PIKR Pick the pikr

BEFORE YOU WATCH1. What kinds of daily and/or seasonal chores need to be done at

your home? (household, maintenance, gardening, etc.) Which are you responsible for doing or helping someone else with? Are there any of them you don’t enjoy? Have you ever wished someone else would do them for you instead?

2. What kinds of household, gardening, or maintenance skills do you have? Can you decorate a wall, wire a socket or paint a door? Can you rake the yard, clean the bathroom, organize an office, refinish a piece of furniture, etc.? Are there any tasks you would be interested in learning that you don’t know how to do now? E.g. interior decorating, landscape design, mechanical, electrical, or computer repair, etc.

3. Do you have any experiences doing maintenance, gardening, or household work for someone else for pay? Share your experience.

Exercise 1

1. The speaker uses the term “micro jobs” to refer to gardening, cleaning, transporting objects etc.

2. Pikr is how the speaker’s website calls a person that offers a service.

3. The most popular category of services is gardening.

4. The highest demand for gardening services is in summer.

5. When you choose your Pikr, you have to pay for their services in advance.

6. If a Pikr finishes a task, they are awarded a certain number of points to give customers an idea whether the Pikr works well.

7. Pikrs are not allowed to make deals with “bosses” outside the system.

WHILE YOU WATCHExercise 2

Are these statements TRUE or FALSE?

Listen and fill in the gaps

Exercise 3

Match the English expressions with their Czech equivalent

AFTER YOU WATCHExercise 4

ROLE PLAY1. GROUP DISCUSSION: What do you think about the business model of

the company? Is it something you could use in your ideas for how companies develop and function? Why are mini-jobs important in today’s society? Do you think that there is a growth potential for this kind of business? Are there other kinds of mini-jobs you can think of that could be added to their business model?

2. TEAMWORK: Work in groups of 3. One person is a Pikr, one person is a boss and one person is the lead technical person for the company. You are mediating a conflict that has happened on the job during one of the provisions that was agreed upon. Decide what the conflict is about and how it will be resolved. Prepare a dialogue and skit and act it out for the rest of the groups.

3. REFLECT: What kinds of responsibilities do both Pikrs and Bosses need to accept in order to do business together? What kinds of communication skills do you think people who work as Pikrs need to have? Would you like working in this kind of a business model or would you prefer to work for only one employer? What are the advantages and disadvantages for you as a Pikr? As a boss? As the owners of the company?

Exercise 5

Exercise 6