hi i'm rebecca from engvid in today's
lesson you'll have a chance to learn ten
expressions that are used to describe
people at work now these are quite
commonly used expressions by native
English speakers
so if you work in an english-speaking
business environment then it's quite
likely that you will hear some of these
expressions okay
let's get started so I've kind of
divided them up for you so some of them
are positive some are negative and some
are neutral what do I mean by that it
means these people
we are happy to meet these people we're
really not very happy to meet and these
people we just wear it's okay we're just
using these expressions to describe them
okay we have no feelings positive or
negative okay so let's look at the
people we are happy to meet so the first
one is a whiz kid what's a whiz kid a
whiz kid is the term that we use to
describe usually a young person who's
quite brilliant very intelligent very
successful very talented and you know
that he's on a path to a lot of success
so often we talk about like a computer
whiz kid a young person who's got lots
and lots of talent you probably know
people like that okay so that's a whizz
kid next next one is called an eager
beaver an eager beaver is kind of a very
hardworking and thues II a stick person
maybe this person comes to work early
and stays late and they're always
smiling and they're happy to do their
work that person is called an eager
beaver now I put that as a positive
maybe some people don't like them but
generally speaking people like them okay
the next one is an angel investor what's
an angel investor well if you have a
startup company or a new company that
you want to start you would love to meet
an angel investor because this business
angel as they're also known as
is someone who's usually rich and
they're like a sponsor and they put
money into your business they are ready
to invest money into your ideas into
starting your company and so on so these
are called angel investors so if you
want to start a business you're probably
going to be very happy if you meet one
of these people okay next let's move
over here to the people that we're
usually not very happy to meet at work
the first one is called a smart aleck
who's a smart aleck a smart aleck is
somebody who thinks he or she knows
everything
have you ever met such a person they are
just so extra confident and they tell
you everything as if they know
everything and usually people aren't
very happy to meet those kind of people
too much okay and they call them a smart
up smart alecks sometimes it's written
al ec and sometimes al e ck doesn't
matter usually we don't write this word
we usually say it okay oh he's a smart
aleck he thinks he knows everything okay
that kind of thing
next what rotten apple so what's a
rotten apple if you can imagine a bag of
apples and in the middle there's one
that's not good
rotten means bad spoiled so what will
happen to all the other apples around
that bad apple well after some time all
of them will start to go back a little
faster right so when we call someone a
rotten apple we're trying to suggest
that this person has some rather
unpopular not very honest it's kind of
dishonest he's bad he's corrupt and he's
also influencing people around him his
colleagues or workers to think or act in
the same way so this person is usually
quite a troublemaker as far as the
organization is concerned okay so that's
a rotten apple a person who is kind of
corrupt and has bad ideas and it's all
influencing people around him or her in
a negative way okay you might know some
people like that okay
what's a fast talker well it's not
somebody whose talk speaks really fast
no when we say fast talker we mean
somebody who is very good at convincing
people and persuading people but he's
not always he or she is not always very
honest or moral about it he doesn't
really care this person doesn't really
care if they're selling you something
which is not good or which is actually
bad they don't care they may lie they
may present it as very good they're very
good at that but they're not necessarily
selling you something in your interest
it doesn't have to be a salesperson but
often we refer to salespeople like that
because sometimes they're trying to sell
us something which is not good although
many salespeople are selling us good
things okay so that's a fast talker now
let's come to some which are kind of
neutral they just describe different
people all right the first one is head
honcho so the word head gives you an
idea
the head honcho is like the main guy at
the top of the company a top executive
the person in charge and this person has
a lot of authority responsibilities and
influence okay head honcho
that's the name for that person okay
next one the number cruncher who's a
number cruncher you probably have some
people like that in your company you
have to have because number crunchers
are people who work with numbers a lot
finance people right they are number
crunchers in there they don't just work
with numbers they're really good with
numbers they know how to analyze numbers
and understand numbers and not everybody
does but they do so these guys are
called number crunchers okay another one
year pen-pusher sometimes also known as
a pencil pusher so this is just the
regular employee maybe a clerk
has a rather boring job just filling out
forms doing ordinary clerical
administrative work not very interesting
but of course it's necessary in
organizations to have a lot of people
who are pen pushers so sometimes a pen
pusher is also used to refer to someone
who just has a boring job okay alright
and the last one we have here is whistle
blower so what's a whistle blower well I
put it in the neutral column
some people think whistle blowers are
very good and some people think missile
blowers are really bad it depends who
you are and who is looking at the
whistle blower because a whistle blower
is a person on the inside of a company
who becomes aware he starts to know that
there is something illegal or improper
or immoral or something wrong that the
company is doing or that is going on
within the company and then that person
informs the police or the authorities
that such activity is going on inside
the company so he blows the whistle on
these activities okay just like a
referee will stop a game if something is
wrong okay so that person is a whistle
blower now I know we did a lot of them
but let's see if you remember some of
them so what's a rotten apple what's a
rotten apple to something good know we
know that so this is someone who
influences people around them in a bad
way okay if you have a business if you
have a new business who would you be
very happy to meet especially if you
need money to start your business to
launch your business that would be an
angel investor okay good now if you need
to understand some statements and
analyze numbers who are you going to go
to in your company probably a number
cruncher right really good who's that
very smart young person who just joined
the company he's so brilliant
everybody's talking about him he's so
talented
that's the whiskey okay good
what about somebody who's trying to sell
you something and he doesn't care if
it's actually true or not but he's
really good at convincing people who's
that that's the fast talker okay who's
the person who informs the police that
something improper is happening within
the company who's that
that's a whistleblower which poor person
has a really kind of boring job filling
out forms doing very routine clerical
work that is a pen pusher or a pencil
pusher what's the name of the top guy in
the company who has or woman who has
sometimes in English when we say guy it
actually refers to a man or woman okay
so men or women what's the top person in
a company that has a lot of authority
and influence this is the head honcho
okay so now the important thing is we've
gone through it once I may be you're
taking notes but what you can do is if
you go to our website WWN vidcom you can
do two things there first you can do a
quiz on this okay now we'll help you
write to practice and and get a little
bit better and the second thing is that
I have written for you a resource where
all the meanings of these are given and
there are many many more place probably
around 50 such terms that are used in
business which you can download from for
free from our resource section okay that
way you can learn these and also
practice a lot more expressions like
that okay thanks for watching good luck
with your English
you