Talking point: Hate jobs

This week's talking point is hate jobs. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas can flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• Which professions do you think inspire the most dislike in other people?
• Which professions are the rudest, most impolite and unhelpful to members of the public?
• Imagine you are a traffic warden or policeman/woman. Would you admit to strangers what your job was?
• Look at jobs below. How do you feel about them?

estate agent - motorcycle courier - nightclub bouncer - tax inspector - telesales operator - traffic warden

• Which of these jobs are the best/worst paid?
• Which of these jobs are most/least often done by women? Why?
• Which of these jobs would you love/hate to do?
• How would you react to the situations below? Which one would you find the most annoying? Have you gone through these or similar experiences in your life?

- You are celebrating your birthday with some friends and you are refused entry to a club.
- You stop your car for two minutes and when you return you are about to be given a parking ticket.
- You are one day late with your annual tax declaration. You are given a 1,000€ fine.

To illustrate the topic you can listen to the Elllo activity Bad Jobs, where six people talk about jobs they would not want to have.

Remember that at Elllo you will find comprehension questions about the listening as well as a full transcript and a selection of some of the vocabulary items used by the speakers.