Take advantage of

To 'take advantage' is to enjoy a benefit or treat someone unfairly for personal gain

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Take advantage of

“Take advantage of” is a very, very common expression in English. And you might have even used it yourself. But did you know it has two meanings? And did you know those are very different meanings? If you’re not using it the right way, you could cause confusion or embarrassment.

So today, you’ll learn both ways of using it—and you’ll learn how to avoid confusion when saying “take advantage of.”

Get a benefit that’s available

Here’s the first meaning. To “take advantage of” a situation is to make good use of it. Something is available to you and you use it. You enjoy a benefit from it. This is a positive thing—or neutral at worst.

Here are some examples. Let’s say you enjoy riding your bike outside. And let’s pretend that it’s late September and you live in the northern Hemisphere. The cold weather is coming. Pretty soon, you won’t be able to ride your bike outside because it will be too cold.

So imagine it’s a nice sunny day. You might say, “I’m going to take advantage of the nice weather and go on a long bike ride.” You take advantage of the weather. The weather is an opportunity: it’s a chance for you to enjoy a bike ride, which is something you like. You are going to benefit from that chance. So we say, you are going to take advantage of the good weather.

You might remember that interest rates were very low from about 2010 to about 2020. I bought a condominium in Chicago in 2016. I had what I thought was a good interest rate. But then two years later, rates had dropped again. Most people in the U.S. have fixed-rate mortgages. So when interest rates go down, you can take advantage of them by refinancing your loan. That means, pay back the old loan and get a new one with the lower rate.

So I took advantage of the lower interest rates by refinancing when rates were really low. Nobody got hurt by my actions. This was an opportunity available to me. I took an action to benefit from the opportunity. So I took advantage of the opportunity.

If a store is offering a limited-time sale, you can take advantage of the sale by buying the things you want and need while they are discounted.

When you take advantage of an opportunity, you take some action. This isn’t something that happens to you; this isn’t a stroke of good fortune. You do something to enjoy an opportunity. You go for a bike ride, you refinance your loan, you buy something on sale.

All right. So that’s the first definition.

Treat a person unfairly for your own gain

The second meaning of “take advantage of” is negative—very negative. It means to treat a person or a system unfairly for your own personal benefit. And the key here is, unfairly.

Let’s take two examples from the workplace.

Imagine a company where employees are paid hourly and there is no expectation of overtime work. But one manager regularly asks some employees to work overtime without paying them overtime. The workers need their job and they’re afraid to say no.

In this case, we can say, “The manager is taking advantage of the workers by making them put in extra hours without extra pay.” The manager is acting unfairly for his own gain. The workers are being treated unfairly, as their extra effort isn’t rewarded. The manager is taking advantage of them.

Here’s another example. A lot of times, telephone salespeople target the elderly. Many elderly people like to be helpful, so they have a hard time saying “no.” Sometimes they’re lonely. Sometimes they can’t really decide if they need something or not. They sometimes get confused on the phone. And—I hate to say it—but some unethical salespeople know this. And they take advantage of the elderly people.

They use high-pressure tactics to sell them extra insurance they don’t need, or add-ons to their cell phone bills, or other services that are useless or fake. These unethical salespeople take advantage of elderly people. They act unfairly for their own personal gain.

So in this second definition of “take advantage of,” there is always a winner, there is always a loser, and the person who gets the benefit is acting unfairly.

Avoiding confusion between the two meanings

All right, got it? Now here’s one. You tell me if this is the first meaning or the second meaning. Remember, the first meaning is to get a benefit from an opportunity that is available to you. Nothing wrong with that. The second meaning is to act unfairly toward a person or a system.

So here we go. Imagine a company offers unlimited vacation days. That’s becoming more common in the U.S. now. It doesn’t mean you can take every day off; it just means the company doesn’t track or count. You’re on the honor system to take a reasonable amount.

So here’s the sentence: “JR is taking advantage of the company’s vacation policy.”

So which is it? Is JR enjoying the benefit of something available to him? Or is JR abusing the vacation policy, taking advantage in an unfair way?

It’s a trick question because in this sentence, you can’t tell. It can be interpreted either way. It might mean that he worked really hard for a few months and is taking a well-deserved ten-day vacation. That’s taking advantage in the good way, using something that’s available to him. That’s what it’s for. Or that very same sentence could mean, he just never comes to work on Fridays. That’s taking advantage in the bad way.

So this can cause confusion and that means you need to be careful. In situations like this, where it can be interpreted either way, you can clarify what you mean.

If you want to say he’s acting unfairly, you can say this: “taking unfair advantage.” So if JR—and he would never do this—but if JR decided he was just going to stop working on Fridays, and sometimes Thursdays, because there’s “unlimited vacation,” you can say, “JR is taking unfair advantage of the company’s vacation policy.”

But if you wanted to clarify that he’s not doing anything wrong, you can instead say “make the most of.” You can say, “JR is making the most of the company’s vacation policy.” That’s great; he’s using it for what it’s intended for. And if you say, “make the most of,” you can avoid any confusion about the phrase “take advantage.”

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Story: Lesson