martes, 3 de febrero de 2015

Madrid Teacher: Consumed Consumer

In this week's Madrid Teacher video, two teachers discuss customer service and the extent to what businesses and companies can be held responsible for the bad service their employees provide. As usual, this is going to give us the opportunity to get acquainted with some features of spoken English.

First of all, watch the video through to get acquainted with the gist of the teachers' conversation.

Now watch the video more carefully, paying attention to the following:
  • Conversation fillers to gain thinking time: Well; you know
  • Showing the person who is speaking that you're paying attention and listening: Right
  • Use of just to emphasize the verb.
  • Use of so as a linker.
  • Showing agreement: Yeah; for sure; I agree with that; I agree; Right
  • Use of I mean to paraphrase with we have just said and make yourself clear



This passenger on a United Airlines flight had his guitar broken and he ended up writing a song about it and put it on YouTube and he's caused the company’s stocks to fall. That’s incredible!
Why was that?
Well, well, because they broke his guitar [Right.], he went out to get revenge on the company and, and I don’t know how many employees these, these people have, maybe they have a hundred thousand employees.
Somehow I can relate to this guy because, you know, so many times things happen to you and you just can’t do nothing about it, so I mean I would, I’m happy for the guy, I mean
Yeah, but he was, he was unable to, to put the paperwork through, or do, do the work, the legal work, if necessary. There are other channels.
Well, if they broke his guitar, somehow they have to pay for the guitar and all that, I mean...
For sure, I agree with that, but there are other channels, there are legal channels.
It’s always very hard to fight all these big companies, it’s a thing that, I don’t know, somehow I feel that the guy… I’m happy for the guy.
I think, okay, I agree, there’s, I mean, they broke his guitar, that’s for sure [Right.] but there are, were two employees possibly who broke the guitar [Right.], okay…
Yeah, but the employees work for the company, somehow the company is responsible for everybody, yeah.
Right, but now all the employees of the company are paying for these, these…
Well, not all the employees are paying...
If their stocks fell, the company’s been hurt, the company’s been hurt by this.
That was, I mean, that was the company’s fault, I mean, they made a mistake, and that’s I mean, they can’t help it, you know.
Okay, it’s a mistake, so…
Well, somehow you…
They can rectify it but there are other channels to, to rectify that mistake.
Well, it’s a free world nowadays you can write a song or whatever, it’s, you know.
Yeah, but it’s, it’s overkill.
I’m sure the musician was not trying to damage the company’s image, you know.
Of course he was. He was trying to get revenge.
Revenge?
Revenge!
I mean money or…
He’s vindictive…
Well, somehow he was hurt…
… frustrated, he was hurt, yeah.
He was hurt, he’s a musician, I mean, obviously…
He wanted to get them back.
… that was the only guitar he had, you know, I mean, he was not able to play for a couple months [Yeah.], you know, so somehow, somehow he wrote a song and, if I can make it, well, no problem, you know.
Well, that’s just the point, he said there’s a good story in here and maybe I can get rich with it.
It’s a good story, well… You got to give him credit, you got to give him credit.
I give him credit for creativity, but it’s also a little bit malicious…
No, no, no, that was not his…
It’s malicious creativity.
… his main idea was not that one, I mean, he was just writing out a song because something that happened to him, it was just out of the blue, and he just did it like that.
I don’t know, I think when you have a problem with the company, if the first person you talk to won’t take care of you, you can talk to more people, there’s other things you can do other than…
I’m sure he just went through, I mean, a lot, a lot of people through the company and finally he just said I’m gonna write out a song because nobody pays attention to, to my, to my complaint.
Oh, yeah, and he’s so important.
Well, he’s so important, he’s important now that he’s famous right.
Infamous.
Infamous, right.