Hi this is Ceema. When you get up on a Monday morning are you one of those people, who are
excited to go to work? Or are you one of those people, who would rather go anywhere, but
to work? Well, If you’re one of those people, who hate going to work, you've tuned in to
the right channel. Because today I'm gonna teach you about different ways that you are
going to talk about how unhappy you are at your job. You know sometimes we work, because
we need the money. We need to put food on the table, we need to pay the bills. But there
are various aspects of your job. You don't quite like, How do you talk about them? That's
what I'm gonna teach you.
The first expression in order to express your unhappiness in your job is, kissing up to.
Well, kissing is not a very bad thing, right? So why would you be unhappy about kissing?
Well, that's not the kind of kiss I am talking about, so kissing up to is basically doing
or shall I say, saying things to someone in a higher position or someone in a place of
authority and do you know why that is done? Only to get favors. This is supposed to be
a very negative thing, because you’re actually kissing up to someone. You’re doing something
nice, saying the right things to someone in a place of authority. Just because you wanna
get some favours out of them. Not a very good thing, so you could say something like, I
won't get a promotion unless I kiss up to my supervisor. I will never be able to get
a higher pay cheque unless we kiss up to the management. Not a very good thing, but a lot
of people in their job are very unhappy, because they feel that they got to kiss up to someone,
just move up the rank or to get a promotion. Not a very nice thing. This is how you’re
gonna use it in a sentence for some of you, who would not wanna use this kind of an expression.
There's a different way of saying it. You could also call this as buttering, buttering
up someone or you could say, I can only get a promotion if I butter up my supervisor or
if I kiss up to my supervisor depending on what you want to use.
Okay then the second expression is, breathing down my neck. Now if you were to stand very
close to me and if you were to breathe. I would be able to hear you and I would be very,
very annoyed. So breathing down my neck is basically when someone mostly the supervisor,
but talking about a supervisor now because we're talking about the context of your job.
So it's gonna be the supervisor is closely monitoring you or monitoring your every move.
So you are making a power point presentation and well you’re supposed to give it in an
hours’ time. Now you just wish that your supervisor leaves you alone at your job, so
that you can prepare your presentation in peace. But guess what? Your supervisor would
stand just behind your chair and keep looking at what you’re doing. Now he or she is practically
breathing down your neck, because they are so close that you can almost feel that breath
and that is very annoying. You can't really work very effectively, when someone does that
to you. Can you? That's again not a very good thing and a very nice way of expressing your
unhappiness about your job, If that's what you’re going through on an everyday basis
at work.
The next expression is, leaves a lot to be desired. This expression is quite self-explanatory.
When I say that, this leaves a lot to be desired. It basically means that you are not satisfied.
So this expression basically means that, you are not satisfied. So maybe you are doing
certain voluntary work. You are working with children who've got special needs. Now the
job is fulfilling, because you get to help people who are special children. Who need
that kind of help? So you feel good about doing that, but maybe the pay is not that
great, so you could say something like, I work with special children. The job is fulfilling,
but the pay package leaves a lot to be desired, which means that the pay package is not satisfactory
at all.
The next expression is, I am spread too thin. Suppose you had a table and you've gotta cover
the table. But your table cloth is not big enough to cover this entire portion. It basically
means that the table cloth is spread too thin, It's not enough to cover everything. In the
context of a job, It basically means that you've got too much of work to do with very,
very less time to do it. And it basically means that you can't pay attention to anything
that you're doing because there's too much of work and very less time. So your boss probably
gives you a lot of work. He wants you to take phone calls, he wants you to make presentations,
he wants you to arrange for client visits. Well, you can't do everything and even if
you could do everything, you could not manage to do everything by giving everything the
right amount of attention. That's when you feel like, you are spread too thin. You don't
have the time to do everything that you are, you know supposed to do, so you will say something
like, I’ve got so much of work. I'm spread too thin. I just can't manage. So when this
is what happens to you at work. You're gonna express your unhappiness by saying, I'm spread
too thin. I can't control anything.
The next expression is Micromanage. Now micromanage is not really a negative term, but it can
be a negative term, when someone is trying to control every little detail of your project.
Sometimes you are told to do a certain project or a certain work. Now everybody has their
own ways of doing it. So I do it in a certain way, you may do it in a different way. But
my supervisor wants to do it in her way, but she wants me to do it her way. So she will
come next to me and try to control every little detail of what I'm trying to do, so she's
trying to micromanage my project. I'm not very happy with that, so that's when you can
say something like, I hate my boss. She tries to micromanage everything. Well I wish she
would just leave me alone, so when someone tries to take over what you're doing and control
every little detail of that project that you are doing that's when they are overly managing
or micromanaging.
Alright the next expression is called, Office politics. This is a very negative term, because
office politics refers to people, who influence others in organization, because of their power
or their status in an organization. So you have you know certain people in the management,
who wanna look good to everybody else, so they will engage in office politics. They
will try to influence their subordinates or people, who work for them to do their work
so that they look good to everybody else. This is a very negative term, because they
are using their power to come up the corporate ladder. They are not giving the credit to
the people, who are actually helping them do it. Office politics is actually a very
wide topic, but this is one of the examples of office politics.
The next expression is, Picking up the slack. When do you pick up the slack? Well, picking
up the slack is basically an expression that you use, when you are saying that you are
doing extra work. Now why would you do extra work? One of the reasons is because the people
who are meant to do their work do not really do it. So you are doing extra work, because
the work hasn't been done by someone else. Say for example, If you are in a packaging
company, You've got a package or you package of like say, One hundred handsets in a box.
But out of the ten employees maybe two employees did not turn up for work today. Well, guess
what you are picking up the slack, so you are now doing extra work because the people
who are meant to do the work did not show up, did not do their work. And therefore you
are picking up the slack. So you can say something like, I always have to pick up this slack
because my co-worker is very lazy. He does not contribute effectively to the work that
we do.
The last expression that we are gonna talk about today is, Pull their weight. Well pulling
their weight is the opposite of picking up the slack, so pulling one's weight is doing
your share of the work. So when would that be something that would cause you unhappiness.
It would cause you unhappiness, when someone does not pull out their weight. So you could
say something like, I don't like people, who don't pull their weight, because I've gotta
otherwise pick up slack. So if does not do their share of the work or does not pull their
weight then you've gotta pick up the slack or do extra work, because they haven't done
theirs.
Well that's it from me on this lesson on how to talk about, when you’re not happy in
your job. What you say and how you say it. I hope you find happiness wherever you’re
working, but if you wanna complain about your job, express your unhappiness. Now you know
what to say? Well I'll be back with some more lessons. Till then it's me saying bye.