The elevator from hell?

So Friday brought my first lessons in Debrecen. I had an elementary group - silly me, thinking "elementary" meant elementary school kids. Nope, it was elementary level English learners- all of whom are in college. That was no problem. We had some fun making up telephone calls and talking about communication skills and such. The hour and a half went by fast.

Then, I had my second lesson at T-Com. It's the parent company for T-Mobile and other communication outlets. Basically the company is paying for it's salesmen to learn English so they can operate with customers better. I had an hour and a half lesson with one guy named Mike. I suspect his name is not really Mike, but he's gotten used to Westerners not being able to pronounce his actual name, so who knows. I have never taught "business" English, and quite honestly I don't know much about the business world outside of my experience at Byerlys. This was on a totally different scale, as last week Mike was on the phone with a customer from Israel. I'm not sure how that works, since they service communication systems in Hungary, but whatever. It was quite an interesting lesson for me, learning about how Hungarians conduct business, and also giving my two cents as to how Americans do business. Interesting things that I take for granted having grown up knowing - the difference between "how do you do" and "how are you doing." Mike wasn't sure how to respond to them or IF he needed to respond when someone asked him that. Did they really care how he was doing? Well no, Mike. I don't think they do, but it's just what we do. How do you explain that?

Anyhow, the point of this blog is to share the video that I took with you. These are the "elevators" at this communication company. I was walked to the business building by Anita from the language school - and she brought me up to the classroom so I had a guide for my first time on these "elevators". But they were still scary as hell. Watch and enjoy...

Next time I go there, I'm going to ride all the way around and see what happens!