"Hungry for Success" by English Professionals. EPISODE 19 : Something out of place

Tim gets yet another shock!

Transcript

HUNGRY FOR SUCCESS : Episode 19

“Something out of place”

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Tim drove slowly back to the office - on auto pilot. Derek was sitting beside him but neither man spoke. As they pulled into the Lightning Systems carpark Tim had a flashback of a few days earlier. 

“Ready for something big” , James had asked.

Tim remembered his reply - “Born ready”

Now he reluctantly had to admit that neither had he been born ready nor, for that matter, was he ready now. 

Tim and Derek walked into the office together. Perhaps not wise but, at the moment, concealment was not foremost in either of their minds. 

As they entered the main open plan area immediately Tim realised that something was out of place. What was it? He couldn’t put his finger on it but something was not right. Derek spotted it first. 

“Where’s the sales department?” , he asked 

Tim instinctively looked towards the desks usually occupied by Steve’s  over-enthusiastic much-too-young sales team. Instead of a regiment of eager soldiers (as Steve always liked to call them - military idioms were his forte), their battlestations (another favoured idiom of Steve’s) were currently unmanned.

Tim then noticed something else. The office was completely silent. Nobody was speaking at all. You could have heard a pin drop. Other cubicles were occupied but nobody was speaking. 

Derek broke the silence : “has someone died or something”?

Tim spotted James in his office. He could see him hunched over the massive desk and so deciding to take the bull by its horns,  made a beeline straight for him.

He didn’t bother to knock,  pushed open the office door and, without waiting for James to look up, said, “what’s going on boss?  It’s like a ghost town out there”

James was startled and almost jumped out of his skin. 

“You could have given me a  heart attack”, he blurted out

“Sorry” , said Tim, “but what’s going on?” 

“I had to let him go”, said James

“Who, boss?” , said Tim

“Steve” , replied James. “I can’t have some fifth column undermining me”

With that  James  clammed up and obviously wasn’t inclined to add anything further. He looked down and continued working on whatever was on his desk in front of him. Tim took the hint and slipped out, closing the door behind him.

Derek appeared at his side. 

“It was a bloodbath” , said Derek

“He kicked out Steve. As you can imagine,  he didn’t go quietly, made a big scene and was last seen riding off into the sunset with all his minions in hot pursuit behind him”

“But what happened exactly?”, asked Tim

“Nobody has a clue - except James and Steve I suppose. they had a big shouting match in James’ office. Then Steve slams the door on his way out, goes over to his team, says a few words and then they all put on their coats and leave.” replied Derek

Tim’s mobile rang in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the screen.

“Steve calling”

Commentary

Well there’s never a dull moment at Lightning Systems.

Tim drives on auto pilot. This happens when you are completely absorbed by other thoughts. You are so distracted that whatever you are doing, in this case driving, you do without thinking - automatically - your mind is elsewhere.

On entering the car park Tim can’t help remembering that just a few days earlier he had met James in the same place. He has a flashback - having a flashback means a memory of an earlier event suddenly comes into your mind - often prompted by going to the same location. 

“Something was out of place” is a phrase which means that something was not as it should be or as it normally was. We use this to describe a feeling that something has changed when we can’t quite work out exactly what has changed - we just have the impression (for whatever reason) that something is different - not right. Tim couldn’t put his finger on it which means that he couldn’t identify exactly what was wrong.

For example -

I can’t put my finger on it but there is something about him which I don’t trust.

In other words I can’t explain why I feel as I do.

Military idioms are Steve’s forte. If something is your forte it means that it is something which you are good at. Alternatively, If something is not your forte, it’s not one of your strengths. 

Not surprisingly, given the unusual events which have occurred, there is silence in the office. When somewhere is really really quiet we say “you can hear a pin drop”. A pin is an extremely small and light object and so the sound it would make when it hit the ground if you dropped it, would be incredibly quiet. 

Tim decides to take the bull by its horns. If you take the bull by its horns it means you approach a difficult perhaps slightly dangerous situation very directly and very confidently. Hence Tim heads directly to James’ office - or makes a beeline for him - which means exactly that - to head directly towards somewhere.

James is not expecting anyone to come in- probably because he is absorbed in whatever he is doing. So consequently he physically jumps with surprise when Tim speaks - we say “jumps out of his skin”. 

James says he had to let Steve go -  this is a way of saying that he fired Steve. The use of “let” attempts to give the impression that the fired person was not actually fired but really wanted to go. However, when companies use this phrase, everyone knows that in reality the person was fired and didn’t have any  choice. James refuses to explain further but instead clams up. If someone clams up it means they refuse to speak any further - because they don’t wish to say any more about a particular subject.

In the meantime Derek has obviously talked to some of his colleagues. He informs Tim that it was a bloodbath. This means literally that there was a lot of blood - usually after a big battle. Lots of people are injured or even killed.  Clearly there was no physical battle at Lightning Systems and hopefully nobody was really injured or killed. However we use the term bloodbath to describe a situation where something really bad has happened -  maybe lots of people losing their jobs or suffering some disastrous career setback..  

Steve rides off into the sunset - like at the end of a cowboy movie where the main character is seen riding his horse into the distance as the movie draws to a close. In other words he leaves. Steve’s team or minions - which is a slightly derogatory term used by Derek - meaning followers who really have no will of their own but blindly follow their leader - leave with him. In hot pursuit means to follow someone closely and eagerly. 

We end the episode with Tim receiving a call from the man in question, Steve. What does he have to say?  We’ll find out in the next episode. episode 20 “Straight from the horse’s mouth” which is another common idiom. If you hear something straight from the horse's mouth, you hear directly from the person most closely involved - the one with direct personal knowledge of the events. In this case - Steve himself .

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