BE 610: Be Social at Work This Summer Part 3: How Was Your Trip?

This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 610, Be Social at Work This Summer, Part 3. How was your trip? Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.

For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Aubrey and Michelle, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA.

Hey, Michelle, how's it going? Hey, Aubrey, I'm good. I heard you went on a trip to California. How was it? It was amazing. We went to Laguna Beach, maybe my favorite beach, and then Disney.

Oh, fun. It was a fantastic trip. And I'm so excited you asked about that, Michelle, because nobody doesn't like talking about a trip, right? This is one of the best ways to connect with friends and coworkers to ask about a recent trip.

Yes, exactly. This is... Such a great way to connect with your coworkers. So if you know that they recently went to a happy hour or they had coffee with a friend, anything, ask them about it.

That's true. It's not just about vacations, right? Asking about how anything went. Not only shows you care because you remember something they told you was going to happen.

And then it's just a fun conversation, right? So yes, if they just got back from vacation or whatever happy hour it might have been, ask them how it went.

Yes, definitely. So guys, today you are going to learn the phrases that you need to start this conversation and connect with someone by asking how something went. Awesome. Let's hear the episode.

Okay. How's it going, Michelle? Pretty good, Lindsay. How are you? Oh, well, I'm enjoying my coffee because I just poured a new cup of coffee and I'm trying a new flavor of beans, you know, French dark, dark roast from Whole Foods.

It's really good, actually. I might have to change my whole plan with coffee. I might have to start buying it from Whole Foods now. Nice. Well, that's good.

You found something you like. I found something I liked. And the other thing that I like to be able to do is to communicate with colleagues and make that connection. And, you know, it's summertime, Michelle.

We're just finishing off August here. This episode's coming out at the end of August. And what's happening at the end of August? Well, a lot of people are coming back from vacation, right?

A lot of, you know, the summer is kind of, it's a wonderful time, but it's a little weird because like so many people are out of town all the time and you really, I don't know, it's a different feeling. So, you know, everybody's kind of getting back organized, back into work and, you know, want to talk about their vacations.

Yeah, I love August. I love the way that people are out of the office. That's the way it should be. We're human beings. We don't live to work, right? And especially probably our European listeners have probably been gone for most of August.

I'm guessing. I know that in Madrid, I'm pretty sure that in Paris, the whole city closes down for most of the month. But correct me if I'm wrong, guys. But anyways, we're coming back to the office and here we are.

We want to ask our colleagues about their vacation, about their time away, right? So that's what we're going to focus on today, guys. All right. So what do you think about the five minute period of small talk, Michelle, that we participate in as Americans before going into business?

I mean, how does that feel to you? Does that feel natural? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that – I don't know. I think that it's necessary because I think if you just get back into the office and you don't really have any small talk, I think it's important to connect with our colleagues, right?

And I think even though it's, you know, chit-chat, I think that it kind of helps people be more productive in a way. I think that you need those conversations, those connections to actually make you more productive. Yeah.

Yeah. So I love that word that you just used, Michelle. It's chit chat. Chit chat. Right. So again, guys, you'll see that if you get the transcript for today.

I love that very natural expression. But yeah, we like to chit chat for the first five minutes or so. And it's always pretty clear when we're ready to transition into the business talk. And I find this is more clear when I work with older people, like when I talk with my mentors, my business mentors who are a

It's always very clear cut. Like now we're having small talk, then we're moving into business. And I just find it interesting because this varies dramatically across cultures. I mean, maybe our, right.

You know, I would encourage our listeners to come on over to allearsenglish.com, type in 591 and tell us about the, about small talk in your culture. Like, do you participate in small talk for what, how long does it usually go? Or do you, did you go straight into business? How does it work for your culture?

Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So let's go into the phrases, Michelle, to show our listeners how to spend those first five minutes of small talk building the connection by asking our colleague about their vacation.

Of course, they want to talk about it. You know, people love to talk about themselves. Yeah, I mean, it's true. People really and people are really kind of.

They might be feeling a little bit down, you know, after vacation and now you're getting back to back to the real world. And, you know, you're probably looking forward to your vacation for a while. So people, you know, you want to talk about it and kind of get back into it and share the things that you've been doing.

Yeah, that's a good point, Michelle. I mean, we spend at least if we work a nine to five job and you only get one or two weeks of vacation a year, you probably spend half the year looking forward to that vacation. And then boom, it's over in a week and you're back and you're like, oh, my gosh, you're kind of down in the dumps for a while. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel this way.

Even if you even if you love your job, I still think coming back from a vacation is hard. It is. It is. So let's let's let our colleagues experience their vacation again by telling you about it a little bit.

So let's show our listeners how to open up that conversation. OK, so the first thing we could say, Michelle, is what? What could you say as a first phrase? You could say you just came back from vacation, right?

How was that? Oh, I like that intonation. How was that? Right? How was that? Okay, good. We're going to show you guys about five phrases today. So let's go into the second one.

What was that second one, Michelle? The second one is, how was your time away? Good. Very, very open. And just, you know, I mean, this is these are just pretty simple phrases, guys, but you probably don't learn them in your textbook.

And we're showing you guys what to say. So the third phrase is what did you do on your vacation? Right. This is a little bit more specific. Yeah, yeah.

You're asking for specific things and people can really can really share specific activities that they did. Yeah. And what's the fourth one? The fourth one is feeling refreshed after your vacation.

Now, what did we leave off here, Lindsay? Yeah. So this is really interesting. We left off. Are you feeling refreshed after your vacation again? And is this common to do this, Michelle, in casual conversation?

Oh, yeah. All the time. I think it sounds very natural. Like if you say, are you feeling refreshed after your vacation? That's perfectly fine. Like no one's going to think anything of it.

But it's just a more natural way. I think we cut these words off sometimes. Yeah, no, you're right. And yeah, we're showing you guys how to speak like natives and natives do speak this way.

So forget about grammar rules. Just use these phrases because this is what you're going to hear out on the street and in the office. OK, so next one would be tell me about your vacation. Right.

Right. Tell me about your vacation. Yeah, that's great. Now, do you think that this would elicit a slightly longer response, a longer story maybe? Yeah, yeah.

Maybe this would be better if you're at lunch with the person or getting a coffee and you have a little bit more time. It does take a little bit more time to answer this question. Yeah, tell me about your vacation. It's more open-ended, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. So these are all really good phrases, though, that you put the ball in your colleague's court, really. You let them talk.

Let them kind of bask in that feeling of remembering their vacation. And they'll probably like you more because you open that up, space up for them, right? Because they are suffering and they have the Monday blues, right? The Monday morning post-vacation blues.

They want to talk about their vacation. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Michelle, let's, let's skip the part about keys to success with business small talk. We'll talk about that at the end.

Let's come back to that, but instead let's jump ahead to the role play. Okay. Okay. Okay. So guys, we're going to show you how we use these phrases in a realistic conversation here.

So Michelle and I are colleagues and we are talking at the water bubbler. Okay. So here we go. So, Hey, Michelle, you were out last week on vacation, weren't you?

Yep. I got back from Aruba last night. Ooh, Aruba. Wow. So how was your time away? It was restful. Yeah? What'd you guys do? Oh, we stayed at an all-inclusive beach resort.

Normally, I'm not a fan of this type of vacation, but I was so stressed out from all of the stuff going on at work this summer that I needed to just sit on a beach for a week.

Wow. Nice. Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm glad you had a chance to hit the reset button. So catch me up on what happened in the office last week. What's the update on the new Facebook marketing campaign?

Well, okay, here we go. Okay. So it was pretty clear there how we transitioned into business, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. You didn't go into too much detail.

You probably could have gone into a little bit more detail. But I think that was an example. You know, many of these interactions are just one or two back and forths, really. And then we go right into business.

Okay. So, yeah. So what were the phrases we used here? Let's go back and show our listeners. Well, you said you were out last week on vacation, weren't you?

Was that a phrase? Yeah, it was. Well, it was kind of like one of the ones we talked that we said. So, yeah. So I left it open for you and you told me where you went.

Right. And then I said, how was your time away? OK. And then you said, what did you guys do? Right. You're, you know, asking about specifics. Yeah, but I think it's also important to note for our listeners, I said, what'd you guys do, right?

What'd you guys do, right? So guys, this is where you guys need the transcripts. Because what we were writing out as my words is what did you guys do? But often we don't say it that clearly, do we, Michelle?

Yeah. No, we're fast. What do you guys do? What do you guys do? What do you guys do? So that's just a really important thing. And I think when it comes to listening, you guys need to be ready to hear that and understand that.

Okay. All right. So and then I said, I said, I'm glad you had a chance to hit the reset button. That's a good kind of descriptive language. What does that?

What does that mean? It's like that you got to rest. I mean, that you got to rest and like get recharged like a phone, right? Like a cell phone for getting back into work for like another year, really.

Yeah, I always feel that way on Monday mornings. I usually feel very refreshed and ready to get back into work. I mean, that's so important. You have to enjoy your weekends, you know?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Even when you don't have. Yeah. So. All right. So we've shown you guys how we went ahead and used a couple of these phrases. Michelle, what would you say would be so really what we're talking about here is how to, you know, one version of small talk would be talking about vacations and then we transition into business.

What are the things that we want to keep in mind on how to do that, how to make this very smooth transition from social small talk to business talk? Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I think that it's important that you're aware of what people aren't saying, right? The signals that they're giving, you know, non-verbally.

So does this person want to just talk about business? Like, are they ready to talk about it? And also, you can sometimes hear it in their voice. So maybe it's not the words they're saying, but the tone they're using, right?

Mm-hmm. I think there's always a key moment when the conversation is like ready to move into business and away from small talk. I think there's kind of like this, ah, like this awkward, like, you know, oh yeah. So yeah, it was really great.

Okay. So, you know, there's always like this, like kind of falling tone and a little pause and then, you know, okay, small talks over. Yeah, and I think that this is not necessarily going to feel natural for our listeners from other parts of the world to recognize or to know that's actually happening because there's major cultural differences here. I know.

I know there are because I spent time working in Latin America where – You know, you may spend a lot more time. Well, I guess in the beginning when you first meet someone who's a colleague, but you may spend a lot more time talking, getting to know them, building that relationship on a personal level to do business with the person. So this is very, very cultural.

So it's really a matter of building this skill by being in this workplace, the American workplace, and observing what's going on. Let the other person kind of lead the interaction. That's what I would say.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah, just default to them. And then you'll start to understand how it works and get your own kind of bearings. But that's really the best advice.

So, guys, you know, if your colleagues are coming back from vacation, go ahead and bring up this topic. They're going to love you for it. They want to talk. You know, it's tough when you come back from vacation.

everyone's, you know, working. It's like nothing changed, but for you, you went through maybe a transformation. You relaxed. Now you're expected to get right back to work.

That's hard. You know, we're human beings. So give them a chance to talk about their time off a little bit, just for a few minutes. Okay. Exactly. Exactly.

All right. All right, Michelle, this has been great. Thanks for hanging out. Thank you. Bye guys. Have a good day. Bye. Yep. Michelle, these are such great phrases.

I am so excited for all of our listeners to be able to ask coworkers about what summer trips were like, to ask about anything that's been going on in their life. Yeah, exactly. And you can also use these to ask about any social event, as we said. So yeah, how was the happy hour or how it went meeting a friend for a drink?

And here's a bonus tip. If they told you where they were going or who they were meeting, say it. So like sharing details shows them you were listening, that you care and that you remember. So how might that sound, Aubrey?

Yeah. For example, if someone shared that they were going to meet a coworker named Mandy for happy hour, you could say, oh, you went to happy hour with Mandy last night, right? How was it? That is such a great pro tip.

You are giving details to prove you were listening and you do care and really want to know. I notice when people do that, when people remember details and it does make a difference. Yeah, it's always nice. It's always like, oh, wow.

I always say good memory. So guys, use today's phrases and tips to ask a coworker about something they did recently. So we will see you next time, Aubrey. Yes, awesome.

Thanks, guys. See you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.

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