am not as productive.
Yeah.
And have you ever fallen behind on a project?
And if so, what did you do?
Yes, I have fallen behind.
Usually to catch up.
I'll try and sometimes it's not the best, but I will pull all-nighters or work through the weekend.
Just try and find ways to keep a fast pace so I don't fall even more behind.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a good strategy.
And what do you usually do when you feel stressed out at work or school?
If I'm feeling really stressed out but I don't have any time to relax or I do have time to relax?
I guess you do have time, let's say.
Okay, if I'm feeling stressed and I do have time to relax, the way that i choose to would probably be going out with my boyfriend playing video games or seeing my friends.
Now, what if you don't have time?
I'm curious.
If i don't have time, i just listen and deal with the stress.
I'll take maybe small times of my day, um 10 to 15 minutes to meditate, to read or, you know, rest in any way i can find yeah, or you take like shifts right, you'll do little, little shifts of work, a break and then another break to sleep for like two hours, and then you wake up and you work again and then you have a break and sleep again sometimes.
Yeah yeah, you separate it.
I think you split it up.
That's good.
I split up my time now.
Have you ever had to take time off to recover recently?
Yes, i had my wisdom tooth removal and i had to take um about three days off of work.
I got my surgery on sunday and i wasn't back at work until thursday.
Okay yeah, so you, that was mandatory.
You had to take time off.
That time um, it was.
It was mandatory because otherwise um, i was in a lot of pain.
Um, just the way that i couldn't uh, do a lot of physical activity at first didn't allow me to work.
Yeah, and is there ever someone you need to run things by to, for example, your break that you needed for your wisdom teeth?
Is it something you had to run by someone?
Yes, whenever it comes to paid time off or time off um, And that could be another one because paid time off is something that they use in business.
PTO.
PTO or paid time off.
This is a common abbreviation used in the workplace.
Mm-hmm.
Paid time off.
PTO.
And then, so whenever I take time off, I do need to run it by my boss.
Mm-hmm she, she isn't the ceo of the company, but she is my manager, basically.
So when it comes to those things, i just need to send her a message and usually it's fine, Okay.
But yeah, I remember when I used to work for the last company I was working for, teaching English, my boss would always say run it by me first.
Always.
So I always had to run things by someone else before teaching them or before showing them to students.
Do you consider you've ever dropped the ball on any tasks that you had to hand in?
Maybe a deadline you had to meet?
Um, I would say that I don't normally drop the ball, but sometimes I do.
Um sometimes, when it comes to, we had a project recently that I had to wrap up by the end of the week and I ended up handing it in, probably like Tuesday the next week.
So it wasn't delayed too much, but it was not something that should have happened.
Mm-hmm okay, have you ever felt burned out at work?
Um sometimes sometimes, I feel burned out.
I think that everybody goes through a burnout.
When you can't practice your hobbies as much, or when you're in a job that consumes your energy and all your time, It's really easy to experience burnout.
I wouldn't say in my current job, but I would say as a teacher, I would experience a lot of burnout because I had almost no time for anything else.
I feel like it's easy to have an overload of work when you're a teacher, because I feel like it just never ends.
It can keep on going if you don't stop yourself and give yourself a break.
So yeah, it's good to take a break and not take on too much work.
What do you usually take a break from when work is stressful?
When I have to take a break from work, especially now that I work with brands, I try and stay away from anything that has to do with advertisements, because it can remind me a lot of work.
I stay away from screens, I stay away from TV, I stay away from my phone.
I really try and connect with nature or something of the sort, because my work involves a lot of advertising.
That's good.
It's the same as when you're a teacher.
You know, the only thing you want to do is to take a break from all the noise.
So I feel like that's what you do mostly when you need to take a break from something.
You take a break from the noise and from chaos in general.
I remember mom used to come home from school and be super stressed because their little kids that she's working with all day.
They're always crazy.
They're always super energetic.
So she's pretty low on energy when she would come home.
And do you ever stay late at the office, even when you're tired?
Yes, I do stay late at the office.
I'll stay late if I'm behind on work or if I felt that I wasn't productive enough that day.
Maybe I break early in the morning.
And so I try and gain that time back later in the day.
Do you ever feel like your workload is too heavy and that's why you work overtime, or is it more because of you?
I think that it's a little bit of both.
I think the workload maybe is heavy for me, but it might not be as heavy for other people.
So I try and do my best to adapt. and to get better, get faster.
So it's not a me issue always.
And so I can eventually fill in the shoes that I need to fill in.
So now I want to go through a quick teaching moment using some more phrasal verbs and expressions that you might use in the workplace.
First one being to check in with someone.
So I always check in with my manager before starting a lesson plan.
So Brianna, who's someone you have to check in with before making a big decision?
I always have to check in with my boss, my manager.
I'm in the creative division and I always have to make sure that before I start on an idea or before I choose to go a certain way, I need to check in with her and make sure it aligns with the company.
Another phrase is to wrap up.
For example, I need to wrap up this report before lunch.
So Brianna, can you explain what wrap up means or refers to?
Wrap up is basically to finish.
It comes from the idea of wrapping up a gift or wrapping up a toy, wrapping up your lunch, which is preparing it to be ready.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And in work, wrap up could be used like, I need to wrap up this report before the end of the day.
Yeah, before a certain point.
Another big one.
They use that a lot.
EOD, end of the day.
Before the EOD, before the end of the day.
They use that a lot.
You know, managers say that all the time.
They say EOD?
Yeah, they send emails or they'll send out instructions like oh, this needs to be ready eod, it's eod or end of the day.
This is another common expression we use in the workplace and another one is hand in that one's pretty common to hear in the workplace like did you hand in your assignment?
Or if you're asking what time do I have to hand in this project.
And last one to drop the ball.
So Brandon, maybe you could explain what drop the ball refers to.
Drop the ball is a phrase that means you messed up or you made a mistake.
So as maybe in football, I think the expression comes from American football, I think.
When you drop the ball, it's a fumble.
And it's a big mistake in American football.
And as it is maybe in the workplace, you drop the ball because you made a mistake.
Yeah.
You drop the ball.
I can't believe I dropped the ball on sending those emails.
So you made a mistake.
You messed up.
Now it's your turn.
Which expressions did you hear in our conversation?
Shadow this sentence with me.
I'm feeling under pressure, so I need to take a break.
And tell me, Have you ever felt burned out?
What happened?
Try to tell me a story on a time when you had to catch up on work or school.
Think of a moment when you let something slide because of too much work.
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