Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
I have had just about enough of being treated like a second - class citizen, simply because I
happened to be that put - upon member of society - a customer. The more I go into shops and
hotels, banks and post offices, rail- way stations, airports and the like, the more I'm convinced
that things are being run solely to suit the firm, the system, or the union. There seems to be a
new motto(座右銘) for the so- called 'service' organisation- Staff Before Service.
How often, for example, have you queued for what seems like hours at the Post Office or
the supermarket because there weren't enough staff on duty at all the service counters? Surely
in these days of high unemployment it must be possible to increase counter staff. Yet supermarkets, hinting darkly at higher prices, claim that bringing all their cash registers into operation at any time would increase expenses. And the Post Office says cannot expect all their service counters to be occupied 'at times when demand is low'.
It's the same with hotels. Because waiters and kitch staff must finish when it suits them,
dining rooms close earlier or menu choice is diminished. As for us guests(and how the meaning
of that word has been cut away little by little), we just have to put up with it. There' s also the
nonsense of so many friendly hotel night porters having been gradually withdrawn from service
in the interests of ' efficiency' (i. e. profits) and replaced by coin - eating machines which sup-
ply everything from beer to medicine, not to mention the creeping threat of the teamaking set in
your room: a kettle with teabags, milk bags and lump sugar. Who wants to wake up to a raw
teabag? I don' t, especially when I am paying for 'service'.
Can it be discontinued, this gradual worsening of service, this growing attitude that the
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
I have had just about enough of being treated like a second - class citizen, simply because I
happened to be that put - upon member of society - a customer. The more I go into shops and
hotels, banks and post offices, rail- way stations, airports and the like, the more I'm convinced
that things are being run solely to suit the firm, the system, or the union. There seems to be a
new motto(座右銘) for the so- called 'service' organisation- Staff Before Service.
How often, for example, have you queued for what seems like hours at the Post Office or
the supermarket because there weren't enough staff on duty at all the service counters? Surely
in these days of high unemployment it must be possible to increase counter staff. Yet supermarkets, hinting darkly at higher prices, claim that bringing all their cash registers into operation at any time would increase expenses. And the Post Office says cannot expect all their service counters to be occupied 'at times when demand is low'.
It's the same with hotels. Because waiters and kitch staff must finish when it suits them,
dining rooms close earlier or menu choice is diminished. As for us guests(and how the meaning
of that word has been cut away little by little), we just have to put up with it. There' s also the
nonsense of so many friendly hotel night porters having been gradually withdrawn from service
in the interests of ' efficiency' (i. e. profits) and replaced by coin - eating machines which sup-
ply everything from beer to medicine, not to mention the creeping threat of the teamaking set in
your room: a kettle with teabags, milk bags and lump sugar. Who wants to wake up to a raw
teabag? I don' t, especially when I am paying for 'service'.
Can it be discontinued, this gradual worsening of service, this growing attitude that the