Jobs & Work: Colloquial English Expressions (Level 2)

Katie sets the trap in the first minute. Imagine you did something wrong at work, and now the job is gone: "They said, Get lost! Don’t come back!" What happened to you? Clare answers with three options at once — laid off, fired, sacked — and then has to explain which one is which. That guessing game runs through the whole episode, first over coffee in the street, then on a bench in the park, and it produces ten expressions English speakers actually use about jobs, bosses and skipping work.

What you'll hear in this episode

The first conversation starts with a small, very human moment: Clare greets Katie with "Good morning", realises her mistake and corrects herself — "I just realised it’s actually afternoon, so good afternoon. I’m sorry." From there Katie describes situations and Clare names them. They sort out to be fired, to be sacked and to get the sack, agree that all of them mean it was your fault, and then separate off to be laid off, which Clare links to being made redundant — the company is having a difficult year, or closes down, and "potentially you may be a very good employee". One of the speakers describes a company going bankrupt and two weeks on the dole before finding work again. Asked whether she works like a dog at the moment, one of them dodges: "I’m going to say I work...like a human."

The second conversation is with Tom. "We’re outside in the park," Katie says, and Tom points out the obvious: "It’s lovely work isn’t it? Sitting in the sun." They cover to pull a sickie, to take time off, to talk shop, to boss someone around and to get your foot in the door. There's a good exchange about whether a hangover counts as illness, a joke about "an extended sickie of...forever?", and an admission from one of the hosts about why he talks shop with friends: "I don’t really have anything else to talk about." Katie signs off with "Job done!"

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Colloquial 2.1 — Jobs & Work
Pack	Colloquial 2
Level	2
Duration	17 minutes 41 seconds
Recorded	Outdoors — "We’re outside in the park"
Speakers	Katie with Clare, then Katie with Tom

What you'll learn

The most useful thing here is a distinction learners regularly get wrong: fired and sacked point at you, laid off points at the company. Clare spells it out — if you get sacked or fired "it’s because it was your fault" — while being laid off can happen to a good employee whose job no longer exists. You'll also hear both grammatical patterns for each one, side by side: I was fired and I got fired, I was sacked, I got sacked, I got the sack.

There's a second, subtler lesson in how Tom searches for an answer. Asked for the phrase for authorised holiday, he offers "take leave", then "Take time out, or off", before landing on take time off. That hesitation is what real speech sounds like, and hearing it is good training for following conversations that don't arrive pre-tidied.

You'll also pick up that pull a sickie doesn't require you to be well: as Tom puts it, "You haven’t got an illness. You might have a hangover." And that boss someone around has a twin, boss someone about, and works outside the office too. The Meaning and Pronunciation tasks then question you on each expression and give you space to repeat after the beep.

Vocabulary from this episode

to be fired / get fired (1) – for someone to lose / to be made to leave their job, usually because they did something wrong or are not good at it
to be sacked / get the sack (1) – same meaning; Clare admits "I got sacked" always sounds slightly odd to her
to be laid off (1) – for someone to lose a job because the company has no work for them
to work like a dog (1) – to work very hard: "I don’t want to be working like a dog thank you very much"
to be on the dole (2) – to be unemployed and getting money from the government
to take time off (1) – to go on holiday / to have a break from work
to pull a sickie (2) – for someone to tell work they are sick (but they are not) and not go to work
to get your foot in the door (1) – to get an opportunity or chance that may give more chances and opportunities in the future
to talk shop (1) – to talk about work, especially when you are not at work, and in a boring way
to boss someone around (1) – to tell someone what to do, usually in a way they don’t like

In the workbook

The workbook for this unit is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack. It contains the full transcript of both conversations, so you can read exactly what Clare and Tom said and see where the labels fall, plus a glossary with a 1–3 informality scale: level 1 is safe with most people, level 2 for people you know well, and level 3 comes with the warning "Don’t use this with your mother-in-law!!!" Both on the dole and pull a sickie are marked 2.

Practice Exercise 1 is seven gap-fills that force you to get the whole expression right, including the small words — the sack, my foot in the door, some time off work. Practice Exercise 2 gives you five sentences with realistic mistakes to correct: laid on ten people, get your foot out of the door, pushed too many sickies, speaks shop, bosses me out. Answers to both exercises are included.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Is "get the sack" the same as "get fired"?

Yes. Clare and Katie treat them as the same meaning, with fired being the more common of the two. The difference is only in how each one sounds.

What about "laid off"?

Different. Being laid off is about the company — no work, no money, sometimes bankruptcy — not about your performance. Clare connects it to being made redundant.

Are these English conversations scripted?

The conversations are unscripted: Katie describes a situation and the other speaker genuinely guesses. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Is level 2 right for me?

This is a Colloquial 2 unit. If you can follow two people talking naturally about jobs and holidays without a transcript in front of you, you're in the right place.

Can I use the audio without the workbook?

Yes — the audio is free and the tasks work on their own. The workbook adds the transcript, the informality ratings and the written practice.

Get this episode

To save the audio, right-click the MP3 link and choose Save link as.

Listen on