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DAY 2. Article With Exercises

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19 views5 pages

DAY 2. Article With Exercises

English article

Uploaded by

azizyusupov46
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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@USMONJOHN_NOTES

Name: Date:

READING MARATHON DAY 2

The great meeting bloat deserves this Shopify purge

One of the problems with New Year’s resolutions is that bosses have them
too. How many workers, still adjusting to a mince-pieless breakfast, warily
log on to their laptops at the start of the year? Yet one announcement
this week by Shopify, the Canadian ecommerce platform, seemed to stir
an enthusiastic response: namely, a meeting purge. Kaz Nejatian, its chief
operating officer, tweeted the new rule, “Meetings are a bug. Today, we
shipped a fix to this bug at @Shopify. To start 2023, we’re cancelling all
Shopify meetings with more than two people. Let’s give people back their
maker time. Companies are for builders. Not managers.” He also banned
meetings on Wednesdays and ruled that those for 50 or more people
could only be held between 11 and 5 on Thursdays. In a memo to staff,
Nejatian explained: “Shopify is planning to delete nearly 10,000 events,
which equates to approximately 76,500+ hours of meetings.” People love
productivity hacks and never more so than those applied to meetings. A
few years ago, Jeff Bezos made waves with his two-pizza rule, which
meant that meetings should only be attended by the number of people
who could eat two pizzas. The Amazon founder also banned PowerPoint
and insisted on starting all meetings in silence so attendees could read a
preparatory memo providing the agenda because he was tired of ill-
prepared executives bluffing.
@USMONJOHN_NOTES
Meeting culls are also popular. No one leaves school hoping to make a
career staggering from the 10am gathering to the 11am gathering, after all.
But for many white-collar workers, too many days are lost to such pointless
events, veering off agenda (if there even is one) with the result that they
spend nights or weekends catching up with their actual work. One business
consultant undertook an inventory at a global consumer products
company and found that directors and above across the enterprise (a
population of about 500) “collectively spent more than 57,000 hours per
year in recurring meetings. That’s the equivalent of six and a half years.”
That was before the pandemic. Remote working has triggered further bloat.
Last year, Microsoft said that for the average Teams user, the number of
meetings per week had risen 153 per cent globally since lockdowns were
imposed. “The strain is clear,” the tech company said. “In an average week,
42 per cent of participants multitask during meetings by actively sending
an email or ping – and that doesn’t include practices like reading incoming
emails and pings, working in non-meeting files, or web activity.” Last year, I
spoke to employees at companies participating in the four-day week trial,
which offered staff 100 per cent of pay for 80 per cent of working week with
no reduction in output. For many, the obvious efficiency saving was
meetings. One art director at a games company in London reduced the
time he spent in meetings by half, and would later listen to recordings of
them while doing other tasks such as admin. Another told me, “Quite often
I’d invite people because I feel like they’d get upset if they were not at the
meeting.” It was an epiphany. He was “inviting that person for the wrong
reason”. The disruption to their ingrained work practices helped them
reappraise their routines and become more productive. But others voiced
concerns about the effects of too much meeting ruthlessness, such as the
loss of sociability and exposure to new ideas. One worried that it cut down
the opportunities for younger workers to learn from their older peers, or
indeed give fresh perspectives. So, yes, cut the meetings. Apply rigour.
Create opportunities to focus on work. But don’t be surprised by
unintended consequences.
READING MARATHON DAY 2
Match these words with their definitions. Then, find and highlight
them in the article to read them in context.

ban bluff enthusiastic equate multitask pointless


reappraise recurring resolution rigour trigger

1. a serious decision to do something__________


2. very interested in something or excited by it__________
3. say officially that people must not do, sell, or use
something__________
4. consider something to be the same as something else
__________
5. deliberately give a false idea to someone about what you
intend to do or about the facts of a situation, especially in
order to gain an advantage __________
6. lacking any purpose or use __________
7. happening again, especially several times __________
8. make something happen __________
9. do more than one thing at the same time, such as talking
on the phone while you are working on a computer
__________
10. consider something such as an attitude, a situation, or a
judgement again __________
11. the quality of being thorough and careful.__________

@USMONJOHN_NOTES
READING MARATHON DAY 2
Complete the sentences with the correct prepositions from the article

1. I usually log__________my laptop at least five minutes before


my first meeting.
2. I insist __________sending detailed minutes after each
meeting.
3. I am tired __________pointless meetings.
4. I have no time to catch __________my actual work.
5. Zoom meetings cut __________opportunities to socialise
over coffee.
6. It’s hard to focus __________work with so many distractions.
7. I was really surprised __________the content of the article.
8. I try to learn __________my peers at the office.

Now match the words that are used with the preposition in ex : 2
with their definitions.

a. do something that should have been done before


b. gain knowledge or experience of something, for example by being
taught
c. start using a computer system, for example by typing a particular
word
d. having the feeling that you get when something unexpected
happens
e. reduce an amount of something
f. no longer wanting something or wanting to do something because
you are bored with it or annoyed by it
g. concentrate on something and pay particular attention to it
h. keep doing something that annoys people

@USMONJOHN_NOTES
WORD LIST

1. Ruthlessness: Adjective - The quality of being very


tough and not showing any kindness or mercy.
2. Ingrained: Adjective - Deeply rooted or firmly
established.
3. Disruption: Noun - Something that causes chaos
or interrupts normal activities.
4. Undertook: Verb - The past tense of the verb
"undertake," meaning to commit oneself to and
begin a task.
5. Equivalent: Adjective - Being the same in value,
importance, or meaning.
6. Attendees: Noun - People who are present at an
event or gathering.
7. Insisted: Verb - To firmly demand or assert
something.
8. Equates: Verb - To say that one thing is equal to or
the same as another.
9. Stir: Noun - A commotion or disturbance.
10. Warily: Adverb - Being cautious and careful,
especially when there might be danger.

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