Our theme for today is doing the bare minimum(最低标准). You can think about a job you have to do, and you do the opposite of doing a good job. You do just enough so that it will pass, and you won’t get fired. You could think about working at an office and you have to do a report, you do just the bare minimum. If you did any worse, you’ll be fired. So, the expression we are going to learn is about this kind of situation.

to cut corners

（做事）图省事，贪便宜，取捷径

We use this expression as a verb. When I hear this expression, I think of somebody taking a short cut. Is that what comes to your mind too? So, when you cut corners, it means just like what we are discussing earlier. It means not doing a job or a task really well. It means putting in low efforts. It looks shabby(劣质的) and half-done. It looks like either you didn’t have enough time to finish it, or you are just too lazy.

I actually kind of hate cutting corners. I do it myself sometimes as well, but it’s like why bother trying it at all when you not even give it your best. I was talking to one of my friends this week and she was at work interviewing people for an opening at her office. She was laughing about one of the candidates who came in for the interview. Because it’s very evident that she cut corners when she was preparing the interview. She doesn’t know anything about the company. She even doesn’t know what job she’s applying for.

Let’s look at some examples.

EXAMPLE I

A: I can’t get this stupid blender to work. Keeps getting stuck when I try to make a shake.

B: That’s because you bought the cheapest one in the store. The company obviously cuts some corners when making it. How else do you think they could sell it for so cheap?

A: Lesson learned, I guess. I’ll get a better one next time.

We just see two friends are talking about a blender. Stupid blender. Why stupid? It broke. When a friend tries to make a shake, the blender broke. It broke because it’s a cheap model. She suspects that the company cuts corners when producing it. The company is maybe trying to keep the production cost low, and the result is just the blender that doesn’t work.

Let’s move on to another example.

EXAMPLE II

A: So, I finally got my boss to look over my proposal for the spring marketing campaign.

B: What did he say?

A: He said it looked good and that he was happy that I didn’t cut any corners or leave any rocks unturned. 没有偷工减料

B: Awesome, I smell a promotion in your future.

A: Oh, that’d be nice.

In this example, we have one person who got a promotion because she didn’t cut corners when creating a marketing campaign for her company. Here we have another expression ‘leave any rocks unturned’, meaning you do something completely. You did everything with your best ability with everything finished.

There is another interesting expression in this example, which is ‘I smell a promotion’. When we predict something, we can use this. For example, I smell success in your future. If you think someone is lying, you can say ‘I smell bullshit’. We say that if we feel or we sense something that is going to happen.