Ivan at Work: The Cyprus Question (TBL, B1+)

TASK-BASED LESSON

Ivan at Work: The Cyprus Question

PICTURE

(you add this)

"Seryoga. It's me. I need your brain."

Speaking

Reading

1 · LEAD-IN · 5-8 MIN

Work, and why we do it

Just talk. Nothing here is being corrected.

1. What was your very first job? What did it teach you?

2. Think of the best manager you have ever had - what made them good? And the worst? How do you feel about your own skills as a manager?

3. What gets you out of bed on a Monday: money, interest, people, habit - or something else?

4. Have you ever thought about moving abroad? Under what circumstances would you do it?

PICTURE

(you add this)

2 · CHECKING IN ON IVAN · 10 MIN

Six months later

Let's see how Ivan Petrov is doing. He took your advice and took the flat in the city centre. That was 6 months ago. A lot has happened since then.

PICTURE

(you add this)

FIRST READING - THE GIST

1. What is Ivan's problem now?

2 · CHECKING IN ON IVAN

Six Months Later

A ring, a promotion, and an all-hands meeting.

A lot can change in six months. The flat in the city centre - the one that was supposed to "buy time" - has quietly become a home. Alina moved in after a couple of months, arriving with eleven boxes, four plants, and a reading lamp that Marsik the cat destroyed. One evening, at home, Ivan finally took the ring out of the backpack. Alina said yes before he finished the sentence. They are engaged. They have not set a date - "after things calm down," they keep saying.

Alina's career certainly hasn't calmed down. She was promoted to Head of Marketing - the youngest in the company's history. She loves it with an energy that Ivan finds slightly frightening. She leads a team of eight, she's building something, and her CEO has hinted that this is only the beginning. Her job, it goes without saying, is here, in this city, in an office she actually likes going to just 5 minutes from their flat.

And then, two weeks ago, Ivan's company called an all-hands meeting.

The news wasn't a complete surprise - there had been rumours for months. Because of growing difficulties with international clients and payments, the company is relocating its entire operation to Cyprus. Limassol, to be exact. Every employee has received the same offer: relocate with us, with a full package - or stay behind, because from October, the company will no longer employ anyone in Russia.

Ivan has spent two weeks making spreadsheets. The spreadsheets, for the first time in his life, have not helped. Last night he sent a voice message to his old friend Sergey - the person he always calls when a decision is too big for one head.

2 · CHECKING IN ON IVAN

Ivan calls in a favour

"Seryoga. Listen, I need your brain. The company's moving to Cyprus and I've got four possible options. Every one of them breaks something in my life. Alina says she'll support whatever I choose, which makes it worse, not better. Can we meet tomorrow? I'll buy the coffee. I'll buy you dinner. I'll buy you a bloody car. Just help me think."

- Ivan, voice message, 23.41

You are Sergey. You said yes, obviously. Tomorrow is now.

2 · COMPREHENSION

The situation map. Complete it from the text.

Ivan and Alina: home, engagement, wedding date

Alina's career - and what it means for where she can live

What is happening to Ivan's company, and why

The deadline

Why "Alina will support anything" makes this harder, not easier

1. Before you see the options: what do you already know about Ivan - his work, his personality, his money - that is going to matter in this decision?

3 · THE FOUR ROADS

The four roads

Read all four before you say anything. Every one of them breaks something.

A

Relocate to Cyprus with the company

B

A remote job with a St Petersburg company

C

Found his own company

D

The Moscow job

OPTION A · RELOCATE

Cyprus, with the company

Limassol · salary in euros, +30% · relocation costs and paperwork paid

• Ivan keeps his job, his team and his eight years of seniority.

• He simply keeps living his exact life - in the sun, by the sea, with better internet.

• The company is stable there. It was only unstable here.

• But one line in the package changes everything: family visas are for spouses. Fiancees do not count.

• Going together means marrying within two months - a registry office on a deadline, instead of the wedding they have not even started planning.

• And that is the smaller problem. Alina's brand-new career does not relocate. Head of Marketing of a Russian company cannot be done from Limassol.

• So Option A really means: Ivan's career continues and Alina's stops - or the marriage begins with 2,500 kilometres in the middle of it.

OPTION B · STAY - REMOTE

A remote job with a St Petersburg company

125,000 roubles a month · fully remote · two interviews already done, and they liked him

• A large St Petersburg firm that builds banking software, used to distributed teams.

• Nothing changes at home: the flat, Alina's job, the gym, the wedding whenever they want it. The zero-disruption option.

• The costs are quieter but real. 125,000 is a step down from his current 150 - and a long way down from the Cyprus euros.

• The product, in Ivan's own words: "spreadsheets about spreadsheets." Solid, dull, corporate.

• He would start again at the bottom of the trust ladder: new codebase, new team, probation period, no seniority.

• And the thought he can't shake: this company serves Russian banks, in the same economy whose "difficulties" just relocated his current employer. What stops the same thing happening in a year - except next time without a relocation offer?

OPTION C · STAY - BUILD

Found his own company

3 million roubles of savings as the fuel · no salary for a year, maybe longer · the gap opens in September

• Nobody said it out loud at the all-hands: when the company leaves Russia, it leaves its Russian clients behind.

• Dozens of banks and businesses still need exactly this software, and will soon have nobody to provide it.

• Ivan knows the product to the last line of code, and he knows the clients' problems. Two colleagues who are also staying have hinted they would join him.

• The market gap is real - and it will not stay open long.

• Against that: he has never sold anything, never hired anyone, never negotiated a contract.

• A founder's life is meetings, calls and rooms full of people - a personal nightmare for a man who chose a career partly because it let him sit quietly.

• The wedding fund and the "one day we'll buy a flat" fund are the same 3 million.

• And a legal shadow: how close to his old employer's product can he build before "market gap" becomes "stolen product"? He would need real legal advice, not forum posts.

OPTION D · MOVE - MOSCOW

The Moscow job

220,000 roubles a month · five days a week in the office · three hours away by high-speed train

• Dima, Ivan's university friend, can walk his CV straight to the hiring manager.

• A serious engineering team, a modern product, a real career ladder. On pure career terms, the best job on the table.

• It is also an office job. The work-from-home life Ivan has built and loved for four years would end completely.

• And the geography is brutal. Either they both move to Moscow - which means Alina resigning the promotion she has just earned, for a job market she would have to conquer from zero -

• or Ivan lives in Moscow during the week, in a rented room that eats a third of the raise, and takes the Friday train home to a fiancee he now sees eight days a month.

• Dima does exactly this, in reverse. Ivan asked him how it is. Dima was quiet for a moment and said, "You get used to it."

3 · TASK CYCLE · STAGE 1 · 10-12 MIN

You are Sergey. The coffee has arrived.

Think out loud. Change your mind if you want to. Nobody is correcting you yet.

1. Work through all four roads with Ivan.

2. For each one, name at least two benefits and two drawbacks - not in general, but for this Ivan: the introvert, the planner, the man with an untouched 3 million, a fiancee whose career is taking off, and no wedding date.

3. Notice which options force a decision about the wedding, and which ones postpone it.

4. Then tell him which road you would take in his place - and which one you would close today.

3 · TASK CYCLE · STAGE 2 · PLANNING · 3-5 MIN

He has to answer the company - and talk to Alina first. Help him prepare.

Notes allowed. Ask me for any words or phrases you need - this is the moment to reach for new language.

My final recommendation:

Three strongest reasons:

The biggest risk of my recommendation:

How Ivan can reduce that risk:

The first sentence he should say to Alina tonight:

3 · TASK CYCLE · THE TWIST

Ivan's phone buzzes.

NEW INFORMATION

An email from HR. Employees who decline relocation will receive four months' salary as severance - 600,000 roubles. Suddenly staying behind comes with a cushion: the startup gets free fuel, the pay cut in Option B gets a bridge, the Moscow move gets a buffer.

Does your advice change?

Feedback

4 · LANGUAGE FOCUS · 10-15 MIN

Work and career: words worth owning

The words you reached for during the task - and the ones you reached for and could not find.

a relocation package what a company pays for when it moves you: flights, shipping, paperwork, often housing

severance pay money the company gives you when it ends your job

seniority the standing you have earned through years of service

a probation period the first months in a new job, when either side can end it easily

the career ladder the steps up through jobs of increasing responsibility

job security how safe your job is from disappearing

a market gap customers with a need, and nobody serving it

to start from scratch to begin again from nothing

to step down / step up to take less money or responsibility / to take more

to relocate to move a person - or a whole company - to another place

a distributed team a team whose members all work from different places

a spouse a husband or a wife. Not a fiance or fiancee - which is the whole problem with Option A.