Using English at Work

Lesson 1 - Arriving at Work

SCRIPT
 
I woke up this morning and thought, “TGIF!”  I have been looking forward to the weekend and all I need to do is to get through one more day of work.
 
I drive to work and pull into the parking lot next to my office building.  I stop at the security gate.  I put my key card into the card reader and the security arm goes up.  I drive into the parking structure and find a parking spot.  I make sure that my parking permit is showing in the windshield and I lock up.  I get my briefcase out of the back seat and walk toward the building.  It’s a short walk and I’m there in no time.   
 
When I get there, I take out my badge and put it around my neck before I go through the main entrance of the building.  Employees are supposed to wear their badges at all times at work so that the security guards know that we belong there.  One day last week, I forgot my badge at home and I had to get a visitor’s pass for the day.  My coworker made fun of me all day.  He kept asking me if he could get me some coffee and when I was leaving.  What a joker!  
 
_____________
 

GLOSSARY
 
TGIF – “thank goodness it’s Friday”; a phrase used on Fridays to show that one is happy that the weekend is coming
*This week has been difficult, but this weekend should be a lot of fun.  TGIF!
 
parking lot – a paved area near a building where cars can be parked * The parking lot next to the office was full, so I had to park two streets away.
 
security gate – a metal bar or door that stops cars and people from entering an area unless they have permission
*The U.S. president lives in the White House, which has security gates at all of the entrances.
 
key card – a small, rectangular piece of plastic for identification that electronically tells a machine whether the person should be allowed to do something
*At the World Bank, people must have their key cards with them all the time, so they wear them on strings around their necks.
card reader – a machine that electronically “reads” plastic cards and decides whether a person should be allowed to do something
*If you pass your card through the card reader too quickly, it might not read it correctly.
 
security arm – a long and heavy metal or wooden bar that blocks a road, but can be moved up to let people drive by if they have permission
*The driver didn’t see that the security arm was down, so she drove into it and broke it.
 
parking structure – a concrete building with many floors for cars to park on * Whenever Gisela parks in a parking structure, she always forgets which floor her car is on.
 
parking spot – a place for one car to be parked, usually marked with painted white or yellow lines
*The president of the company has a private parking spot near the building’s entrance, but the rest of us have to drive around looking for a spot.
 
parking permit – a piece of paper or plastic that gives a person permission to park his or her car in a specific area
*At many universities, students have to pay more than $50 per month to get a parking permit.
 
windshield – the glass window in the front of a car that lets the driver see where the car is going
*A small rock hit Kayla’s windshield while she was driving behind a large truck yesterday, but fortunately the glass didn’t break.
 
to lock up – to lock the door on one’s car or home; to close the locks on the doors to one’s car or home so that other people cannot get in without a key * Did you remember to lock up your house before you came to work this morning?
 
in no time – very quickly; with very little delay; right away * If you work hard you can finish your homework in no time.
 
badge – a piece of identification, usually with a photograph, that shows that a person works at a specific organization or business
*If you have a question about something at a museum, you should look for an employee who’s wearing a badge.
 
main entrance – the front door to a building; the primary place for people to enter a building
*National Geographic’s main entrance is on M Street, but you can enter through 16th Street or 17th Street, too.
 
at all times – all the time; always
*When you are in a big city in another country, I suggest paying attention to what is happening around you at all times.
 
security guard – a person who decides who can and cannot enter a building for safety reasons
*The security guard lost his job because he fell asleep while he should have been watching the entrance.
 visitor’s pass – a piece of paper or a badge that lets a visitor enter a building where he or she does not work, usually because he or she has a meeting there * Please give your visitor’s pass back to the guard when you leave the building.
 
to make fun of (someone) – to laugh at someone or to make other people laugh at someone in a way that isn’t very nice
*When Jeremiah gave the wrong answer, his classmate made fun of him and all of the other students laughed.
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
 
ESLPod.com presents “Using English at Work,” a special 10-episode course to teach you the English that people use in a typical day at work.  I’m Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.  I’ll be your host for this series.  
 
In this course, each lesson has three parts.  First, we will hear a story read slowly, talking about a part of my day at work.  Second, I will explain the vocabulary we used in the story, providing examples of how the new words should be used.  Third, we will hear another version of the story, this time at a normal pace – a normal speed.  To give you a chance to hear different voices speaking English the voice used in the stories is not my voice, although it is a story about me and my day at work.
 
Are you ready?  Let’s begin with lesson one: Arriving at Work.
 
[start of script]
 
I woke up this morning and thought, “TGIF!”  I have been looking forward to the weekend and all I need to do is to get through one more day of work.
 
I drive to work and pull into the parking lot next to my office building.  I stop at the security gate.  I put my key card into the card reader and the security arm goes up.  I drive into the parking structure and find a parking spot.  I make sure that my parking permit is showing in the windshield and I lock up.  I get my briefcase out of the back seat and walk toward the building.  It’s a short walk and I’m there in no time.   
 
When I get there, I take out my badge and put it around my neck before I go through the main entrance of the building.  Employees are supposed to wear their badges at all times at work so that the security guards know that we belong there.  One day last week, I forgot my badge at home and I had to get a visitor’s pass for the day.  My coworker made fun of me all day.  He kept asking me if he could get me some coffee and when I was leaving.  What a joker!  
 
[end of script]
 
I began by saying that when I woke up, I thought, “TGIF!”  “TGIF” is an
“acronym,” meaning that each letter is the first letter of another word.  “TGIF” (all capital letters) means “Thank goodness it’s Friday.”  Some people also say “Thank God it’s Friday.” People say “TGIF” on Fridays to show that they are happy that the weekend is coming. I said that I have been looking forward to the weekend and that all I need to do is get through, or to be able to finish, one more day of work.  So the day I am talking about must be Friday.
 
Then I drive to work and “pull into,” or enter, a parking lot.  A “parking lot” is a flat, area where cars can be parked, usually if the driver pays a little bit of money.  In the United States, many businesses have parking lots in front of or behind their buildings.  In this case, the parking lot is next to my office building.  I stop my car at the security gate.  A “security gate” is a metal bar or a door that goes across a road and stops cars and people from entering an area unless they have permission to do so.  There are security gates in front of most military buildings, for example, so that only soldiers or members of the military can go in.  Most areas that charge for parking (where you have to pay for the parking) have some sort of security gate to stop you from going in without paying or without permission.   
 
When my car is stopped in front of the security gate I put my key card into the card reader.  A “key card” is a rectangular piece of plastic, like a driver’s license or a credit card, which is used for identification and electronically tells a machine when someone should be allowed to do something.  Many businesses have key cards instead of the normal metal key to get into rooms or buildings.  In this case, the key card lets me pass through the security gates.  A “card reader” is a machine that electronically “reads” the key card and decides whether a person should be allowed to do something.  The card reader is able to look at the electronic information on the card and determine if I should be let in (if I can go in or not).  We use card readers for many things; when you buy food or groceries with a credit card, in many American supermarkets you have to put your credit card into or through a card reader at the store.  When I put my key card into the card reader at work, the security arm goes up.  A “security arm” is a long, heavy metal or wood bar that blocks a road, but it can be moved up to let people drive by if they have permission.  So, it’s a kind of security gate.  In the movies, bad people sometimes drive quickly so that their cars will break through the security arms, but in usual life we usually wait for the guard or the machine to lift the security arm and let us drive into the parking lot.
 
Next I drive into the parking structure.  A “parking structure” is a large concrete building with many floors (or levels) for cars to park on.  Large cities have many parking structures because there are many cars that need to park on a small piece of land.  Many people don’t like parking structures, because it’s difficult to find your car if you forget which floor (or level) you are parked on.  I do this all the time!  I drive into the parking structure and I find a parking spot.  A “parking spot” is a place for one car to be parked; it’s usually marked with white or yellow painted lines.  Sometimes it is very difficult to find a parking spot in the city and people have to drive for a long time until you find one.  But I don’t have that problem, so I pull in, or drive into the parking spot.
 
I make sure that my parking permit is showing in the windshield.  A “parking permit” is a piece of paper or plastic that gives a person permission to park his or her car in a specific area.  A “permit” allows you to do something; the verb is “to permit.”  Notice when we use it as a noun, the accent is on the first syllable: “permit,” when we use it as a verb, the accent is on the second syllable: “permit.”  So, this is a parking permit that permits me to park in a certain place.  Many universities have one color of parking permit for professors and another color for students.  This way, the universities can let the professors park closer to the buildings and the students have to park farther away.  I hated this when I was a student, but of course I loved it when I worked as a professor.  I said that my parking permit is showing in the windshield, this means you can see it in or through the windshield.  A “windshield” is a large glass window in the front of a car that a driver looks though to see where he or she is going.  My parking permit has to be seen through the windshield so that if a guard walks by, he or she will know that I have permission to park my car there.  If I don’t have permission, my car may be towed (towed).  If your car is “towed,” the company brings a truck and they take it away, and then you have to pay extra money to get it back, so you don’t want to do that.  Next I take my briefcase out of the back seat, the second row of seats in the car is called the “back seat.”  A “briefcase” is a small container or bag that people use to carry their work papers in.
 
Then I lock up the car.  “To lock up” means to use a key to close the locks on the doors of one’s car or home so that other people cannot get in without a key.  You probably lock up your house before you go to sleep at night.  Well, I am locking up my car before I go into the office so no one steals it.  Here I could also just say “lock” – I “lock” my car, but we often say “lock up” (two words) to add more emphasis to the sentence.  After I lock up my car, I walk toward the building.  It’s a short walk and I’m there in no time.  The phrase “in no time” means very quickly, right away, or with very little delay.  If you listen to ESL Podcast premium courses like this, you’ll learn new vocabulary in no time, or very quickly.
 
When I get to the office building, I take out my badge and put it around my neck.  “To take out” means to remove from something, such as remove it from my briefcase.  A “badge” (badge) is a piece of identification, usually or often with a photograph, that shows that a person works for a specific organization or business.  A badge is something that you wear so people can see it.  In this case, I put it around my neck; it is hanging from my neck.  Usually, there’s a piece of string or some other fabric that holds the badge.  Police officers always have badges that they keep in their pocket.  If someone knocks on your door and they say that they are police offices, you may ask them to show their badge before you allow them into your house.   
 
I put my badge around my neck so that people can see it and then I go through the main entrance of the building.  A “main entrance” is the front door of a building, or the primary place where people enter a building that has more than one entrance.  A main entrance is usually bigger and perhaps nicer or more beautiful than the other entrances.  Where I work, the employees (or the people who work at the company) are supposed to show their badges at all times.  The phrase “at all times” means always or all the time.  For example, parents want to know where their children are at all times.  At my office, people are supposed to wear their badges at all times so that the security guards know that we belong there.  A “security guard” is a person who decides who can and cannot enter a building for safety reasons.  Security guards are popular at many U.S. companies, to protect the employees.  They usually wear uniforms, they look a little like police officers but they are not; they are private guards.  Sometimes in American businesses security guards will have guns.
 
I said that one day last week I forgot my badge at home, meaning that I forgot to bring it to work.  That day, I had to get a visitor’s pass.  A “visitor’s pass” is a piece of paper that lets a visitor enter a building where he or she does not work, usually because he or she has a meeting there.  A pass is similar to a permit; it allows you to do something, to enter somewhere.  To get a visitor’s pass, you usually walk into the building and tell the security guard that you have a meeting with someone.  The security guard calls that person to confirm that you do, in fact, have a meeting, and then gives you a visitor’s pass, which might be a sticker that you put on your clothes or a badge to wear on your shirt.  When I had to get a visitor’s pass, my coworker made fun of me all day.  “To make fun of someone” means to laugh at someone or to make other people laugh at someone in a way that isn’t very nice.  If I use the wrong word in Spanish, French, or Italian and someone laughs at me and begins to copy my mistake, he is making fun of me.  It’s not a very nice thing to do.  My coworker made fun of me by asking whether he could get me some coffee and asking when I was leaving, because those are the types of things that you would ask a regular visitor; to be nice, you may offer to get them some coffee.  I wasn’t angry, though.  I said, “What a joker!” meaning that my coworker is always making funny jokes like that; he’s a joker.
 
Now that we’ve talked about the new vocabulary, let’s listen as I describe the first part of my day again.  This time, I’m going to speaking more quickly, at the speed that a native speaker would use.
[start of script]
 
I woke up this morning and thought, “TGIF!”  I have been looking forward to the weekend and all I need to do is to get through one more day of work.
 
I drive to work and pull into the parking lot next to my office building.  I stop at the security gate.  I put my key card into the card reader and the security arm goes up.  I drive into the parking structure and find a parking spot.  I make sure that my parking permit is showing in the windshield and I lock up.  I get my briefcase out of the back seat and walk toward the building.  It’s a short walk and I’m there in no time.   
 
When I get there, I take out my badge and put it around my neck before I go through the main entrance of the building.  Employees are supposed to wear their badges at all times at work so that the security guards know that we belong there.  One day last week, I forgot my badge at home and I had to get a visitor’s pass for the day.  My coworker made fun of me all day.  He kept asking me if he could get me some coffee and when I was leaving.  What a joker!  
 
[end of script]
 
I hope that listening to me talk about arriving at work has taught you some new vocabulary that you can use in your own workplace.  Our first lesson has ended, and in the next lesson I’m going to talk about checking my mail, email, and voicemail.
 
This course has been a production of the Center for Educational Development, in beautiful Los Angeles, California.  Visit our website at eslpod.com.
 
This course was produced by Dr. Jeff McQuillan and Dr. Lucy Tse.  Copyright 2008.
 
 
Lesson 2 - Checking Mail, Email, and Voicemail

SCRIPT
 
The first thing I do when I get to work each morning is to check my inboxes.  I go to the mailroom to check my mail slot to see what mail has arrived overnight.  There are always a lot of intra-office and inter-office letters and memos.  Much of it is junk mail, so I spend a few minutes sorting through it.   
 
The next thing I do is to turn on my computer to check email.  I open my email program and my new messages automatically download into my inbox.  Even though I have a pretty good spam filter, I still check through my trash folder carefully to make sure nothing important was filtered out.  We’re also not supposed to get personal emails at work, but sometimes my friends send or forward me messages to this address and I have to make sure I respond using my personal email address.  When I don’t have time to finish a message or when I get interrupted, I save it into my draft folder.
 
Finally, I check my voicemail.  I call the voicemail system and enter in my PIN to bypass the outgoing message.  I have two new messages, and after listening to them, I save one of them and delete the other.   
 
I look at the clock and it’s already 9:30 AM!  It’s time for the morning meeting.
 
_____________
 
 
GLOSSARY
 
inbox – an electronic space or a real box that holds emails, papers, and other things that one needs to read and respond to
*Mike has two inboxes on his desk: one for things that have to be responded to right away, and one for things that he can read whenever he has some free time.
 
mailroom – a room in a large office building where mail is organized so that it can be given to the right people
*Every afternoon the mailroom receives thousands of pieces of mail and the workers have to deliver them to the right people by 5:00 p.m.
 
mail slot – a small box that has a person’s name on it and holds mail for that person
*When you go on vacation, don’t forget to put an “out of office” sign on your mail slot, so that people know you won’t be coming in to get your mail.
 
intra-office – within one office or office building
*Kelly works in this building on the 29th floor, so if you want to send her something, you should put it with the intra-office mail.
 
inter-office – among many offices or office buildings
*Many companies have inter-office mail, because having someone take large bags of mail from one office building to another is cheaper and faster than using the regular mail service.
 
memo – memorandum; a short written document that describes something at work, usually with four lines at the top: the name of the author, the name of the person it’s going to, the subject, and the date
*The president doesn’t have time to read a long report, so please send her a one-page memo that describes the report’s most important ideas.
 
junk mail – mail or email that doesn’t have any useful or helpful information and that one throws away or deletes without reading; spam; unwanted mail or email * If you receive a lot of junk mail, you can call this phone number and ask to have your name taken off of many companies’ mailing lists.
 
to sort – to put things in order; to divide things into different groups or categories * Please sort these books by author, so that everything written by Tolstoy is on the right and everything written by Dostoevsky is on the left.
 
to download – to copy a file from the Internet or a large network computer onto one’s own computer
*Do you download music from the Internet?
 
spam filter – the part of an email program that keeps spam, or unwanted emails, from coming into an email inbox
*If your spam filter is too high, some of your friends’ email might go to your spam folder where you won’t see it.
 
trash – garbage; a place to put things that should be thrown away or deleted * I accidentally deleted a very important email, but I was able to find it in the trash folder and save a copy of it.
 
to forward – to send an email that one has received to other people * When your sister sends you an email with the photos from the party, please forward it to me.
 
draft – something that one has begun to write but has not yet finished; an unfinished document; an unfinished piece of writing
*I just finished writing a draft of the email I want to send to Carol, but I’m going to wait a few hours and read it again after lunch before I send it.
 
voicemail – recorded voice messages from people who called your phone number when you weren’t able to answer the phone
*I try to remember to delete my voicemail messages after listening to them, because if there are too many, people won’t be able to leave me new messages.
 
PIN – Personal Identification Number; a set of secret numbers that are used as a password for getting information or money
*Don’t write down your PIN.  If other people see it, they can use it to get your private information.
 
to bypass – to skip something; to go around something
*You can bypass the road construction on Main Street by driving on Holly Street instead.
 
outgoing message – the recorded voice message that callers hear when they call a phone number but nobody answers
*Make sure that your outgoing message on your home answering machine is friendly but professional, in case your boss calls you at home.   
 
to save – to keep something for use in the future; to not delete or throw away something
*Cassidy always saves tickets from the museums she goes to, so that she can remember where she went on her vacations.  
 
to delete – to get rid of an electronic file or message; to remove something from one’s computer
*I accidentally deleted my homework, so now I have to do it again.
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
 
Welcome to lesson two of ESLPod.com’s “Using English at Work.”  I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from the Center for Educational Development.
 
In the first lesson of “Using English at Work,” we learned vocabulary about arriving at work, or getting to the office.  In this second lesson, we’re going to talk about checking email, mail, and voicemail at work.
 
Let’s get started by listening to the story of this part of my day at a slow speed.
 
[start of script]
 
The first thing I do when I get to work each morning is to check my inboxes.  I go to the mailroom to check my mail slot to see what mail has arrived overnight.  There are always a lot of intra-office and inter-office letters and memos.  Much of it is junk mail, so I spend a few minutes sorting through it.   
 
The next thing I do is to turn on my computer to check email.  I open my email program and my new messages automatically download into my inbox.  Even though I have a pretty good spam filter, I still check through my trash folder carefully to make sure nothing important was filtered out.  We’re also not supposed to get personal emails at work, but sometimes my friends send or forward me messages to this address and I have to make sure I respond using my personal email address.  When I don’t have time to finish a message or when I get interrupted, I save it into my draft folder.
 
Finally, I check my voicemail.  I call the voicemail system and enter in my PIN to bypass the outgoing message.  I have two new messages, and after listening to them, I save one of them and delete the other.   
 
I look at the clock and it’s already 9:30 AM!  It’s time for the morning meeting.  
 
[end of script]
 
We begin our story by saying that the first thing I do when I get to work each morning is to check my inboxes.  An “inbox” is an electronic space or a real box that holds emails, or if it’s a real box, papers, and other things that you need to read and respond to.  In an email program, the inbox is usually the main screen.  On your desk, it’s probably a small box that other people put papers into.  I check my inboxes, meaning that I look to see if there is anything inside them.   
 
First, I go to the mailroom. A “mailroom” is a room in a large office building where mail is organized so that it can be given to the right person.  Offices with many employees might receive thousands of pieces of mail, so they need to have special employees who work in the mailroom and make sure that each piece of mail gets to the right person.  You may start out in a company by working in the mailroom, which is usually considered the lowest level job in a company.  Some people think that if you work hard enough, you can start in the mailroom and someday be president, although I don’t think that happens very often in most companies!
 
When I’m in the mailroom, I check my mail slot to see what mail has arrived overnight.  A “slot” is normally a small rectangular opening in something, but a “mail slot” is a small box that has a person’s name on it and holds mail for that person.  Some houses have mail slots in their front doors.  I live in an older house, where we still have a mail slot in our door; many houses now, however, have “mailboxes,” these are little boxes outside of your house.  In the story, I’m talking about the mail slots in the mailroom in the office building where I work.   
 
There are always a lot of intra-office and inter-office letters in my mail slot.  An “intra- (intra-) office letter” is one that is sent and received within one office building.  An “inter- (inter-) office letter” is one that is sent between different offices of the same company.  For example, if I work at a large bank and I want to send something to a customer, I put it in the regular mail.  I use, in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service; I put a stamp on it, I put it in the mailbox, and it is delivered to the other company.  If I want to send something to someone who works for my company – my bank, but in another office, perhaps in the other side of the city, then I put it in inter-office mail.  This way, at the end of the day someone will carry a large bag with all the inter-office mail to the other office, because this is cheaper and usually much faster than using the regular public mail.  And if I need to send something to someone who works in my office in the same building, but I’m feeling lazy and I don’t want to take the time to walk to his or her desk, I’ll put it in the intra- (intra) office mail, and at the end of the day someone will deliver all the intra-office mail to the right people who work in my office building or put it into the right mail slot for that person.
 
My mail slot has a lot of intra-office and inter-office letters and memos.  A “memo” is short for “memorandum.”  It’s usually a short written document that describes something at your workplace, usually with four lines at the top: the name of the of the person who wrote the memo, the name of the person it’s going to, the subject of the memo, and the date it was written.  Busy people often don’t have time to listen to people talk about their ideas or to read long reports, so writing up a one-page memo is a good way to let those people know about the most important ideas.  Companies often use memos to provide information quickly to their employees.
 
Many of the letters and memos I receive are what I call “junk mail.”  “Junk mail” is mail or email that doesn’t have any useful or helpful information in it; it’s the mail that you throw away or delete from your email program without reading.  It’s mail that you didn’t ask for and that you don’t want.  Another word for “junk mail” when we’re talking about email is “spam.”  At my house, most of the junk mail I get are advertisements that I don’t want, so I throw them away without even reading them.  At the office, I spend a few minutes sorting through the junk mail.  “To sort” means to put things in order, or to divide things into different groups or categories.  In this case, I’m separating the junk mail from the mail I really want to read.  You might, for example, sort your clothes by color, or you might sort your papers in alphabetical order from A to Z.
 
After sorting through my junk mail, I turn on my computer to check email.  I open my email program and my new messages automatically download into my inbox. “To download” means to copy a file from the Internet or a large network computer onto your own computer.  Many people like to download music or videos from the Internet.  My email gets downloaded from the company’s large computer servers into my inbox, the electronic space for new messages that I need to read.  I have a pretty good spam filter.  A “spam filter” is usually part of your email program that keeps, or prevents, spam – unwanted emails – from coming into your email inbox.  We say the spam filter “traps” a lot of emails for advertisements and other things I never asked for.  “To trap,” here, means to get, to hold, and not to let go so that you don’t see them when you open your inbox.  Sometimes a spam filter is too high and it puts emails that want to see into the trash or spam folder by accident or by mistake.  We talk about a spam filter being “high,” that means it’s trapping too many messages.  That’s why I still check through my trash folder carefully to make sure nothing important was trapped or filtered out.  “Trash” is another word for garbage, or something that you throw away, that you don’t want.  So your “trash folder” is where the email program may put trash – things you don’t want.  Many email programs have a separate “spam folder,” where all the spam messages go.  When I check through my trash folder, I look at all the messages in the folder, just to make sure they’re really trash or things I don’t want anymore, so I can read any messages that were put there by accident.
 
We’re not supposed to, at my office, get personal emails at work, but sometimes my friends send or forward me messages to my work address.  “To forward (something)” in this case means to send an email that you have received to other people.  Sometimes my friends and relatives forward funny jokes – although usually they’re not very funny!  They didn’t write the jokes, but they receive them from other people and then forward them to their friends.  When my friends forward messages to my work email address, I have to make sure I respond to or answer them using my personal email address, not my work email address.  When I don’t have time to finish a message, or when I get interrupted, I save my message into my draft folder.  A “draft” is an unfinished document, or something that you have begun to write but have not yet finished.  You go through many drafts, usually, when we write things, especially formal reports.  We hope that each time we write a new draft, or revise or change the draft it gets better.  A “draft folder” is where an email program puts messages that you have started writing but aren’t ready to send yet, you still haven’t finished them.  Later, when you have time, you can go back to your draft folder, finish writing the message that you started earlier, and then send it to someone after you’ve finished it.
 
Finally, or lastly, I check my voicemail.  “Voicemail” is a system of recorded voice messages from people who call your phone number when you aren’t able to answer the phone.  We used to have what we called “answering machines,” which had cassette tapes to record messages, but most companies today are computerized and they use something that we call “voicemail.”  At my house, however, we still have one of the old answering machines, not voicemail.   
 
I call the voicemail system and enter in my PIN.  “PIN” is an acronym, where each letter is the first letter of another word.  Here “PIN” means “Personal Identification Number.”  A PIN is usually a set of secret numbers – four to six – that are used as a password for getting information or for getting money.  When you take cash out of an ATM or bank machine, you usually have to enter your PIN.  You might also have a PIN for registering for a class at college.  The PIN I’m talking about here is for listening to my voicemail messages.
 
When using voicemail, you can often use your PIN to bypass the outgoing message.  “To bypass something” means to skip something or to go around something that you don’t want to see or hear.  For example, many websites have introductory screens, sometimes with video and music; you can usually bypass this introduction – these screens – by clicking on “skip introduction” or “skip this.”  “To skip” is the same as to go to the next step without looking or seeing the current screen.  When I call the voicemail system, it usually plays my “outgoing message,” the message people hear when they call me.  But by entering my PIN I bypass that outgoing message, because I don’t need to hear it.