This episode’s vocabulary
To pick up
phrasal verb — to collect, or to go and get, someone or something.
Delivery
noun — the act of taking goods, letters, parcels, etc. to people's houses or places of work.
Courier
noun — a person or company that takes messages, letters, or parcels from one person or place to another.
Drop someone/something off
phrasal verb — to take someone or something to a particular place, usually by car, as you travel to a different place.
Package
noun — an object or set of objects wrapped in paper, usually in order to be sent by post.
Unattended
adj. — not being watched or taken care of.
To assemble
verb — to make something by joining separate parts.
Item
noun — something that is part of a list or group of things.
Service
noun — a government system or private organization that is responsible for a particular type of activity, or for providing a particular thing that people need.
Crime-ridden
adj. — used for describing an area where there is a lot of crime.
Explicit
adj. — clear and exact.
Questions and answers
Today, Rory is going to describe an experience of online shopping. He's going to say when it happened, what he bought, what problems he had while shopping online, and he's going to explain how he felt about it.
Well, I suppose my most recent experience was when I picked up a few things from Argos for my new apartment. I got a bed, a microwave and a vacuum cleaner. To be honest, there weren't any big problems, just the delivery was bad, and I was a little bit annoyed. Oh, to be more exact, the courier dropped off the packages at the front door and left them totally unattended for anyone to just steal without consequence. This was even more irritating since I'd left a note on the door when ordering them, like when placing the order, just to drop them off with my neighbours. And they weren't exactly hard to find, so I don't know what the problem was. Oh, thankfully, it was the middle of August, when the weather was decent, so nothing was badly damaged. But no one likes being ignored. Especially when you've gone out of your way to make it, well, to make it clear how to look after things. Okay. To go into even more detail about what I bought the bed was one of those easy-to-assemble ones that comes without nails. Everything just slots into place. The other electronic items were also rather simple since I don't do a lot of cooking or cleaning. Mostly they're for ready meals and light vacuuming. I'm glad I got them. I just hope the delivery service pays more attention next time because, well, like I say, while I don't think it's exactly a crime-ridden area here, it could have gone horribly wrong and, you know, everyone likes it when their stuff is looked after. Also, I paid for my delivery, so I think that that's quite important as well. If you're paying for a service and you like gave explicit instructions, then you should get what you paid for, don't you?
And do you often shop online?
I do, but I'm never shopping with this company again.
Thank you, Rory, for your story! -