时间:2019-01-16 作者:英语课 分类:2017年NPR美国国家公共电台11月


英语课

'Just Time Together': For Some Workers, A Thanksgiving Off Is A Rare Treat


STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:


One in 10 workers in the United States works in retail 1, selling everything from clothing to groceries. For those millions of Americans, this week marks the beginning of a stressful stretch of the year - the holiday shopping season. Casey Hammond is feeling it. He works at a store selling outdoor gear 2 in upstate New York.


CASEY HAMMOND: I'm working Thanksgiving night, so I'll be working, you know, 5 to midnight, and then I'll be working again Friday morning, so I'll come back in around 8 or 9.


INSKEEP: Hammond was one of several retail workers who shared their stories of working on Thanksgiving with NPR's Alina Selyukh.


ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE 3: The way Brenda Bracey tells the story, it's just short of a miracle. For many years now, she's built a life working in retail in Florida.


BRENDA BRACEY: I have been working in grocery stores for 23 years, and I've done all different jobs.


SELYUKH: These days, she works at the deli. Last year, she switched companies, so she's starting from the bottom again.


BRACEY: It is the hardest job in the store. Physically 4, you're scrubbing 5 a lot and lifting heavy stuff.


SELYUKH: Plus, you have to wait on customers, and shoppers can be grumpy. But Bracey says it's her favorite part.


BRACEY: They're just so funny to me. If you're getting a really hard-to-handle person, you know that later on that night this is going to be the guy that you're describing to your kids, you know, and making everybody laugh.


SELYUKH: And a thing to know about grocery stores around the holidays - Thanksgiving is extremely busy. It's usually all hands on deck. When I ask Bracey about Thanksgiving work, she lets out a sigh. She says, you have to work faster and longer.


BRACEY: By the time the holiday gets here, you're just so tired. You know, you don't care. We're eating Cocoa Puffs 6 (laughter).


SELYUKH: Until last year, Bracey worked at a supermarket chain called Winn-Dixie. But remember, she has now switched jobs, so she works at a store called Publix. And there she was about a month ago working at that deli...


BRACEY: And somebody said something about, well, we're not even going to be open on Thanksgiving. And I stopped what I was doing and I said, wait a minute, we're not open on Thanksgiving? And everybody looked at me like I was an idiot 7 (laughter). And then I said, oh, my God, I'm off on Thanksgiving (laughter).


SELYUKH: What you need to realize is that this has never happened to Bracey since she took that grocery job years ago.


BRACEY: Twenty-three years.


SELYUKH: Wait, seriously?


BRACEY: This is the first Thanksgiving in 23 years that I have not worked at least an eight-hour shift.


SELYUKH: And there's more.


Do you have to work on Black Friday?


BRACEY: No. I can't believe that. That's what I'm saying. I know I sound like a crazy person, but I can't wrap my mind around this.


SELYUKH: Typically, her Thanksgiving celebration involves a lot of remote management of her sons.


BRACEY: I'll cook part of the food, and then I'll stick a little sticky note saying I go in the oven at 10:30. You know what I mean?


SELYUKH: But wouldn't it be nice to say that in person? Bracey says she's grateful to have a job in the first place. It's put food on her table, but she's also realizing the cost of those 23 years of working on Thanksgiving.


BRACEY: I don't think I realized the significance of it, and I wish I could get that back. To me, it wasn't a fair trade, not just for me but for the time that I had with those kids for stupid things like going to buy the food together; you know, just time together that we didn't have.


SELYUKH: Time that they will have this year. Alina Selyukh, NPR News.


(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MASHED 8 POTATO TIME")


THE RONETTES: (Singing) Mashed potato, wait a minute, wait a minute, mashed potato, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.



v./n.零售;adv.以零售价格
  • In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
  • These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。
n.齿轮,传动装置,设备,衣服;vt.使适应
  • We have to gear our lives to the new changes.我们必须使自己的生活适应新的变化。
  • The teeth of the wheel gear into each other.齿轮互相啮合。
n.署名;v.署名
  • His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
  • We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。
adj.物质上,体格上,身体上,按自然规律
  • He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服,心绪也很乱。
  • Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。
v.用力擦洗,刷洗( scrub的现在分词 );取消(原有安排);对…不予考虑,取消;涤气
  • I found him in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor. 我见他在厨房擦地板呢。
  • Give them a thorough scrubbing and soaking in hot water. 好好洗洗,用热水烫一烫。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧
  • We sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his. 我们坐在那里,轮番抽着他那支野里野气的烟斗。 来自辞典例句
  • Puffs of steam and smoke came from the engine. 一股股蒸汽和烟雾从那火车头里冒出来。 来自辞典例句
n.白痴,傻子,笨蛋
  • Only an idiot would make such a thoughtless remark.只有草包才会说出这样没有头脑的话来。
  • You are behaving like a perfect idiot.你表现得像个十足的白痴。
a.捣烂的
  • two scoops of mashed potato 两勺土豆泥
  • Just one scoop of mashed potato for me, please. 请给我盛一勺土豆泥。
学英语单词
accommodation trains
Ala-Cort
Alpen-Na
amenson
angulus acromialis scapulae
APACHE accelerator
asile
aspersest
average half life
axial-type internal cooling
babel quartz
base bias circuit
be packed with
belepered
bullingdon
burn ... bridges
bustle with
capillary chemistry
carberies
carbonatite alonite
chronological ordering
cilella
city and town land use tax
Clarke's column
collection of price
crude oil paraffinic
cushags
cyberchat
danny boy
diatomine
direct-current converter
disintergration
distance of visual line
embedded figure test (eft)
engineer scale
expense of administration
exsculptus
family punicaceaes
fertile branch
first cutting for regeneration
flourisher
foreign exchange gain
genus Paradoxurus
greyhound bus
greyish
hay harvest
heckelphone
hemiterpene
hyper-nationalism
insoluble resins
JFCC-ISR
Job's post
Khutsuri
King-Armstrong(units)
kinhin
knobbier
lead-splash condenser
length of saw blade
leons
lewinsville
Lionbridge
Medåker
mesmerizee
multipication rate
network backbone
NPLCA
Nucleus ventralis posterior
oiltightness
panel cointegration
particular strain
patrilocality
pelvic canal
poet shirt
precinct
pump rood
re-mapped
rebound hardometer
retarding reservoir
reverse multiple
revitz
ribgrasses
Samit, Koh
Sattahip
saxists
short-circuits
silica gel plate
sitfast
solid line
spring-head
squinting construction
staphylococcus hyicus
suicide Tuesdays
terrestrial effect
Terromontes, Pampa de los
theater navy command
thermal refractive index coefficient
Thicymetin
Thruston
unconfidents
waste money
worldly-wiseness
zirconium-95