2013年商务英语高级考试听力原文11
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Man: It’s a shame in many ways because Andrew was doing an excellent job and was a very useful member of the team. The truth is he’s probably contributed more than anyone else in terms of sheer energy and ideas to the projects he’s worked on. Certainly, he was a lot more popular with the team than his predecessor, in fact he’s so good with people from different backgounds and different countries, he used to make me sick sometimes. But having said that, he was less good at getting on with superiors, I mean you can’t keep disagreeing with your line manager over quite basic matters. It’s just not on. There was too much conflict. The company had to choose between the two of them. So he’s paid the price, but he won’t have any problems getting a new job. Anyway Margaret won’t be doing anything urgent, until they decide what to do about a new appointment. She had planned a two-week break starting yesterday but now that’s all been put off for two or three months. Woman: Well, we knew she was a high-flyer from her previous company and she’s impressed the Board with her results, especially in the last six months. She can extract the main arguments from long documents in no time. Other people have to study them for hours. Certainly, we need more people like her at the top. I didn’t think it’d be this quick, but it’s true that she’s the person to make an impact. However, it does create a few headaches for us, because the MD wants her to start at Head Office almost straight away. What’s happening is we’re putting back the dates for the Canada Report and for the big meeting on the new training programme for four weeks by which time we hope to have somebody in the post. Man: Remember that working practices, systems, the management structure, the whole culture of the company have changed a great deal just in the last five years. Then there’s been all the pressure and worry of the takeover, and the longer working day we’ve had since that time. It was a shock when I first heard he’d handed his notice in, but then when I think about it I’m not really surprised. I don’t really know, but I should think he now regrets not taking early retirement when it was a possibility. And don’t forget there’s the issue of his wife’s health too, so I think John wants to sort of bring forward some of the plans he’d made for retirement, like travelling to South America and China. The immediate consequence will be quite a few late evenings for his two deputies plus a lot of weekend work, because the annual report has got to be sorted out by the end of the month and there are quite a few other outstanding matters on the contract side. Woman: Martin has had quite a bit of overseas experience, mainly on sites in South America. Nobody’s better at getting on with local managers and resolving conflicts between the various parties working on a project. In the situation we’ve got out there he’ll be just the right man for the job. I’ve been very impressed with everything he’s done since he came to us, I think he’s got the perfect mix of expertise and track record, but we’re going to miss him at this end. Fortunately, the woman we’ve signed up to fill the temporary gap is available for exactly the period that Martin’s going to be away. She’s been working for an electronics company in France that’s just been taken over by a German firm. Actually the boss met her quite by chance the very day she was made redundant. What could be very useful is that she’s done quite a lot of budgeting work on development projects. Woman: She’s a total workaholic - always the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave - but she spends a lot of time at the leisure centre as well. Mind you, we’ve all been under pressure with the re-organisation, so it’s doubtless been even worse for her in Human Resources, having to cope with so many redundancies and resignations. It’s something you only expect to happen to older employees, isn’t it? Anyway it actually happened during a Finance Committee meeting, but the medical team were very efficient. Anyway, let’s hope she won’t be away too long! There are a couple of managers just back from secondments. They’re going to do more of her work at Head Office, it seems, with weekly visits. Everybody’s assuming it isn’t too serious. 相关资料 |
