white lie 不是指白色的謊言，而是在形容「善意的謊言」。
I would never accept a white lie even if it is out of good intentions.
就算是出於好意，我也不能接受善意的謊言。
千萬別以為 true colors 是在指「真實的顏色」。像美國80年代女歌手 Cyndi Lauper 的歌 True Colors 裡的意思一樣，這個片語的意思是「真實的自我」或「真面目」。而歌詞中 “But I see your true colors shining through" 的意思就是 「但我看見你真實的自我閃耀著光芒」。
Once you get to know him better, you will see his true colors.
A: Our supervisor, Sally, called a meeting yesterday to talk about communication problems in our group. She got the ball rolling by asking us to talk about the problems we were seeing. She asked us not to name names.
B: So did anybody step up to the plate?
A: Not at first. She had to encourage us. She said that we had to identify the problems before we could find the solutions because they go hand in hand. Maria spoke up first. She said she didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but she thought the workload needed to be divided more evenly. Sally said that was a good start and that we were on the right track. We needed to get everything out in the open. She reminded us that no topic was out of bounds.
A: Did you attend Sally’s presentation?
B: No, I missed it, but I read her e-mail.
A: It was great. No one expected her to be so plugged in to the customer’s needs. She really below them away. I think the new product release will jumpstart our sales this quarter. It’s a long shot, but I think we may reach the 5 million dollars mark.
I’m feeling very frustrated. I have so much work to do, and I’m still waiting for tech support to upgrade my system to improve the processing speed. I feel like I’m doing the job of three people. I tried multi-tasking, but even when I talk on the phone and read and answer my e-mail at the same time, I can’t get everything done. I’m also having problems with my staff. I have one person who always make waves and causes arguments with the rest of the staff. Whenever there’s a bottleneck and work builds up so that we fall behind schedule, she’s usually responsible. Our budget has been cut, so I have to find ways to save money; this means I have to cut corners on hiring, so I can’t bring on any new people. I just have to make do with the current team. I was talking with Joe, the other supervisor, during a break. He’s in the same boat. He says his job has become a pain in the neck. His boss is always in his face about something. We both feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place. My wife is going to have a baby, so I need to have a steady income. Joe is about 25 years older than I am. He was planning to retire next year, but he put all his eggs in one basket and invested in a high-tech stock that was supposed to make him a million dollars. Then the market went south and now he’s really up a creek. He doesn’t want to tell his wife about his bad investment, so now he has to keep working for a lot longer than he expected.
Upgrade 升級
She needs to upgrade her job skills, so she’ll be more employable.
On one’s plate 有(工作)要處理
She has too much on her plate. She needs to assign some of the work to another person.
take the bull by the horns 不畏艱難
He decided to take the bull by the horns and talk to the president about the problem.
Be on the same page 見解相同
I need to meet with him before the negotiations so we are on the same page when we meet with the other company.
