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Getting a job in Britain Part twenty three: Settling in
Finding somewhere to stay will be the first task when you get to Britain. Whatever else you do, make sure you sign a contract with the landlord or landlady (the person who owns the flat or house) and that you get a copy of it yourself. There are plenty of people trying to sell you a room or flat which is such bad quality that it wouldn’t be fit for use as a prison, let alone a home. Fortunately, the law in Britain gives you the right to fair treatment both in terms of the contract you sign and the quality of the place you live.
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Getting a job in Britain Part twenty one: Working as a tailor
There are far fewer tailors in Britain now as there were a few decades ago. This is mainly because of mass-production and cheap imports of clothing. This is called off the peg clothing. However, there is still some work to be had making repairs to people’s clothes. There is also business at the higher end of the market for people who still have their clothes individually made to order. Unless you plan to train as an apprentice though, this sort of job application will be for experienced candidates only.
In the latter field, remember that the customer is undeniably king. Tailors are stereotyped for their impeccable manners, but the stereotype is not too far from the truth. You don’t, however, need to learn any particularly obscure rules of etiquette. Simple courtesy and good manners will always suffice, as they would in any environment where you are dealing face to face with the customer. Some of this vocabulary may be useful at the opposite end of the market. There is still some clothes manufacturing going on in the United Kingdom, where you will probably be working in a room full of sewing machines doing piece work (in other words, the amount you earn will depend on how much you do). This sort of work is only likely to be available to people who are experienced in the use of the machinery, as the pace of work can be extremely high. However, don’t expect the remuneration, i. e. the money you get for your work, to be much above the minimum wage.
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Getting a job in Britain Part twenty: Working with horses
Among some of the more specialised jobs available in Britain is work in stables, looking after horses. Obviously this is the sort of work that you can only find in the countryside and experience is usually preferred.
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Getting a job in Britain Part nineteen: Working as a cook
There is no end of work available in Britain for people working in kitchens, but the job of a cook will normally be limited to those with the right qualifications and experience. If you are in fact a chef, the work may still be sporadic (in other words, the number of places that are hiring chefs will rise and fall depending on the time of year). If you are not going over to the UK until the winter, now is a good time to start learning the recipes of traditional Christmas food!
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Getting a job in Britain Part eighteen: Working as a butcher
If you find a job as a butcher, you may be working in a local shop as an assistant or, more likely, you could be working in a supermarket (where most of the meat in Britain is sold). Remember that there are a lot of safety and hygiene regulations that you will need to follow, probably more than with any other type of food. Don’t be afraid to ask other staff for help, as the vocabulary here can only be a rough guide.
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Getting a job in Britain. Part seventeen: Working on buses and coaches
Some jobs in Britain particularly need employees who can speak at least two languages. Working on a long-distance coach is one of these jobs, especially when they go to destinations on the continent. As for the ones that run in Britain, you may find that being a Polish speaker gives you an advantage over other candidates for the same job, as there are so many Poles living in the UK!
This week the focus is on phrases that you will need to use, rather than phrases you might hear.
We’ll be stopping shortly.
– Niedługo się zatrzymamy.
You’ll need to change coaches when we get to Bradford.
– Musi Pan się przesiąść w Bradforfd.
The journey will take/last six hours.
– Podróż będzie trwać 6 godzin.
There’s a lot more traffic than usual, so we may arrive slightly later than planned.
– Dzisiaj jest większy ruch niż zwykle, więc może przyjechać trochę później niż planowano.
You can’t take that with you. It’ll have to go in the luggage hold.
– Nie może Pan tego wziąć do środka. To musi zostać włożone do luku bagażowego.
That’s too big to take as hand luggage.
– To jest zbyt duże na bagaż podręczny.
This ticket isn’t valid on this coach. It’s for another company.
– Ten bilet jest nieważny na ten autokar. To jest bilet innej firmy.
This is an open return. You need to go to the ticket office to confirm the return date.
– To jest bilet powrotny otwarty. Musi Pan udać się do biura biletowego, aby potwierdzić datę powrotu.
The coach has a toilet by the centre doors.
– Toaleta w autokarze znajduje się przy środkowych drzwiach.
The air-conditioning control is above your head. There is also a reading light for when we turn the coach’s lights of during the night.
– Kontrola klimatyzacji znajduje się nad głową. Tam znajduje się także lampa do czytania, której można używać, gdy w nocy wyłączone są główne światła.
If you need to call one of us, please use the red button overhead.
– Jeśli chciałby Pan się z nami skontaktować, to proszę użyć czerwonego przycisku nad głową.
Please remember that this is a no-smoking coach.
– Proszę pamiętać, że w tym autobusie jest zakaz palenia.
There is no smoking on any part of this coach, including the toilet.
– Nie wolno palić w żadnej części autokaru, także w toalecie.
There are smoke detectors which will set off an alarm in the driver’s cab. We will have to stop if the alarm goes off.
– W autokarze są wykrywacze dymu, które informują o osobach palących. Jeśli alarm zostanie uruchomiony, będziemy musieli się zatrzymać.
We’ll be bringing a refreshment trolley round in about half an hour.
– Za około pół godziny będziemy serwować przekąski.
We’re coming up to a service station where you can stretch your legs or get something to eat.
– Dojeżdżamy do zajazdu, gdzie mogą Państwo rozprostować nogi lub coś zjeść.
We’re stopping here for forty minutes.
– Zatrzymamy się tutaj na 40 minut.
Take your valuables with you when you leave the coach.
– Proszę wziąć ze sobą rzeczy wartościowe, gdy opuszczają Państwo autokar.
Could you all remain seated until the coach has come to a halt, please.
– Proszę pozostać na miejscach, aż autokar się zatrzyma.
We’re coming up to the border. Please have your passports ready.
– Dojeżdżamy do granicy. Proszę przygotować paszporty.
When a passenger reports a fault in a piece of coach equipment, such as a noisy air-conditioning unit:
They’re taking the coach in for repairs next week. I’m afraid we can’t do anything about it until then.
– Autokar zostanie naprawiony za tydzień. Obawiam się, że nie jestem w stanie nic zrobić do tego momentu.
When a passenger is worried about missing a connection:
We can phone ahead and ask them to hold the coach for you.
– Możemy zadzwonić i poprosić, aby autokar na Pana poczekał.
On a ferry: (na promie)
Remember the staircase number for this part of the deck.
You may also hear the word stairwell instead of staircase.
You will not be allowed to return to the coach during the crossing.
– Podczas przeprawy nie mogą Państwo powrócić do autokaru.
The crossing will last two hours.
– Przeprawa potrwa 2 godziny.
Please remember to listen to safety instructions before the ferry sets sail.
– Proszę posłuchać instrukcji bezpieczeństwa przed wypłynięciem promu.
One point you need to consider if you want to work on a coach is security. Coach travel is one of the cheapest ways of getting from one city to another. Some of the people who take advantage of this are not the world’s safest or most socially responsible people. Expect to find heavily drunk passengers on a regular occasion. On some occasions you might find a combination of extreme nationalism and alcohol, which won’t make your job any easier if they see your name badge or hear your accent. The law is there to keep you safe, but its main use is in arresting people after a crime and not before it. Always get support from another member of staff if you have to deal with badly behaved customers and make sure you know the emergency number (999) for calling the police. You can usually expect help from other passengers if things start to get really nasty. Don’t be surprised either if you are asked to cover up religious clothing and jewellery. Some companies have extra regulations about the sort of symbols its staff can wear and how large they can be, and others are more relaxed about it.
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Getting a job in Britain Part sixteen: Working as a carpenter or joiner
Depending on where you are in Britain there can be different opportunities for carpenters and joiners. A lot of work may be minor repair jobs in the homes of people who don’t know one end of a hammer from the other. Other jobs, usually in other neighbourhoods, could involve larger scale construction projects such as bookcases and cabinets. There are also industrial contracts, although it is not clear how many huge joinery projects will need temporary workers who are only in the country for a few months.
As with all manual labour, the harder you work and the fairer your prices, the more popular you will be with your customers and the better your reputation will be.
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Getting a job in Britain. Part fifteen: Working as a gardener and working on a farm
Both gardening and working on a farm are seasonal work, so you will find that there are more job opportunities at some times of the year and fewer at other times. Garden centres, where people buy gardening equipment, often need employees over the summer so if you have enough experience you might be able to get a job in one of them instead.
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Getting a job in Britain Part fourteen: doing up people’s houses
Carrying on from last week’s lesson on building, this week we look at renovating and doing building work in people’s homes. Builders in Britain have a rather bad reputation at the moment, as people think they are lazy and always charge more than they originally say. Polish builders in Britain have a better reputation so you may find customers are very pleased to see you when they find out where you are from!
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Getting a job in Britain Part thirteen: Working in the building trade
This is the first of a two-part piece on language you might need if you are working in the building trade in Britain. This week we will look at useful language on a building site.
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Getting a job in Britain Part twelve: Working as a care assistant
One thing to remember in the caring professions, especially when dealing with the elderly, is that you have to look after your own health and well-being at the
same time. No employer is allowed to ask you to lift or carry something
in a way that could injure you, and you must always have at least two people to carry someone. You should get training on the job if there are any special techniques to follow.
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Getting a job in Britain Part eleven: Working in a bar or restaurant – praca w barze lub restauracji
Here are some of the more useful phrases that you might need if you work in a restaurant or behind a bar in the United Kingdom. Different places often have different rules about how the staff speak to the customers, so hopefully your employer will give you some more of the necessary language on the job.
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Getting a job in Britain Part ten: Finding an address – Jak znaleźć dany adres
A few weeks ago we had a look at asking for directions. Now we’ll look at finding specific addresses.
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Getting a job in Britain Part eight: Messages home
Whether it is for personal or professional reasons, you will probably have to communicate with Poland at some stage while you are working in Britain. Because of this, you might find the following information useful.
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Getting a job in Britain: Part six: When things go wrong
A lot of the time you will need to report things that break and things that don’t work properly. Here are some of the more common phrases you may need if you are working in Britain:
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Getting a job in Britain Contacting the police
If someone has taken something from you:
Jeśli ktoś coś Ci zabrał:
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Getting a job in Britain: Part five: If you need a doctor
While working in the UK this summer, you might need to get medical help for one reason or another. Fortunately the UK and Poland have an agreement and you are covered under the National Health Service (NHS). This does not include everything, but will be useful in emergencies.
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Getting a job in Britain Part four: Walking around London
If you are looking for work in the capital, you will need to know how to find places. London is the largest city in the UK with over seven million people living there. In the summer there can be more than ten million.
Here are some phrases that you might need.
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Getting a job in Britain : Taking and giving messages.
Right, first things first. You’ll need to know what to do in an emergency so this is how the emergency phone number works.
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Getting a job in Britain Part two: working in the hotel trade
This week we have some phrases that might be useful when working in the hotel industry and the tourist trade.
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Getting a job in Britain. Part one: unskilled labour
Here are some phrases that might be useful if you are going to Britain to work during the summer. This week the focus is on the sort of temporary work that is available on farms, in factories and similar working environments.
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Now try this… 4
1 Hmm. His name’s not in the computer files, so I’ll look ____________ the old card index instead.
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Now try this… 3
Choose the correct answer from the options a, b, c or d
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Now try this… 2
Once again there are twenty-five exercises, all missing something.
Choose from the options a, b, c or d and then check your answers with the key at the bottom of the page
1 We sent out hundreds of invitations but __________ anyone has replied.
a) almost b) nearly
c) about d) hardly
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Use your mind! Test Nr 1
There are four options (a, b, c and d) for each exercise but only one of them is correct. Choose the one you think is the right one and then check your answers with the key at the bottom of the page.
1 I’m sorry but we can’t use the lift because it is __________ . You’ll have to use the stairs instead.
a) repaired b) repairing
c) been repairing d) being repaired
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Basic, basic, basic maths Nr 67
I’m writing this just after St Patrick’s day. Everyone knows he was the patron saint of Ireland, but not as many know how he got that title.
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The end of the light bulb Nr 66
Over a hundred years since Edison invented it, the traditional light bulb will soon be gone forever. That’s the official decision in Europe at least. So, what’s wrong with this invention?
The light bulb works on a simple principle. When a current is sent along a thin piece of wire, the wire gets hot. If the wire is thin enough and the current is high enough, the wire will start to glow and create a lot of light. Normally this would then make the wire burn out. You might see this in a physics class. On the other hand, if the metal is strong enough and it is in a special atmosphere, it will survive for longer and not burn away. A traditional bulb, called an incandescent light bulb, uses a very thin piece of tungsten in an atmosphere of argon and nitrogen. Tungsten can survive at extremely high temperatures without melting, and without oxygen nothing can burn anyway. Eventually, oxygen leaks in from the earth’s atmosphere or the tungsten wire (called a filament) breaks and it is time to buy a new bulb.
The new type works a different way. It uses a tube of gas (a different type) which conducts electricity. This sort of gas gives off light when a current passes through it, but produces less heat. An incandescent bulb is very inefficient, as only about two or three percent of the electricity is turned into light and the rest is heat. Modern bulbs are far better because they work in such a different way. In fact, they work the same way as the strip lights you often see in all sorts of buildings.
So why don’t we all change our light bulbs anyway, European law or not? Well, it’s not that simple (these things usually aren’t). Firstly, the old style light bulb is extremely cheap. It is, after all, just a coil of wire in a glass bubble. The modern design is more complicated. The materials to make it are more expensive and the technology to build them is also. Look in a supermarket at the two types side by side and you will see the difference in price.
Secondly, as the new design needs a thin tube rather than a balloon of glass, the shape is not exactly the same. Some lights need the smaller type of bulb and don’t have enough space for the slightly longer design of the energy-efficient ones.
Finally, although it doesn’t make that much difference most of the time, the new ones don’t give off quite as much light as the old ones. They also take a couple of minutes to reach their full level of brightness (try it and you’ll see). Some people are not happy about this, as they would prefer the replacement to be identical in all ways. However, the person who pays the electricity bill is usually very pleased when they see how much money they have saved.
So there you have it. The invention that has been in everyone’s home for over a century is finally retiring. Perhaps in a generation from now you will only see a traditional light bulb in a museum.
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Back to the moon Nr 65
Ask anyone who the first person on the moon was, and most people will know the answer (Neil Armstrong, but you knew that anyway). Many will also know the name of Buzz Aldrin, the second, and Michael Collins, the command-module pilot. Fewer people will know the total number of people who have ever walked on our largest natural satellite (twelve) or the number of countries that have put humans into space (three).
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Blowing things up 64
What were your chemistry lessons like at school? If they were anything like mine, from time to time you had the opportunity to handle something quite dangerous. It might have been a strong acid, such as hydrochloric, or something explosive. It’s the explosives that most people remember.
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Beagle Two, where are you? Nr 63
Somewhere on the surface of the red planet is a small, round, British-built probe just waiting to send valuable data back to earth. All it needs is a push and it will start working.
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Not another health scare! nr 62
Some people are so paranoid! A cousin of mine was staying with my family about ten years ago. He knocked on my bedroom door late at night and asked ‘What’s the symptoms of meningitis?” He had a minor cold (or just a slight headache) but the popular illness to be frightened of was meningococcal meningitis. I told him to ask a doctor (why he thought I was one I have no idea). In the early to mid nineties you could empty a bus in ten seconds by getting on and saying ‘I’ve got meningitis.” Only about a hundred people died from it each year, but the newspapers loved the disease and ran a story on the front page whenever this happened.
I’m a blood donor, or at least I was until a few years ago. I gave blood eleven times in the UK and twice in Poland until the health form changed. The Polish medical questionnaire asks ‘Have you spent more than six months in Britain between nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety?” If you answer ‘yes”, you cannot donate blood. Why? Well the Polish authorities think that you might have a disease called CJD, which might come from BSE. BSE is the famous ‘mad cow disease” which was such a big problem with British beef for so long. Never mind the fact that nobody has proved that the human brain disease comes from the one in cows (in other words, there’s no direct evidence that eating infected beef gives you CJD). What matters is that there is a paranoia in the country so the blood banks have to be unusually careful.
The last big health scare in the UK was foot-and-mouth disease. This infects farm animals and is harmless to humans. The solution? Go around the farms with a large supply of shotguns and some petrol. I’ll leave you to work out what they did with them. Now there’s another one called H5N1 bird flu. It has just been found in the country’s leading turkey farm. It could have been worse. Two months ago it would have created havoc with the Christmas shopping (turkey is the central dish in a British Christmas dinner). The point is, it hasn’t killed anyone and we are talking about just one farm here. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the newspapers from talking about it as if the battle of Armageddon had just started.
The thing I found funniest is when bird flu came to Poland. The authorities discovered it in the city of Toruń. The first thing they did was close most of the roads into the city. Because that’s how birds get into cities, isn’t it?
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The APT Nr 61
In different countries there are different words or phrases that everybody knows, but which outsiders don’t. This also works with age groups. For example, the name Thatcher is recognised by people my age and older, while some teenagers in the UK don’t even know that she used to be the Prime Minister. For those who recognise her name, the response is often positive or negative, but hardly ever neutral (she wasn’t that sort of Prime Minister).
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It’s all in the packaging 60
I’m writing this on the day that a famous software company releases its brand new operating system. Lots of computer users have been waiting for this day, but I haven’t been one of them. The first question I asked about it was ‘What is so special about the new version?’ Most of the answers were about the way it looked (the interface), although a few were about things I don’t need anyway. I was hoping for answers like ‘Well, all the things that don’t work properly in the previous version have been fixed’, but maybe that was far too optimistic of me.
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"Seasonal work" Nr 59
Not many people are buying surfboards today. Around midnight this morning the first snow of the year started to fall so I think winter is now here. Some parts of the country, such as the coast, will not have as many people in them as in the summer.
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"Life inside a lighthouse" Nr 58
Along the coastlines of the world there are thousands of lighthouses. They give vital information to ships about where it is not safe to sail. As well as showing where the shore is, some of them show where there are submerged rocks that a ship can run aground on, and others mark the position of sand banks. They are also useful if the ship’s captain is lost as all the lighthouses in a particular region flash at different frequencies, so you can tell which one is which.
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The thirty-nine steps tastes nr 38
Imagine the scene. You meet someone at the theatre, you have a conversation, they come back to your flat and spend the night in the spare room. The next morning you wake up when they come into your bedroom and drop dead, with a knife in their back. Or how about this? One of your neighbours knocks on your door and asks for help. Before you can say anything they have walked into your flat and pointed a gun at you. Now get out of that.
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Here come the holidays. Nr 27
The tourist companies are getting ready for the summer as you read this. There are people in hotels building extensions so that more customers can stay with them. There are airline firms planning special offers so that people will fly with them instead of another company. There are managers of tourist attractions looking for and training new workers for the summer (we call this ‘seasonal work’). And of course there are people booking holidays.
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Stick it on plastic 20
Beware the dangers of doing everything with a credit card. Every year thousands of people get badly into debt as a result of their plastic money (or their ‘flexible friend” as one company put it). The reason is that it is so easy to buy something on-the-spot without needing to find out if you can pay for it. That is one of the reasons credit card companies like to get as many customers using one as possible.
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Have a cool Yule! nr 3
It’s Christmas time! Where will you be on the twenty-fourth? If you ask that question here in Poland, most people will give similar answers. If you ask it in Britain, there will be a lot of replies. This is because Christmas Eve is not so important in the UK, so there is not one single tradition that most people follow.
On the other hand, Christmas Day is the most important part of the holiday period. Children get up early to see what Father Christmas (Santa Claus) has left them in their Christmas stockings. The larger presents are sitting under the Christmas tree, which is decorated with fairy lights, tinsel, baubles and other decorations. These are the gifts that the family give each other (in the morning usually).
Christmas dinner is not the fish-centred meal of Poland but something taken from American Thanksgiving: turkey (it used to be goose). People eat it with roast vegetables and Brussels sprouts. I don’t understand this last part. I love sprouts but I have never met a child who does. Still, they eat them because otherwise they can’t have any Christmas pudding. If you want to make a Christmas pudding, you need a lot of dried fruit, a lot of butter and a lot of time. It takes over ten hours to cook. It’s worth the wait though, as it is the most delicious desert you will ever taste in Britain (so long as you make it yourself and don’t buy it from a supermarket).
After a dinner like that, you won’t want to do anything energetic for a long time. That’s why the washing-up stays in the sink until Boxing Day.
Merry Christmas!
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Radio has the best pictures Nr 2
The last time I watched television was the General Election. The time before that, the Eurovision Song Contest. I have worked out that, for me, watching television is almost as expensive as going to the cinema. Here is what I did: I counted the number of hours I spend in front of the box each year. Then I calculated how much an hour’s television cost (the price of my television license divided by the hours). On average, an hour at the cinema costs less.
On the other hand, if I count the number of hours I spend listening to the radio, I am glad that I don’t have to buy a license for it, or pay by the hour. My radio is on nearly all the time at home. Someone once said ‘You get better pictures on the radio.’ and they were right. When I hear a drama or comedy programme, I create the faces, costumes, special effects and scenery myself. No television producer can create a different programme for each viewer.
There is another advantage to radio and you can try this yourself. Sometimes you can write to a television company and get a transcript of a programme. This is a booklet with everything the people say in the programme (It is not the same as a script). Read one with a stopwatch to time you. How long does it take to read the transcript of a 45-minute documentary? Now read a radio transcript.
Nine times out of ten the radio one is longer, even though the programmes are the same length.
I can put the radio on and do other things while I listen, but if I watch television I always have to keep looking in one direction. When I am repairing my bicycle, feeding the plants or cooking I prefer to have my eyes on my work. Radio works just as well with my eyes shut so I can listen to it when I’m tired.
This is also why the Walkman was more successful than the Watchman. The Watchman was a small, hand-held, black-and-white television from twenty years ago. I don’t know how many of them the company sold but I never saw anyone carrying one in the street. Maybe they all walked into lampposts and ended up in hospital.
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„The Silence is deafening” Nr 1
Ucz się z nami
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