"Hungry for Success" by English Professionals. EPISODE 13 : Known Associates

Rebecca begins to investigate Black Rod and Sue decides to "shake things up"

Transcript

Hungry for success 

by English Professionals

13. Known associates

TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO

It’s fair to say that Tim was completely stunned by Rebecca’s news. As Steve might say. He was gobsmacked.

Libby Jones doesn’t exist.

How could that be possible?. He’d seen the woman. He’d spoken to her. She was in Macrosoft’s offices standing next to Sebastian Walker.

Rebecca on the other hand looked composed and led her husband into the dining room. 

On the wall was a board plastered with yellow post-its. In the left hand corner he read “Who is LIbby Jones?”

Pulling himself together Tim remembered the invoice which he had surreptitiously secreted in his briefcase. He pulled it out and showed it to Rebecca. 

“James gave us this today - no order - no details”

Rebecca scrutinised the document with a frown on her face. “Black Rod Consultancy” she murmured under her breath.  Without speaking further she sat down in front of her laptop and her fingers flashed across the keyboard. 

“Interesting”, she said, looking at something on the screen. Tim bent down to look. On the screen was a snapshot of some sort of database.  One column was headed “Target” and underneath that “Black Rod Consultancy”. 

“What is this?” he asked

“You don’t want to know”  replied Rebecca “let’s just say that you can find a lot of things on the internet if you know where to look”.

To Tim the information looked routine and relatively meaningless. What’s so interesting?

“Look closer….. Look at this column . Tim looked closer . “Known associates” the column was headed. 

“Known Associates” Tim blurted out in astonishment, “it sounds like sort of crime movie” 

“Elementary, my dear Watson” replied Rebecca with a smirk.

Tim had never heard of the first few names on the list but halfway down a name jumped out : “Libby Jones”. Libby Jones, or at least someone with the same name, was a known associate of Black Rod Consultancy?

“Is that a coincidence or what”, said Tim

“I don’t believe in coincidences” Rebecca muttered. “But at least we know one thing now - Libby Jones does exist”

The next morning Tim arrived early in the office and, as he entered, saw Sue out of the corner of his eye, apparently trying to catch his attention..He went over to HR and sat down. “Have a coffee”, said Sue sliding a mug across the desk towards him. The mug, Tim noticed, had an image of a kitten on it. That’s the HR I know he thought. He glanced over at Sue and seeing the steely look of determination on her face immediately decided that his idea of touchy-feely HR was well and truly destroyed. Sue was on a mission and, from her expression he reasoned it would be unwise to get in her way.

“I think it’s about time we shake things up” she said finally with a mischievous look on her face.

“Shake things up” questioned Tim “aren’t things shaken up enough already?”

Sue ignored him and carried on. 

“I’ve put together an action plan for the Macrosoft visit. We’ll have a kickoff meeting today - me, you, Steve, and……..”, she paused as if for dramatic effect, “James”-

Here’s my proposed agenda, she said, sliding an A4 page of closely typed text across the desk. 

Tim scanned the paper and slowly a smile started to spread across his own face.

“I thought you’d like it” she said

“Rebecca’s not the only smart one around” she added mysteriously

 Tim walked back slowly to his desk having decided that it was not wise to be seen to be spending too much time with Sue. Someone could see he thought and start to put two and two together.

Start to put two and two together.  He checked himself. Was he beginning to get paranoid. Who would be watching?  

COMMENTARY

Tim is discovering more and more about the proposed takeover by Macrosoft with every passing day. However the news that Libby Jones is possibly not who she claims to be leaves him “gobsmacked”. In other words,  so astonished that he is unable to speak. The expression “gobsmacked”  is a little informal but not offensive.

After the initial surprise Tim pulls himself together - meaning recovers from the initial surprise and starts to think clearly and logically again. His mind turns to the Black Rod Consultancy invoice which Derek had given him earlier. He had surreptitiously secreted it in his bag. If you do something surreptitiously, you  do it ensuring that nobody sees you doing it. To secrete something in this context means to hide or conceal it. Obviously Tim doesn’t want anyone to know that he has brought the invoice home.

Rebecca in her profession is used to employing a number of tools which probably aren’t familiar to ordinary people. Her reply “you don’t want to know” is a reference to movies. Sometimes the character in  a movie replies in this way implying that you don’t want a particular piece of knowledge because it would either upset or compromise you in some way - it’s better that you don’t know. Having the knowledge could even be dangerous. Maybe Rebecca is joking - maybe she’s serious. It’s not clear.

Rebecca’s mysterious database has a column headed “known associates”. Tim is right. You normally hear this term in reference to crime. Known associates of a criminal are people that 

the police know are associating with, or involved with, the criminal they are investigating. For this reason they might want to investigate them too.  

Sometimes It’s difficult to understand a foreign language  because native speakers often make cultural references. Cultural references are phrases or facts that would be well-known to native speakers. “Elementary my dear Watson” is a phrase often used by Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective in the stories of the British author, Conan Doyle. In this context therefore Rebecca uses it to highlight the fact that she and her husband are looking into a mystery just like Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Watson, do in the novels.  

When looking through the list of known associates Tim sees nothing of interest until he comes across one name. It is so important that it seems that it almost physically jumps out of the page in front of his eyes.  The name of LIbby Jones. 

Sue is determined to discover what is going on. She is motivated and driven. Just like a secret agent or a soldier, she is “on a mission”. We use this phrase to describe someone who is pursuing their goal in a single-minded and determined way. Given her level of determination, Tim later concludes that it is ”best not to get in her way”. In other words if you obstruct her in some way, you may well suffer some harm.

Sue is showing a new side to her character. Gone are the days when she was a touchy-feely HR manager (in this context, a slightly derogatory term used to describe someone too influenced by emotions or feelings). Now she wants to “shake things up”.If we shake things up we try to forcibly or violently change something - hopefully to have a good outcome in the end. Sue hopes that by becoming more active rather than passively observing events, she will cause a change to their advantage.

So the mystery deepens. Who is Libby Jones?  What is in Sue’s proposed agenda? Why does it make Tim smile?

Find out this and more in the next instalment of “Hungry for Success”

This business English podcast is produced by English Professionals. It is one of a number of resources I create to help  people to master the English language. For further details of one-to-one and group lessons,  corporate training, and video on-demand, go to my website -

www.englishprofessionals.it

.