We are starting today a new series of videos created by Madrid Teacher, an association of language schools in Madrid.
There are a variety of levels in the videos produced by Madrid Teacher, but they all show native speakers talking about everyday life while introducing a specific aspect of English grammar or vocabulary.
Today's video, office crime, features a teacher and three very advanced students sharing stories about petty crime.
I don't think it's difficult to follow the gist of the conversation, that is, to understand the main idea of what is being said. Anyway, if you want to fully understand the chat, you can activate the English captions on the lower side of the screen. They are not the automatically-generated captions YouTube adds by default. They captions have been cleaned up because they show an accurate transcription of everything being said.
Self-study activity:
- Watch the video through. How many different stories of 'office crime' are mentioned? Would you be able to roughly retell the stories?
- When one of the girls is telling a story, the others listen actively, that is, they react to surprising bits of information without really interrupting the speaker. At the same time, they show the speaker that they are paying attention to what she's saying. Watch the video through again and note down the expressions the listeners use to react to what is being said.
- The person who is telling the story uses the expression you know to signal some kind of explanation. At the same time, while saying 'you know', the person talking gains time to collect her thoughts and present the story more clearly. Watch the video through again and pay attention to the way 'you know', is used. How many 'you know' could you hear?
- Now it's over to you. Have you witnessed similar stories of petty crime? Do you think this is real crime? Remember to use 'you know' while telling your story, and remember to react to surprising facts when you are listening to your friends' stories.
Key to activity 2:
Oh my goodness!
That’s awful.
That’s a shame.
Like Wynona Ryder.
Yeah.
Wow!
That’s incredible.
Yeah, not necessarily.
No, it’s true.
Key to activity 3:
19
Yeah, a couple of years ago one of my students, she was very upset one day because she had this new mobile phone and it disappeared. A couple of weeks later, one of her colleagues, she had this really nice Angora coat. It disappeared. Anyways, like, after about. . . I don’t know this went on for, I don’t know, eight or nine months. They realized it was their secretary because these four managers had the same secretary. And that their secretary, who was so helpful, so professional, so nice, she was a kleptomaniac.
Oh my goodness!
And she’d taken these things because, of course, she obviously made a lower salary than all of these managers and it was like, well, you know, you say in Spanish, envidia, like just pure envy, and she she just, you know, couldn’t buy like these nice things and so she would just take them. Well they finally confronted her like they, they, well they set a trap. I think what they did was they left some money, like in a drawer. And she was called into the office. The manager left. And then, you know, she was the only person in the office, and when they opened the drawer the money was gone. So they realized it was her.
That’s awful.
That’s a shame.
And they confronted her and everything, and she finally admitted that she was a kleptomaniac and, that she, you know, was going to try to get some help.
Like Wynona Ryder.
Yeah, well that’s it, you know? I mean, somebody who you think you know who’s making so much money, so . . .
Yeah.
And, actually Steven made me think of, another story at work as well. About . . . well it was on a Friday afternoon or something. Of course, you know, everybody wants to leave early. Some guy comes in with a big suitcase and, which is sort of normal because the auditors when they’re, you know, during their period
when they’re doing a lot of auditing, they carry big suitcases around because they have lots of documents. Anyways, this guy comes in, you know, makes it look like he’s, like, part of the office, goes, gets a coffee, whatever. And all of a sudden, fifteen computers, fifteen laptops disappeared.
Wow!
That’s incredible.
It’s true you’re not normally very vigilant in the workplace because you have this, you know . . . mutual trust with your colleagues that you think means you can leave things lying around but . . . gosh. Obviously it’s not the case.
Yeah, not necessarily.
It’s just, if you can’t trust you’re colleagues, then . . . it’s just because you are working all day usually, so . . .
Yeah, yeah. And it’s one extra thing to have to lock your drawer and keep everything safe.
Plus it isn’t a nice atmosphere.
No, it’s true.
You know? Like… nobody likes being stolen from, but . . . it’s not, it, I think it creates a really bad energy, if you like, when you end up with the attitude that you cannot leave anything anywhere and you cannot trust anyone. That’s . . .
Yeah.
Especially when you’re in the office, like, eight hours, ten hours a day with the same people. Like, you see in the, in the case of the other guy, the, the guy who, who, who looked like he was an employee but wasn’t. At least everybody thought, “oh, OK, well he wasn’t from the company.”
Yeah.
But it’s when it’s somebody from the office that you’re working with all day. You’d never think, you know, your secretary, who’s in and out of your office all the time, you’re telling her personal things about your life, and then this happens, you know?
You give all your trust to them and then, they just . . .
. . . feel very, very disappointed when something like that happens.
And then there are petty crimes, you know? Like just things like the typical… I must admit I’ve done that, you know, typical, you know, you say, “Oh I, I need some paper.”You know, you take some paper from the office and you bring it home to print some documents. Or pens or things like that. I mean, is that
considered a crime, you think?
Yeah, well, I think it would. You don’t pay for it, do you?
No.
So, you shouldn’t take it home with you.
Technically . . .
Yeah, technically you should be using it only at the office.
Yeah, but I don’t think we can compare that to the other kind of crimes.
The kleptomania.
I mean, on the same right, though, I had a friend who worked in a restaurant in a hotel. We all lived together. I think one day we must have run out of toilet paper or something. Anyway, he stole one roll of toilet paper from the hotel toilet.
He got caught?!
Which coincided with the day they decided to search the lockers and he did get caught and they fired him for it. And he was like . . . he was quite high up in the kitchen, he was quite an important role, I believe. Well that seems sort of silly for a roll of toilet paper that costs like, I don’t know, not even one euro, you know?
I know, I know. It’s slightly extreme.
Well, but then they think, “well, if he’s taken that this time, what can he take next time?” You know? Like, this is the idea. I suppose, yeah.
But, I mean, it’s not fair also, also for the colleagues because, for example I had a friend that was working in a shop. And someone was stealing from there. And what they did, every day they were checking all the bags from everyone, and all the lockers also. And it’s like, “why do I have to pay for it?”, I mean, I don’t need to be checked off because someone’s stealing, . . . It’s unfair for other people as well.
Yeah.
It’s a bit of an invasion of privacy.
Exactly.
