COMPREHENSION. Ex. 1. Say if the statements are true or false.

Ex. 1. Say if the statements are true or false.

1. Many people who work in small offices do not feel content with their lives.

2. A special sense of community originates in a big corporation.

3. People in a big company are free to focus on their careers.

4. There is more process and bureaucracies in a small office.

5. Working in a big company is like hauling a family.

6. The idea of corporate wellness is to match the needs and values of employees with those of the company.

Ex. 2. Complete the following sentences using the text.

1. According to social surveys many people who work in small offices feel …

2. In a small office there is more … …

3. People around you know you so well, that …

4. Some people who used to work in a small office …

5. Onу of the advantages of life in a big corporation is that …

6. People in a gin company don’t need to …

7. If the collective energy is negative and draining, it’s difficult …

8. Surveys show that workplace happiness …

9. The idea of corporate wellness is …

Ex. 3. Answer the questions.

1. What opportunities do people in a small office have?

2. What usually originates in small offices?

3. What are the big elements in a small office’s culture?

4. What benefit does a small office offer?

5. Do all people like the atmosphere in a small office?

6. What helps push work along?

7. How does work life in a big office differ from work life in a small one?

8. How would you characterize working in a small office?

9. What relations form an office culture?

10. What is the idea of corporate wellness?

Ex. 4. Speak about the advantages and disadvantages of small and big offices.

T e x t 2

Most office workers work with papers and documents. Read this article by Susan Pape (from InterCity Magazine) about the rules of office paperwork. Decide which of the three office components it looks upon.

If your desk is piled high with letters, faxes, forms, memos, reports, print-outs, and sticky-backed message slips, you might believe all this paperwork is a sign of how busy you are. But according to Declan Treacy, cluttered desks lead to lost information, distractions, missed opportunities, high stress and not a little procrastination. He founded and runs the Clear Your Desk Organisation and organises the annual International Clear Your Desk Day which this year is being held on April 24.

His arguments for uncluttered desks are strong. “We pile between 300 and 500 pieces of paper on the desk at any one time, a load equivalent to a 40-hour backlog of work. With 45 minutes a day wasted on frustrating searches for lost paperwork on and around the desk, it is unfortunate that the cluttered desk is the accepted norm in most organisations,” he says. Treacy holds seminars to help companies organise their own Clear Your Desk days, when everyone from the senior managers to secretaries learn how to tackle paperwork more effectively.

Paper has become the foundation on which our organisations are built and at the beginning of the 1990s office workers around the world were using more than 15 million miles of paper every day. Over two billion business letters are posted daily worldwide. In the US, companies have over 300 billion pieces of paper on file.

While a large proportion of this paperwork is important, we have reached a situation where most organisations, both public and private, are suffocating under mountains of unwanted paper. The average British worker hoards 40 hours of unfinished paperwork at any one time; each piece of paper on the desk will distract us up to five times a day; 68 per cent of office workers admit to habitually handling paperwork several times before deciding what to do with it; worldwide, computer printers produce over two and a half million pieces of paper every minute; 60 million photocopies are made every hour; 30 billion faxes are sent every year; and we hoard an average 20,000 pieces of paper in the office.

So what is someone to do if they have what looks like the EU paper mountain on their desk? Dump it in the bin? Well, yes, says Treacy. Or rather, he suggests following four simple rules, and dumping the stuff is number four. Rule number three is file it. Number two suggests passing it to someone else; number one is the rule no one will like: act on it.

What you shouldn’t do is add to the pile of paper that’s already there, says Treacy: ‘Eighty per cent of all paperwork is eventually discarded, but it causes an awful lot of trouble before that happens. Unfortunately, most executives believe the myth that an empty desk is the sign of an unproductive mind. How wrong can you be? Companies cannot afford to let people work from cluttered desks. Hours of valuable time are wasted in searching for vital pieces of paper, and in being distracted by the constant stream of faxes, memos and reports which land in our in-trays when we should be devoting time to more important work.’

And what is Treacy’s desk like? Perfectly clear, of course.