BE 433: As a Rule of Thumb, Use This Vocabulary at Work!
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This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 433. As a rule of thumb, use this vocabulary at work.

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Hey, Aubrey, how are you? I'm great, Michelle. How are you? I'm good, thanks. We have been having a great time recording. Guys, Lindsay is out of town. She is out of the country. And so she will be returning. So don't you worry, she will be back. But Aubrey and I are enjoying having some time to record together. So it's fun to mix it up a little bit. I know, this has been super fun.

Yeah. So Aubrey, I have a question for you though. What is a rule of thumb you live by? Okay. I thought of this as I prepared this episode and I have a rule of thumb that I will never smell clothing that has, that is on the floor that has been on the floor because I used to, I'd be like, smell it to see if it was dirty. Cause my kids are throwing up. No, I've been burned. I'm not smelling it. It's going straight in the laundry. It might be clean. If so, I'm cleaning it again.

I've been burned. Oh my God, that is hilarious. And the same goes for dishrags on the sink. Like if there's a dishrag that's been used, I used to smell it to see if, because I don't know, maybe someone just got it out of the drawer. But then if it smells like mildewy, I'm just so, I hate that smell so much. So I just put it straight in the laundry and I get a new one. I'm not going to smell it.

That is amazing. Oh, man, I wish I had thought of any rules of thumb. Maybe you'll think of one before that. Yeah, maybe I about it for a second because it's like, what is the rule of thumb? Oh, I got one for laundry. Hilarious. I absolutely love that. So are we talking about this expression today? Yes, we got a great question about this. I'll go ahead and read it. This is from Julia.

who said, I was just listening to the podcast and Michelle mentioned the phrase rule of thumb. Could you explain what it means or how it's used? Thanks so much. And I hope you're having a great day. By the way, my English has improved a lot because of this podcast. I'd love to hear that. I hear that a lot from listeners and students. And it is so nice to hear. We're so grateful that this podcast is helping both others English and business English. Yeah. Thank you so much, Julia, for your question. Great question. And for your kind words, we really do appreciate it.

Yeah, so we're going to dive into this expression rule of thumb, as well as a couple of related expressions that we use. This means like a general guideline or principle based on experience and common sense, right? So this is what I do with this laundry in the rag. And we do this a lot at work too. We have these rules of thumb that for,

whatever it is, the way we treat coworkers, what we do at work, right? A lot of things we do, it's not because it's an actual rule in some kind of policy book. It's based on our own experience and common sense. Right, right, right. Exactly. So for example, it's a good rule of thumb to arrive everywhere early.

Yes, exactly. I tell my children, don't comment on appearance as a rule of thumb that I learned at a young age, right? Because they will just make comments about everyone's appearance. I'm like, as a rule of thumb, let's not comment on people's opinion, on other people's appearance, right? Yep, yep, yep. And yeah, it's often shortened to rule when we say as a rule. So as a rule, we should wait to hear back from the client before drafting the contract.

Yes, exactly. Often we'll shorten longer expressions like this. You don't need to say every time. As a rule of thumb, we'll just say, as a rule, we should wait to hear back from the client. We might also say, the budget is very tight on this project, so as a rule, keep spending to a minimum.

This means sort of like a general rule that we need to follow, this general guideline. But I would rarely say the full thing as a rule of thumb. We sort of know it sort of goes without saying that we know we're shortening that expression. Right, right, right. Let's get into the second one, which is rule to live by.

Right. So same idea. Right. Same general guidelines. So always assume the best in people is a good rule to live by. Exactly. Or a rule to live by is never make assumptions. But it's interesting to think about when we're at work, we have these rules to live by. Right. And it's interesting. Maybe it's about the break room. Right. A rule to live by is always clean up your sugar packets after you make coffee. Right. There's that. Yeah.

Someone who just like leaves their mess and you have like, am I supposed to clean this up? Yeah. A good rule to live by at work is like cleaning up after ourselves. Right. Right. There are certain there are unwritten rules. Right. Exactly. Right. And we use all these different phrases for it. Unwritten rules. Another one. Right. This is there's not an official policy or there shouldn't have to be. We're adults. We don't need a policy that's like, please clean up after yourself after you make coffee. You should know. Right.

Yes. And that's when you get into trouble though, when there's an unwritten rule and somebody breaks it. And that's when passive aggression starts. And maybe, you know, in the break room, somebody might leave a note on the fridge. Absolutely. This is super common, right? Because if everyone knows who is leaving this mess, everyone's sick of cleaning up after them, then you have to decide what to do. You might not really want to escalate it to management. Maybe you do leave a little note or maybe make a little joke like,

hey, I cleaned up your coffee stuff again. I don't know. It's tricky to know how to handle it because you don't want to break the connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And the third one is a general guideline. And a lot of times we say as a general guideline, right? So as a general guideline, we give clients a two-day response window.

Yes. And this I will hear a lot when someone is being trained or you're updating someone on just sort of like generally how things are handled, policies in an office, right? You might say waiting to hear back from accounting before creating work orders is a good general guideline.

So you're just sort of giving advice on the best way to do something, the best steps, the best timing. It's like, you don't have to do this this way, but it's a good general guideline. It will work well if you do that. Definitely. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, etc.

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A general guideline we follow is to always respond to a complaint within 48 hours, even if it's just to acknowledge receipt.

Okay, that makes sense. So even if we don't have a solution yet, we should still reach out? Exactly. And here's a rule of thumb: always document every step of communication. It helps protect both the company and the employee. Got it. I'll make sure to keep records updated. Good. As a rule, we stay neutral and avoid taking sides during an investigation. It's our job to facilitate, not judge. Understood. That makes sense.

One more thing, a rule to live by in HR, listen more than you speak. People often just want to be heard. Okay, I'm excited to go through this. It's interesting. This is one of those instances where you need different ways to say this, right? If you're training someone, you couldn't say a rule of thumb over and over and over. And it's interesting to look at how these phrases are being used to sort of soften what

what the trainer is needing to say, right? You don't want to sound too bossy or blunt or you're giving orders, right? You're letting them know the way things are done at work, but in a very polite, respectful way. Right. Yep. Yep, exactly. So I said a general guideline we follow is to always respond to a complaint within 48 hours.

Right, so general guideline. So there might not, it might not be like in some policy book written somewhere that we must respond within 48 hours. You're just letting me know that this is sort of the general guideline we follow to avoid complaints.

clients haven't been told we will definitely get back to them within 48 hours. It's just a guideline we're following to avoid negative repercussions. Right, right, right. Exactly. And then we used rule of thumb. So I said, and here's a rule of thumb. Always document every step of communication. Yeah, this is definitely a good rule of thumb, I think, for everybody, especially when there's some sort of conflict.

Um, you know, if somebody has a conflict with a coworker or with their boss to document, document, document, that's what I hear. Um, it does protect, um, whoever is involved. Um, so that's a good idea. This reminds me of when I was a teacher in the Bronx and New York, um,

we had to document everything, not just like the out of the ordinary bit, but like, of course, all grades, all behavior. Anytime you contacted a parent, any interventions you made to help a student, every way you were differentiating your instruction to help them. Teachers have to do so much documenting and there is no rule written somewhere, right? It's just a rule of thumb that you need to document all of this in case

you need to meet with parents or the administration and show all of the steps you have taken to try and like help a student succeed. Yeah. Yeah. That's so important. Um,

Um, so Aubrey, what was the next thing I said? Then you said, as a rule, we stay neutral and avoid taking sides during an investigation. So again, this would be something interesting that there's probably not a policy book where it says like, must not take sides, right? This is sort of common sense. It's just general knowledge. As a rule, we don't take sides during an investigation.

And then I said one more thing, a rule to live by in HR, listen more than you speak. People often just want to be heard. So I'm saying kind of a general rule, an umbrella rule in the HR industry. Yeah, in this whole field. And often we'll use it that way because we have

rules to live by in our daily life. But when it comes to, you know, at work or the field we're in, we might say a rule to live by in education, a rule to live by, and we name the field and then why this is vital in this particular field. In this case, in HR, listen more than you speak. If someone comes in with a complaint, they might just need someone to hear the complaint. That's really all they're looking for. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Oh my gosh. Well, I think this is just such a good connection skill as well to be able to express this

feeling of telling somebody, oh, this isn't the hard rule, right? You're not going to find it on a paper, but these are the general rules. These are what we do. This is really good. These are all really good for connecting in business, I think. Well, especially where if you think of the other ways you could say it, maybe you're going to say like, I think you should do this. It's smart to do this.

All of the other options are either a little more bossy or blunt or direct. These phrases really help soften it to create a better connection, right? A general guideline as a general rule. Like I'm not telling you what you have to do or what is smart to do, right? I'm just letting you know these general guidelines. It's a good way to connect and build, especially if you're talking to a peer.

You're not like a supervisor or a boss giving directives. You're peers. So you need to use that language that keeps you on an even playing field. Yeah, yeah. Such a good point, Aubrey. Yeah, and a good rule of thumb is to show you care as a leader, right? It's just good to show that you want to...

really understand your employees, you want to show that it actually means something to you, that is going to have a much better response for the employees than if you're just whatever. Absolutely, right? So we want to make sure that you didn't miss episode 429. It was called Not on My Watch: How to Show You Care as a Leader in English.

This had such great advice, great phrases for this. So scroll up if you missed it and be sure to hit follow right here on Business English if you missed it, because that means you're missing some amazing episodes. We don't want you to do that. So guys, takeaway for today, a good rule is to to live by is to use interesting phrases at work. Right. So today we gave you vocabulary that can help you connect over advice.

or policies that should be followed as a general guideline. Anything else we want to say, Aubrey, before we hop the mic? I'm excited for you guys to use this vocab. It's very common in English. You're going to hear all of these at work in everyday conversations. They're a great way to connect by softening a little bit if you need to tell someone what to do.

Yeah, especially not in a guidebook anywhere, right? It's just an unwritten rule based on common sense. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, I'm glad we talked about this today. Guys, thanks for listening. And Aubrey, thanks for hanging out. Yeah, so fun. I'll see you next time. All right. Bye, Aubrey. Bye, guys. Bye.

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