Taking Away the Need to Lie

1. Pre-reading Task
Discuss the following questions with your group-mates.
1) Do your classmates/colleagues know what your family look like?
2) Have you ever had a love affair at work?
3) Do you like to gossip? Do people around you like to gossip?
4) Is it easy to combine personal life and work?

2. Read the text.
In the bad old days, working mothers had to learn to lie. Returning to work after having a baby, they had to prove that nothing had changed. On those black days when the child was ill or the child minder didn’t turn up, it was better to pretend to be sick themselves than to admit to any problem at home. Some people still live like this. But most companies now recognize that employees may have families. They know, in theory at least, that the old way meant their workers were unhappy, stressed out and likely to leave. Yet despite the new family-friendly policies, most companies are still getting it wrong. At one extreme, individual mana-gers consider that any woman who has a family is not serious; at the other, the new militant working mothers behave as if it is their right to put their families first and let their colleagues cover for them.
We need help, and today we are getting some. Cary Cooper, professor of organizational psychology at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, is publishing a pamphlet called ‘Finding the Balance’, containing ten handy tips on how to balance work and family.
First, Prof. Cooper says, you should alert your boss to the idea that you have family to look after. You should spell out how much you like your job and how committed you are. You should plan your approach in advance, thinking about what your employer’s likely reaction is going to be. When problems arise you should give your employer an idea of how long it is going to take to sort them out, and maybe offer to take some of the time off as holiday. You should suggest a way around the particular crisis that will allow you both to be at home and get some work done at the same time. When you come back you should try extra hard, and then point out to your employer how being flexible has allowed you to deal with the crisis at home, without your work suffering.

From the Financial Times

3. Find out if the statements are TRUE or FALSE according to the text, and correct the false ones:
1) All working mothers think that their colleagues should replace them when they cannot come to work.
2) Some managers still think that women who have children are not committed to their work.
3) The situation with working mothers that existed before has not changed at all.
4) Before, the working mothers were able to tell their boss and take time off work if their children were ill.
5) Before, working mothers had to behave as if the situation was exactly the same as before they had children.

4. Choose the correct alternative:
1) If you suggest a way round a problem, you
a) refuse to deal with it.
b) suggest a way of solving it.
c) tell someone else to solve it.

2) If you publish a book, brochure, pamphlet, etc., you
a) advertise it.
b) force people to buy it.
c) make it available for people to get and read.

3) If a problem arises, it
a) occurs.
b) goes away.
c) is solved.

4) If you alert someone to something, you
a) talk about it casually.
b) bring their attention to it.
c) try to hide it from them.

5) If you spell something out, you
a) make it very clear.
b) make a general outline of it.
c) give the letters of the words.

5. The text has 3 paragraphs. Give a label to each of them.

6. Find the words in the text that mean the following:
1) __________ – institute, higher education
2) __________ – awful, nasty, terrible
3) __________ – trouble
4) __________ – anxious
5) __________ – concentrated, strict
6) __________ – think, suppose, believe
7) __________ – firm, enterprise
8) __________ – top-manager
9) __________ – beforehand
10) __________ – previous, ancient

7. Find all the irregular verbs in the text and compose sentences of your own using them.

8. Find out all the adjectives in the text and give their three degrees of comparison
Ex.: small – smaller – the smallest
attractive – more attractive – the most attractive

9. Match the words to build new word combinations:

1. working	a. psychology
2. to find	b. a baby
3. to plan	c. theory
4. family	d. work
5. to have	e. in advance
6. handy	f. a pamphlet
7. organizational	g. crisis
8. to pretend to be	h. tips
9. in	i. balance
10. to publish	j. friendly
11. to balance	k. sick
12. particular	l. mothers

 10. Jumbled Words
Put the letters in their right places and unscramble the words from the articles:
1) CYLOIP;
2) LUGALECEO;
3) ILAMYF;
4) SCSIIR;
5) RYMPELOE.

11. Jumbled Sentences
Put the words in their correct places and unscramble the sentences:
1. and some We help today are need we getting
2. extra come you When try back hard should you
3. a who Individual woman any managers serious consider family isn’t has
4. crisis the You should a particular way suggest around
5. home deal Being the flexible crisis allowed to with at you

12. Do the puzzle by putting these blocks of letters in the correct order and find out the witty message that is hidden in them.

GE	E D	T O	OF	PR	ANO	IS	THE
TH	THE	AMA	OFI	F O	NE	R.	MAN

 

 13. Here are some benefits usually offered to employers in US companies.
Number them in order of value from your point of view.
– telecommuting (working from home)
– alternative work arrangements / job-sharing
– flexible schedules
– all employees and their families are invited to company-paid cruise or resort trip
– you can bring your dog to work
– childcare for sick children
– childcare for employees traveling on business
– on-site shoe repair \ pharmacy \ car cleaning
– on-site primary school
– on-site childcare \ adult daycare for elderly relatives

14. Organize a round-table discussion with your classmates.
Discuss the question: “To Lie or Not to Lie?”
The roles:
1) Cary Cooper
2) An angry top-manager of a company who wants the work to be done.
(may be more than one person)
3) A poor single mother with 3 (4, 5, 6…) children.
(may be more than one person)
4) A pregnant woman who is about to lose her position because of her pregnancy.
(may be more than one person)

KEY:
Ex. 4. 1. b; 2. c; 3. a; 4. b; 5. a
Ex. 6. 1. university; 2. bad; 3. problem; 4. stressed; 5. serious; 6. consider; 7. company; 8. boss; 9. in advance; 10. old
Ex. 9. 1. l; 2. i; 3. e; 4. j; 5. b; 6. h; 7. a; 8. k; 9. c; 10. f; 11. d; 12. g
Ex. 10. 1. POLICY; 2. COLLEAGUE; 3. FAMILY; 4. CRISIS; 5. EMPLOYER
Ex. 11.
1. We need help and today we are getting some.
2. When you come back you should try extra hard.
3. Individual managers consider any woman who has a family isn’t serious.
4. You should suggest a way around the particular crisis.
5. Being flexible allowed you to deal with the crisis at home.
Ex. 12. The profit of one man is the damage of another.