what we are co-workers but i would say we are also friends we're definitely friends in fact
we might meet up this summer i can't wait you guys listening you might know not know that jessica and
i have never met up in person which is a travesty a travesty that is such a good vocabulary word
travesty is like oh this is the worst thing it's the biggest disaster it's so terrible and sad
um guys we are talking about making friends with co-workers in this new
youtube series i'm so excited we have three amazing episodes planned for you guys
yes this is going to be really fun and i know you guys are thinking about this right if you work in
english you want to be able to chat with co-workers you want to be able to make friends
but there are some things you need to be thinking about you can't just willy-nilly try to be best
friends with everyone just doesn't work that way totally right um i mean that's guys you're
not going to connect perfectly and naturally and comfortably with everyone like that's impossible
right so guys you also need to think about who do you want to be friends with right who should you
be friends with who should you be spending time with at work and trying to to talk to
um so that's what we're talking about today guys if you want to find out your business
english level we made a free quiz for you guys go to all years english dot com slash
work quiz and find out how good your english is in the workplace guys and get free resources as well
so in our last youtube series we talked about small talk this could be with co-workers it could
be with anybody so if you didn't watch that series go back and watch the small talk series guys
um but this is what we're talking about today at work how do you know when to be friendly right
or how do you know when that you don't have to say anything right because that that can be tricky
exactly what are those social cues you need to pay attention to that help you know if someone is open
to being friendly to open to having a little bit of small talk or maybe too busy or not interested
for whatever reason this is important that you can pick up on those cues so you don't create
awkward conversations exactly guys so i know we've all done it we've all done it but i can imagine
also if you are a very motivated student uh then you're like okay today i'm practicing my english
i have this vocabulary phrase that i want to test out and i need to use it today and like this is
your focus so you just like find a co-worker and start talking to them but what if they're like on
their way to a meeting right they don't have time so you need to be sensitive to that right part of
this is reading the room i love this phrase this is an idiom and it just means to be sensitive to
the situation to the people around you you need to first pay attention and think about are they
ready to talk to you do they want to talk to you maybe they're in a bad mood and they don't
want to talk at all then guys like don't try um aubrey have you ever been in a situation at work
um maybe like when you worked in person you know like in a company or an office of people um were
there were was there anybody in the workplace that you knew you wouldn't be friends with
oh yeah for sure and part of it was just that she was so busy she was overworked she was sort of
the office manager and every time i saw her she was going quickly to where she needed to go or
clearly stressed out shuffling lots of papers there was never an opportunity to just have a
casual conversation with her and chat with her so even if we maybe would have been friends it was
never an appropriate opportunity so it just never went totally so guys we do want you to connect
with co-workers right but just make sure that first you're reading the room right pay attention
to those social cues and really like decide is this person ready to talk to you do they have time
and if so then go for it right but you have to know when and where that's appropriate
and also you want to think about politeness as well right um when we're talking to co-workers
should you be very polite and formal or like how do we know how polite to be
yeah we are rarely very formal especially if it's going to be small talk
but i do like asking someone do you have a minute to chat because even if they seem like maybe they
do i think that's just a very polite question so that they can let you know if not or yes
yeah i have a minute what's up totally i like that first just checking in and asking if they
have a minute that's so perfect um so guys now aubrey and i are going to do a role play for you
um let's just pretend that we've worked together for a while um and we're not good friends yet
right in this role play but i i think that aubry i think that you could be a possible friend i have
read the social cues and you seem like a very nice person i know a little bit about
you and i'm like you know what i'm gonna take the chance and i'm gonna try and develop a connection
with aubry my co-worker so let's dive in here all right are you ready yes i'm ready
all right here we go hey aubry how's it going good good how about you jessica i'm tired man
uh you can call me jess by the way oh cool i will so jess why are you tired
just a lot of life recently you know how hard we've been working on the broad mark account
for one oh i hear that i put in like 10 hours of overtime this month i know me too besides that
though my son just started baseball again and it's intense there are two practices a week plus a game
sheesh my kids just started doing spring soccer they don't even have any practices
just games and it's so much lucky which league are they in they're in the happy valley rec league
i've heard good things about them actually sounds like they have some great coaches
i adore my kids coach reed he is really great with the little ones
okay so um connecting about stuff outside of work like that's the key right um so some things
to point out in that role play guys and by the way if you click on the description below the
video you can see the role play in there and you could practice this you could say this out loud
um and copy the way we spoke those sentences guys um but i want you to notice that i give that cue
of like asking her to call me jess instead of jessica that's just such a great thing to right
away establish like i i want us to be friends you know like you can use my nickname you don't
have to use my full name so i think that's a good strategy for letting other people know that you
are ready to be like on a relaxed informal level with them yes totally i'm kind of jealous you have
the shortened nickname because mine is where ob call me ob that doesn't make it won't bree
you could be brief i'm not a brie you're not a breed but there's great vocabulary here to point
out too that phrase to say i hear that if someone is telling you something and you can relate
this is such a native natural phrase to say i hear that and then share why you have that in
common build on that commonality totally i love that phrase i hear that i just like saying it it's
fun um so guys stay tuned for our next video in this series tips for talking to co-workers
um and guys if you didn't watch our last youtube series about small talk go back and watch that
and remember to test your business english fluency go to allayersenglish.com work quiz
all right aubry thanks i'll see you in the next video alright see you later bye
you