BEC 1-1-1

Question 1

What is a ‘free agent’?

Answer 1

A free agent is a person, an employer, a player, someone like that, who is free to move to a new company.

They are free to change their team, free to change their job, free to change their company.

So it’s the opposite idea of someone who stays in one job, in one company, all of their life.

A free agent might constantly change their jobs; change the company they work for.

Question 2

‘to throw cold water on’

‘to throw cold water on an idea’

Answer 2

If you throw cold water on an idea you’re saying that the idea is not good.

You’re taking away the excitiment about the idea. So if we throw cold water on the idea of lifetime employment, you can imagine we have some cold water and we’re throwing it on someone.

Immediately it will shock them and it will make them not warm anymore, not excited anymore. To throw cold water on an idea, it means to kill that idea or to put down that idea.

So we’re saying that the idea of lifetime employment is not true anymore. We’re throwing cold water on it.

“I think we should talk about this idea of job security or carrer security and I think we need throw some cold water on that idea.”

Question 3

‘Career’

” Yeah, the days of lifetime employment, that you’re going to get a job with one company and stay with that company for your whole carrer, is just not going to happen anymore. You really have to think like a free agent.”

“You want to be a free agent and you want to imagine that you’re building your own career. You might go from one company to another, to another, to another and, ideally, the best situation is that companies actually want you and they’re willing to pay you more and more money eventually to get you to come.”

Answer 3

The word ‘career”, of course, is a common word. It just means your lifetime job history, so in the past, now and into the future.

Question 4

‘mindset’

“I think that whatever your job is, I mean you may be a businessperson who is very business minded, you think about business all the time, you have that mindset, but you might also just be a teacher or you might be someone who’s not a businessperson. You don’t think of yourself as a businesspersonk, but all jobs are insecure now.”

Answer 4

A mindset is just an attitude really. It’s your set of beliefs about some topic. Your mindset is your attitude about a topic.

Question 5

‘business minded’

Answer 5

To be business minded means to have a business mindset. It means to ahve a business attitude. It means you think about something like a businessperson. That’s to be business minded.

Question 6

‘brand’

“Everywhere in the world and in any career, any job, there’s always the possibility that you might get cut, that your job might get cut or that your company, your department or your government agency is going to get cut so you have to be ready. You really need to think in a business way about your career. Imagine that you yourself are the product, for example. You’re the brand.”

Answer 6

This word is used in business a lot as a verb or as a noun.

So ‘to brand’, to brand, it kind of has the idea of to market or to promote youself. We need to brand this product. It means you need to promote youself in a special way. You need to communicate about youself in a special way, sell yourself in a special way.

‘A brand’ is a special product, basically. A brand is a special product or a special name. It could be a special company, but it’s unique, it’s special, it’s different.

“There’s that word used in marketing ‘branding’. We can use it as a verb ‘to brand’.

It really means to kind of market youself, to make youself special and unique and different so that when people think of you and they think of your name that they have a strong imagine in their mind of who you are, what you’re good at, how you are different than everyone else.”

Question 7

‘budget crunch’

“There are budget crunches everywhere. You’ve got companies downsizing everywhere. Government jobs they’re cutting people too.”

Answer 7

A budget crunch means a budget shortfall. It means that you don’t have enough money. The budget is going down. The budget is not enough. The money is not enough. So if your department has a budget crunch it means your department doesn’t have enough money.

Question 8

‘trade organization’

“I think the way that you build that image is by increasing your skills, increasing your visibility within an organization, whether it’s the company itself or maybe it’s a trade organization, clubs, whatever you want to call it, but you improve the view people have of you.”

Answer 8

A ‘trade organization’ is just some kind of organization. It could be a club, for example, that is focused on one kind of job.

For example, you might have an advertising organization - a trade organization - and people who have adviertising jobs might join that group. A trade organization is not one company, it’s people from many different companies. They come together to share information, to make connections with each other, that kind of thing.

Question 9

‘to know a great deal about’

Answer 9

Know a great deal about your job, for example.

‘A great deal’ means a lot, so know a lot about your job. Know a great deal about your job. Know a lot about your job, same meaning.

Question 10

‘secluded’

Answer 10

Secluded means isolated.

Secluded means away from other people.

Secluded means alone.

So don’t be secluded in your job. Don’t be alone in your job. You need to connect with other people in your company, people who also do your job, etc.

Question 11

‘understand the total picture’

Answer 11

Sometimes we say understand the big picture, it’s the same meaning. To understand the total picture means you understand everything not just a small piece. So, for example, in your job if you understand the whole picture, if you understand the big picture, if you understand the total picture, it means you understand all of the company. Not just your job, not just your department, you understand all the parts of the company. You understand everything.

Question 12

‘a purple cow’

Answer 12

A purple cow is comething that is very unique, very special, very unique, very different than normal.

“The title of the book is Purple Cow. The point of the book, the main message is that you need to be different, special, unique, so you’re not the same as everyone else.”

“If you’re the same as everyone else and your company or your job, wherever you work, if they need to cut people then if you’re the same as everyone else then they might just cut you because there’s no reason to keep you. You need to be a purple cow.

“You can imagine this idea. Most cows are brown or black or white, so if you see a brown cow it’s not special. You probably don’t focus on it. You don’t think about it, but if you saw a purple cow, you’re driving on the road and you look and you see a purple cow, you’re going to look at it. It’s different. It’s special.

Question 13

‘downsize’

Answer 13

‘To downsize’ can be a verb. To downsize means to cut employees. It’s a nice way to say to fire people really or to cut them.

The difference is if you fire someone - that phrase ‘to fire’ - usually it means the person did a bad job so they must leave the company. To downsize means you’re cutting the employees. You’re cutting people, but usually it’s because you have a budget crunch. It’s because there’s not enough money to pay them. So maybe they are doing a good job, but the company wants to cut employees to save money.

The verb is to downsize. The noun is downsizing,” downsizing.

Question 14

‘cutbacks’

Answer 14

Cutbacks, it just means cuts, budget cuts. If a company has cutbacks it means they are cutting their budget. They must reduce the amount of money the’re spending so they might cut employees. That’s a cutback. They might cut their advertising. That’s also a cutback. A cutback is just a cut in the budget.

Question 15

’To Implement’

Answer 15

To implement is a verb. To implement means to do a plan. It means to take action on a plan. It means to make the plan happen. So first you plan something. I’m going to do this and this and this.

Then you implement the plan. It means you do the plan. You actually do what you plan to do.

Question 16

‘move up the supervisory rankes’

“If you’re a teacher and you want to move up through the supervisory ranks of the education system find out what those people do. Gain some knowledge.”

Answer 16

Maybe you want to move up the supervisory ranks. So the phrase ‘move up the ranks’, move up the ranks, that just means to go higher in your company or go higher in your carrer.

So maybe you start at the bottom and then you want to move up. It means you want to get a higher paying job and then maybe you want to get another promotion. You want to go up again to a higher paying job. You are moving up the ranks.

Question 17

‘supervisory’

Answer 17

‘Supervisory’ just means management, so move up the management ranks.

Usually the managers get paid more than the lowest level workers. So maybe you want to move up the supervisory ranks. You want to go into the management part of the business and then move up higher.

Question 18

‘accunts receivable’

‘accounts payable’

“computer program, yeah, but there are other systems in your company. You probably have an accounts receivable system.”

Answer 18

We’ll talk about this more in a future lesson, but ‘accounts receivable’ and ‘accounts payable’. These are just accounting terms. We’ll do a future lesson about this. You don’t need to know exactly the meaning of those if you’re not an accountant, but we’ll teach them later. Just know they’re accounting terms they’re accounting phrases.

Question 19

‘long term’

“Whay am I doing it, it’s crazy, but in the long term it really will pay off. It will benefit your career and you will get better jobs and you will get more money and you will have more security.

You really have to think long term with your career, not just on the job you have or your first job.”

Answer 19

You heard the phrase ‘long term’, that’s very common in English. We have short term and log term, so if you focus on short term it means you’re focusing on now. You’re focusing on the present. Right now, maybe the next few months, that’s what you’re thinking about.

Long term means you’re thinking a lot about the future, this year, next year, five years from now, 10 years from now.

Question 20

‘You need to think long term’

Answer 20

It means you need to think about your career, your jobs, into the future, far into the future. You need to plan your career for the next three years, the next five years. Don’t just think about right now, think about what will happen next year or five years from now. That’s thinking long term.

Question 21

‘to pay off’

Answer 21

‘To pay off’ kind of has the idea of succeeding. If you do something and it pays off, it means you get a reward. You get some payment for your action. You get some good result. So if you say my hard work paid off - that’s the past, paid - my hard work paid off, it means your hard work gave you a reward. You got some good benefit from it.

Question 22

‘reality check’

“You want to do a reality check on your skills and what you want in life and where you’re going and what it’s going to take to get there and then you have to generate a real buzz about you.”

Answer 22

You need to make a reality check. you need to have a reality check about your career, about your job, about your skills. A reality check means to be very realistic about something. It means to look at it very honestly and to be very honest.

So we all like to dream. We all like to imagine. We like to think that our own skills are very great and wonderful, but sometimes we need a reality check. It means we need to think really realistically and be honest about our weaknesses and be honest about the problems. So that’s a reality check. A reality check is like an honest viewpoint.

Question 23

‘generate a buzz’

“You are the unique one and people are buzzing about you and every body wants you in their operation, their organization, their company.”

Answer 23

You heard the phrase ‘generate a buzz’, generate a buzz about youself. You want to generate a buzz about yourself. ‘Buzz’ is this sound zzzzzz. That’s what the direct meaning is, but this phrase to generate a buzz means to generate excitement about yourself or to generate, to create talk about youself in a positive way, of course.

So if you generate a buzz about yourself it means you get a lot of people talking about you. If you do a great job then maybe your boss will talk about you, other workers will talk about you. There’s a lot of positive talk about you. That’s a buzz. That’s a positive buzz about you.

So, again, buzzing about you means talking about you. if people are buzzing about you it means they’re talking about you alot. Now, it can be negative too. You can have a negative buzz. You do something terrible and everybody will talk about it. That’s called a negative buzz, but of course you want a positive buzz.

Question 24

‘to bring something to the table’

“You have to bring something to the table and you want to bring more and more and more to the table for your employer, for future employers in general.”

Answer 24

You need to bring something to the table for your company, for example. To bring something to the table means to bring something useful or to contribute. It really means to contribute something positive. Some people might ask the question, what can you bring to the table? That means what benefits can you offer? What positive things can you do? So, bring something to the table means to contribute. It means to bring positive benefits.