This episode’s vocabulary
Stress
verb — to give emphasis or special importance to something.
Amenity
noun — something, such as a swimming pool or shopping centre, that is intended to make life more pleasant or comfortable for the people in a town, hotel, or other place.
Apparent
adj. — able to be seen or understood.
Saunter
verb — to walk in a slow and relaxed way, often in no particular direction.
Excruciatingly
adj. — in a way that is extreme and difficult to bear.
Ultimately
adverb — finally, after a series of things have happened.
Questions and answers
Rory will describe an experience when he got bored when he was with others. He'll say when it was, who he was with, what he did, and explain why he got bored. Rory, could you start speaking now, please?
Well, I don't want to throw any shade on my current employer and I will stress that I was the only one who was bored because of this. They did a good job with everything else. I was just really, what's the word, not very entertained, when I went to that camp at the start of the year. I mentioned it in previous podcasts. It was ironic because it was a four star hotel with all the amenities that one could want. There was like a swimming pool, a gym, and there were TVs and things like this. But also there was like a good balance of like work and free time for me when I was actually at the camp. According to the schedule, I worked for the kids in the morning and then I had the rest of the day free. At least I thought that was a good balance first. And then it quickly became apparent that I was the only person there are over the age of 24, who wasn't with their family and there was no one to speak to or have fun with at all. Everyone else was either a student or a middle class family. The students were great of course, they're absolute brilliant kids. But I have, and I continue to have nothing in common with anyone around me at that place. The only exception was one of the teachers and his wife. They were really good fun to talk to, but even they had their own child to look after. So it wasn't always possible to hang out together. And the hotel was in the absolute middle of nowhere, so it wasn't like you could just casually saunter out. So I was quite isolated and this was excruciatingly dull for an extrovert like myself. And I had to kind of create my own fun, which was a lot of effort because I was tired and it was New Year, but I survived somehow. I went to the gym and I read a lot and I even took a short trip back to Moscow when the boredom became nearly overwhelming. So ultimately I was OK, but I'm never doing anything like that ever again just because of the boredom.
What about your colleagues? How did they feel?
Well, the ones who I was there with probably weren't bored, but the ones that I spoke to were bored to tears by me complaining about being bored. -