Unit 3

STARTER – 9 TO 5 (song written and originally performed by Dolly Parton from the 1980 movie of the
same title) – audio 3.1

[Verse 1]
Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin' and stretchin' and try to come to life
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'
Out on the streets, the traffic starts jumpin'
With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

[Chorus]
Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely gettin' by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm...

[Verse 2]
They let you dream just to watch them shatter
You're just a step on the boss man's ladder
But you got dreams he'll never take away
In the same boat with a lot of your friends
Waiting for the day your ship will come in
And the tide's gonna turn an' it's all gonna roll your way

[Chorus]
Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely gettin' by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind and you never get the credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life and you think about it don't you
It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it
And you spend your life putting money in his wallet
9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely gettin' by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life and you think about it don't you
It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it
And you spend your life putting money in his wallet
Answers:
1. The singer gets up in the morning and prepares for work.
2. She doesn't exactly enjoy her work because she is overworked and underpaid and her
higher-ups never give her any credit.
3. „Rich man's game“ means that at the time when this song was written only male
bosses in financial firms make the money and get the credit whenever something
financially positive happens, no matter who's idea did cause it.
4. She is a secretary / office assistant.

HOW THEY CALM (audio 3.2)

A) Gary Rudd is under a lot of stress, especially when the team he's coaching/managing
is playing. His common worries are player injuries, disagreements with referees and
the possibility he'll get blamed if the team loses. The way he stays calm is – leave his
work at work. At home he doesn't talk about it, he doesn't watch sports channels, he
doesn't use social media... He also does a lot of DIY (kitchen currently).
B) Joan Bevan – has a stressful job of a school headmaster (principal). The most stressful
situations for her are when angry parents show up. She deals with the stresses of
caring for above 1000 students by running – she's even preparing for the Great Welsh
Marathon.
C) Kyle Cooper – underwater/undersea worker – is stressed by working on an extremely
dangerous job – installing underwater gas and oil wells. He and 11 other coworkers
have to prepare in a hyperbaric chamber (hyperbaric tank it's sometimes called) for a
month before working for a month in teams of three in a kind of a diving bell. After a
moth on the job he gets two months of free time – but he spends that free time mostly
sailing as he loves the sea even after working 20 years on that job.
D) Dr. Bonnie Baxter – A&E doctor (accident & emergency) – works in a hospital that
sees about 60,000 emergency patients a year and is under pressure from those patients
constantly asking when will they be seen, how long will they wait, etc., but also from
the unpredictability of the A&E (emergency medicine) specialization. To cope with
the stresses of her work she knits (a little blue jacket at the moment).

Interview with Gary Rudd (3.3)

1. How do you balance life with work?

- Understanding wife
- Living near the football field
2. Do you have any children?
- Twin daughters
- Both love football
- Often come to watch dad’s team play
3. Don’t you like your job?
- Yes
- Challenging and exciting
- Unpredictable
- God relations with the players
 - Time consuming (six days per week, always on weekends)
4. Do you and your wife relax at all?
- Not much
- No social life
- Gary does things around the house
- Rarely finishes “projects”
- Doing the kitchen for weeks and still isn’t finished
5. Your wife’s thoughts on that?
- She’s very patient
6. How long are you staying as manager?
- Gary can’t answer that question yet
- Hopes to leave when the team can perform well constantly
- Hopes not to ruin his marriage in the process

THE BEST BOSS IN AMERICA

Intro:
- Monday morning
- A dozen of people sitting around a conference table in an office
- Woman writing on a whiteboard, others sipping coffee
- Credit card processing firm Gravity Payments
- Latecomer walks in wearing jeans, trainers and sporting unkempt hair
- One would think he is an ordinary employee, but he is the founder, owner and CEO of
the company – Dan Price

The article:
- One day 7 years ago Price announced he plans to pay all the company’s employees a
minimum wage of $70,000 per year because he believed that that amount was needed
for a “normal life”
- To be able to do that he decided to cut his own $1,1 million yearly CEO salary to the
same 70,000
- He became a hero for underpaid workers
- Then came the criticism from journalists and university professors (Fox News even called
him a “Lunatic of all lunatics”)
- At the time the company had 120 employees and 70 of them were affected by the
decision
- He is moved how his decision improved the lives of most of his employees
- Nydelis Ortiz’s salary nearly doubled
- Garret Nelson’s salary increased not that much as he already was making about 65,000
per year, but that 5,000 increase came in a perfect time as his wife just gave birth to
their fifth child
- Hundreds of other bosses have ignored the attacks on Dan and made the same or similar
decisions
- CEOs in US make in average 300 times more per year than a typical worker, in 1965 that
was 20 times more.
- In the UK it is 163 times more
- He claims that is the best money he ever spent
- The decision is also a big risk, because if it fails it will affect all of the employees
Addendum:
- The company now, seven years later has several thousand of employees with offices
throughout the world
- During the COVID-19 pandemic 98% of the employees at the company’s Seattle HQ took
a voluntary salary cut (2020) as revenue dropped by 50%.
(https://www.geekwire.com/2020/gravity-payments-employees-volunteer-take-pay-cut-
company-sees-revenue-dive-50-crisis/)

BALANCING WORK AND LIFE:

Lucinda
- Runs an advertising agency
- Because of commuting she has little free time
- She tries to do more non work-related things like tennis lessons (usually on Sunday
mornings, but on some Sundays she is too tired)
- Her son usually wakes her up on Sunday morning
- Also she sometimes does yoga

Barney
- Also doesn’t have a lot of free time because of a lot of homework
- Tennis lessons, but prefers football
- Plays for local kids football club Berko Raiders, but claims they are not good
- Likes computer games like FIFA 16, MADDEN 16, and racing games like the Forza series

Justin
- Marketing manager
- Well paid
- Believes in “work to live, don’t live to work”
- Plays squash on Tuesday evenings
- Doesn’t like football games on the computer, but likes racing games like Forza and plays
it with his son
- Also likes retro computer games like Elite
- Once a year goes on a walking tour of the Alps