双语趣听精彩世界 第15期:遛狗成为上班请假的理由?

 　　英国每日电讯：英国的上班族从本周开始有权向老板要求灵活的工作时间,而他们的老板也有义务在合理范围内考虑满足员工们的要求.

　　遛狗也能成为请假理由?

　　The Telegraph: From today, every employee in the UK has the right to ask their bosses for flexible working hours, with their company obliged to consider the request "in a reasonable manner".

　　Before, employers were only legally obliged to consider "flexibility¹ requests" from workers with children under the age of 16 or who were registered as carers.

　　While men and women were both covered by this law, in reality the majority of people making these requests have been new mothers rather than new fathers - and figures released earlier this year found that women were twice as likely as men to have these requests approved.

1 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。