Dialaogue No.2

- So, Jerry, you’ve been in London for quite a long time now.

- Uhu…

- What differences did you notice between the two countries?

- Obviously, the biggest difference is the people. And the average Englishman is um..m.. cold and not very open.

- Oho!

- In the States it is very different. We start conversations with people in the street. We are more enthusiastic and spontaneous, than people here. You know, when I first came, I could not understand what was wrong, but now I see that I was trying to be too friendly, too soon.

- But tell me, do the English improve as you get to know them?

- Oh, yes!

- Oh, good!

- Once you’ve made a friend, it’s a friend for life. But it takes a very long time. I’ll tell you something that I think is very important. English people in America are respected. Everyone wants to talk to them. We’re inquisitive. We love the accent. But Americans in England are thought to be a little inferior because they get excited by everything. They think everything is so cute. One thing I’ve learnt. It’s funny now. It was not at that time. I couldn’t understand why, when I was talking to someone, they would move away, you know? Moved backward. I thought “Do I smell?” “Am I boring?” The reason was, you see, Americans stand closer, when they are talking.

- Ah, that’s interesting. What about your impressions of living here? How is that compared with the States?

- Well, um…I think life’s a lot easier in the States. It’s easier to make money and it’s easier to spend it. Shops are open all the time over there. When I first came to England, you had to race to reach the supermarket before 5:30. But this is changed. Some shops are open later now and on Sundays. But they are still harder to find than in the States.

- Yes, but it is a lot better, than it was.

- Sure. And another thing is Americans work a lot harder, than you do here. To the English their private life, that is important, their holidays are important, their gardens are important, their dogs are important. But for Americans work is the most important thing in our life. You know, holidays seem to be longer here. And around Christmas and New Year the whole country closes down for two weeks.

- Oh, come on!

- It’s true! We, Americans, are like the Japanese in this respect, we live to work.

- So, you don’t like London very much?

- You’d think so, what I am saying, wouldn’t you? No, in fact, I really love it here. I go home once a year and I really look forward to coming back here. This is my home now. I find life safer, more relaxed and much more enjoyable. The Underground isn’t very clean but at least you can use it and feel safe. And your taxi-drivers are wonderful. They tell you their life stories and know every street in London. Maybe I’ve got into an English habit. England doesn’t have the dramatic beauty of the States, but oh, it’s very pretty and charming in a way, that I find comforting.

(Tapescript “Commuting to Work”)

Hi, this is Nick from Career Journey and today we’re gonna talk about the impact of commuting to work.

Commuting to work has a lot of negative effects. A..a..a..and one of the big effects that always leads to time you lose. 20 minutes purchase, two hours you commute that’s a lot of time you lose.

Add to that 8-9 hour working day and you’re almost spending 12 hours per day away from your family. And that is not really ideal.

On top of that with rising fares, commuting is gonna start to become terribly expensive. Imagine, that a..a..a you’re paying around 4 or 5 thousand a year for your commute.

If you look at it how much more you need to earn pre-tax, you can easily add another 20 to 30 per cent to that. So, did you think about it? Your commuting is really rather expensive and takes a big junk of your salary away from you, plus, all the time.

So, what can be done to help?

Obviously some employers recognise that your commute is actually impacting your family and sometimes tell us to work from home or let you start earlier or later to avoid rush-hour and avoid losing extra-time. But that’s not always enough and the best way is really to avoid commuting.

So, how do we do that?

Well, the easiest way is obviously to change jobs to somewhere local.

Now I can hear you think already “That is gonna impact my salary and maybe I can’t even do the job I really like”. And I understand that.

But think about it. If your total commute is gonna cost you 6 or 7 thousand a year, taking a job for taking less, is actually not such a big difference.

On top of that rather than spending two hours on a bus or a train, you might be able to spend 10 minutes or twenty minutes walking a day. Now, that really outweighs to two hours a stress that a little bit of extra money doesn’t it? So, that’s one of the ways.

The other way is make sure, that you select an employer, who allows you to work maybe from home. These days there are jobs that require going once into the office a week.

Make sure, that you understand what your employers’ requirements are.

So, think about your family, think about the money and make a decision, that is based on all the elements, because don’t forget if you have to get up in the morning and look at a two-hour commute you just wanna go back to bed, you don’t really wanna get up and that can lead to all sorts of problems like depression or not performing well at work, tiredness, burn up, your ache.

So, really before you select your next job or a long commuting, think about some of these points and make sure, that a commute place or a level of commuting takes a big part in a decision of selecting a certain job.