This episode’s vocabulary
Competent
adj. — able to do something well.
Tension
noun — a feeling of fear or anger between two groups of people who do not trust each other.
Ultimately
adverb — used to emphasize the most important fact in a situation.
Reticent
adj. — unwilling to speak about your thoughts or feelings.
Questions and answers
Rory will describe a person you know who shows their feelings openly. He will say who this person is, how well he knows this person, how he feels about this person, and explain why he thinks this person shows his feelings so openly. Rory, over to you now.
There's a woman I work with called Oksana. She's an administrator who organizes things like school visits, support for teachers and, well, materials as well, actually. She's actually had quite an extraordinary life and is extremely skilled and competent at her job. But the one thing that stands out about her the most is how she doesn't exactly shy away from sharing her opinions and ideas and feelings about a wide range of topics. This is like beyond the workplace as well. Even though we've only worked together for a short time, we're actually quite close and we work really well together. I really enjoy going into the office and speaking to her about different things because, well, I always get the truth from her whether I want to or not. I'm not entirely sure why she expresses herself so openly in a society where this is not so common. But if I could take a guess, I think she likes to make things as clear as possible for people in order to help them, even if they didn't like the ideas she felt she expresses, at least immediately. And there is a time when we were planning how to deal with the situation with a school. And she openly stated that it was ridiculous that we were even having this conversation, but we could jump through some hoops and if we did so, then everything would be fine. And I think that really helped clear the air and it removed the tension from the situation, or at least most of it on our part. And ultimately, she was right. So I'm quite glad I worked with someone like that, it makes a huge difference to my ability to analyze decisions and make them. And it does make for a bit more of a relaxed working environment. People aren't so reticent to speak, for example, or at least we are not so reticent to speak. And that makes things function much more smoothly than if it was a place where this is not so welcome and encouraged.
Do you think you express your feelings openly?
Perhaps too openly. -