BBC 6分钟英语学习 工作中的礼节

Hello. The program you're about to listen to was 1st broadcast in June 2009 on the BBC Learning English website.

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Hello. This is six minute English.

I'm Jackie Delton, and with me today is Neil Edula.

Hello, sir, sir. Very unusual. You don't usually call me sir, jackie.

No, I don't usually. I usually call you kneel, don't I?

Yes, you do. And that's because we colleagues and the way we interact in the office is pretty informal, really.

It's quite relaxed. We just use each other's 1st names.

And the reason I call you sir is because the topic of today's program is formality, or lack of formality at work.

So do you work somewhere where you can behave in a relaxed way around colleagues, or do you have to be very polite and maybe a bit distant?

Is there a dress code? Yes, a dress code is the rules for what you should wear in a certain situation.

So if a restaurant has a no genes policy or dress code, it means you have to wear smart trousers.

You're not allowed in if you wear jeans.

Well, in a moment, we'll be talking a bit about things have changed for us here.

But 1st, I have a question for you.

A survey was carried out in Britain into dress codes at work, and I'd like you to guess what percentage of people said they'd prefer to be given a precise dress code.

In other words, would prefer to be told what kind of clothes they should wear?

Was it 5 %, 23 or 85?

Well, I don't think people like being told what to wear, so I'm going to say 5 %.

OK, we will find out at the end of the program whether your answer was correct.

Would you say the BBC World Service is a fairly formal place to work.

It's quite a serious place, but it's certainly not formal.

People wear pretty much what they want to wear, and most people are on 1st name terms, aren't they?

Yes, they are. That means that they don't call each other Mr Smith or Mrs Jones.

They call each other Brian and Keith.

Walking around here most of the time.

People you see, look pretty casual, don't they?

Yes. Casual means the opposite of formal.

It's another way of saying informal.

Well, it wasn't always so. Carrie has been around the BBC for nearly 30 years, and things used to be quite different.

When she joined, how would she have to address her boss?

When I started in the BBC, my boss was very formal.

He wore a suit and tie every day to work, and you had to call him MR.

So he was Mr Bowman. I wouldn't have dreamt of calling him Eric, which was his 1st name.

On the other hand, he didn't actually call us by Ms.

or MRS. We were called by our 1st name because we were his underlings.

We were his staff. But the boss was always called MR or MRS.

But actually most occasions it would have been a MR.

Did you get that? She had to call her boss MR.

So they certainly weren't on 1st name terms will carry also had to face even stricter rules after that.

What did she have to do?

A couple of years after I started at the BBC, I moved to a different department, and there was a lady in that department who ran an office with about six or seven staff in it.

And the staff had to ask permission if they wanted to go to the toilet.

They weren't allowed to just leave the office, and in fact, she timed them sometimes too, and decided if they were too long in the toilet, carrie had to ask permission to go to the toilet.

Yet to us, permission means to ask if you can do something if it's allowed.

Yes. And in our office, we don't have that kind of regime any more, do we?

We don't have to ask permission if we want to leave the room free?

No, we can do pretty much what we want to do, as long as we finish our work exactly.

BBC Learning English dot com. Well, we're quite lucky sitting here in our jeans or corduroys, because there was a time when that would have been out of the question.

Listen to carry again. What did news readers at the BBC used to have to wear while they were presenting?

Long, long before I joined the news readers, which at that stage would have been on radio rather than on television.

Had to wear dinner jackets to read the news, even though nobody could see them, other than the other people in studio Neil.

They had to wear dinner jackets, even when they were on radio, no one could see them.

Yes, dinner jackets, that very formal style of suit that people wear when they go out to a formal event, e.g.

at the oscars or something like that.

It's that black jacket, black trousers and a bow tie.

Not a normal tie, a very small bow tie.

This kind of suit is often called a tuxedo as well.

A few decades ago in some workplaces in Britain, this concept of dress down Fridays was introduced.

Dressed Down Friday means that during the rest of the week, you wear quite smart clothes, maybe a shirt and tie, possibly a suit.

And on a Friday, you can come in in your jeans, t shirt, whatever you want, you dress down.

It's less formal. Well, let's have a quick reminder of some of the

vocabulary that we've looked at. We've had casual, which also means the same as informal.

We've had formal, which means the opposite 1st name terms, which means being able to call somebody by their 1st name and not mr something.

We have dress codes, which is the rules about what you should wear.

We've had dinner jacket, which now are, you just explained a certain

formal suit. And we had to ask permission, which means to ask if you can do something if it's allowed.

And finally, the answer to this week's tricky question.

I asked What percentage of people in Britain said they would prefer to have a precise dress code, and you said 5 %, neil.

And you absolutely wrong. It's 85 %.

Believe it or not, I find shocking.

That's really disappointing. People have got no imagination.

Exactly. So I can take it from that meal that you prefer to work in a fairly informal environment.

Exactly. I mean, what I'm wearing at the moment is what I wore in bed.

Well, that's all for this week.

But do join us again soon for more six minute English.

Goodbye, bye. BBC learning english dot com.

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