Listening

R=Rick P=Patricia

R So Patricia , have you given any more thought to taking on an assistant in marketing?

P Yes and I'm still not sure about it. If we decided to take someone on, where would we advertise the vacancy?

R Well, I guess we'd advertise the position internally as we always do.

P But if we advertised the job internally, we'd have the same old problems - not enough applicants and lots of internal political problems. Coukd we advertise the job outside the company for once?

R Well I suppose we could. But if we did, a lot of people wouldn't be very happy about it.

P So? Would that be a problem?

R Well, yes. I mean ,the company always talks about how we like to promote our own people and how you can develop a career with us. So it'd look a bit funny if we didn't advertise it internally first.

P But even if we promoted one of our own people, the other internal applicants wouldn't happy anyway. So what's the difference? Why couldn't we just advertise it in the national papers?

R But it's company policy. You know that. We always advertise internally first.

P Yes, I know. But why can't we try something different for a change? If we took someone on from outside the company, we'd bring some new ideas into the department . It's what we need, Rick.

R Look, why don't we just advertise it internally as we always do ,right? That'll keep everyone happy and then, after a couple of weeks, we can put an adver in the paper as well. What do you say?

P Oh all right. But I'm not going to do the intervirws. You can. I had to do the interviews last time and the people who didn't get the job didn't speak to me for weeks afterwards.