首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Lord Percy of Newcastle, Britain’s minister of education in 1924-29, was no fan of the fad for happy-clappy "progressive" educat
Lord Percy of Newcastle, Britain’s minister of education in 1924-29, was no fan of the fad for happy-clappy "progressive" educat
admin
2018-01-01
37
问题
Lord Percy of Newcastle, Britain’s minister of education in 1924-29, was no fan of the fad for happy-clappy "progressive" education that spread among the country’s schools on his watch. He declared that it was all nonsense: "a child ought to be brought up to expect unhappiness." This columnist feels the same suspicion of the fashion for happy-clappy progressive management theory that is rushing through the world’s companies and even some governments. The leading miscreant is Zappos, an online shoe shop. The firm expects staff to be in a state of barely controlled delirium when they sell shoes. Air stewards are trained to sound mellifluous but those at Virgin Atlantic seem on the verge of breaking out into a song-and-dance routine. Google until recently had an in-house "jolly good fellow" to spread mindfulness and empathy.
A weird assortment of gurus and consultancies is pushing the cult of happiness. Shawn Achor, who has taught at Harvard University, now makes a living teaching big companies around the world how to turn contentment into a source of competitive advantage. One of his rules is to create "happiness hygiene". Zappos is so happy with its work on joy that it has spun off a consultancy called Delivering Happiness. It has a chief happiness officer (CHO), a global happiness navigator, a happiness hustler, a happiness alchemist and, for philosophically minded customers, a happiness owl. Plasticity Labs, a technology firm, says it is committed to supporting a billion people on their path to happiness. The trend is not confined to the private sector. Several governments now publish for the benefit of their citizens regular reports on levels of national well-being.
Businesspeople have long known there is money to be made in the field. Dale Carnegie, a leadership guru, said the best way to win friends and influence people was to seem upbeat. Disneyland is still "the happiest place on earth". One of the sharpest books published on the phenomenon is "The Managed Heart", in which sociologist Arlie Hochschild noted that many employers demanded "emotional labour" from workers in the form of smiles with "positive emotion". Firms are keen to extract still more happiness from their employees as the service sector plays an ever greater role in the economy. Run-of-the-mill service firms are fighting for their lives against discounters. As customers, most people prefer their service with a smile rather than a snarl.
Some firms are trying to create some wellbeing, too, showering their employees with mindfulness courses, yoga lessons and anything else that proves that managers are interested in "the whole person". Only happy fools would take that at face value. Management theorists note that a big threat to corporate performance is widespread disengagement among workers. Happy people are more engaged and productive, say psychologists. Gallup claimed in 2013 that the "unhappiness" of employees costs the American economy $500 billion a year in lost productivity.
One problem with tracking happiness is that it is such a vague metric: it is difficult to prove or disprove Gallup’s numbers since it is not entirely clear what is being measured. Companies would be much better off forgetting wishy-washy goals like encouraging contentment. They should concentrate on eliminating specific annoyances, such as time-wasting meetings and pointless memos. Instead, they are likely to develop ever more sophisticated ways of measuring the emotional state of their employees. They might even start measuring workplace euphoria via apps, cameras and voice recorders.
The idea of companies employing jolly good fellows and "happiness alchemists" may be cringe-making, but is there anything else really wrong with it? Various academic studies suggest that "’emotional labour" can bring significant costs. The more employees are obliged to fix their faces with a rictus smile or express joy at a customer’s choice of shoes, the more likely they are to suffer problems of burnout. And the contradiction between companies demanding more displays of contentment from workers, even as they put them on miserably short-term contracts, is becoming more stark.
But the biggest problem with the cult of happiness is that it is an unacceptable invasion of individual liberty. Many companies are already overstepping the mark. A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus—a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers’ psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control.
According to the passage, Gallop’s claim that "the ’unhappiness’ of employees costs... $500 billion a year in lost productivity" (para.7) ______.
选项
A、is not well grounded and lacks specific proof and evidence
B、has proved the importance of promoting the happiness of employees
C、is based on specific data collected by Gallup through national investigation
D、dose not indicate clearly the relationship between happiness and productivity
答案
A
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/ZpCYFFFM
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
下面你将听到的这段讲话,主题是香港廉政公署和国际刑警组织如何共同合作打击贪污。DistinguishedGuests,LadiesandGentlemen,Firstofall,Iwishtocongratulatethe
InterpretthefollowingpassagesfromEnglishintoChinese.Startinterpretingatthesignalandstopatthesignal.Youmaytak
Bioinformaticsisanewcomputersoftwaretechnologythatmakesresearchfindingsongeneticengineeringpubliclyavailabletot
A、TwoTypesofStocksB、ANewStrategyofInvestmentC、DistinctionsbetweenTradingandInvestmentD、ConflictingPerspectiveson
ArecentstudybytheCenterforEconomicPolicyResearchsaysthat,inordertoeaseimbalances,theEuropeanUnionneedstoma
TheAlaskaGovernorhastakenthefollowingstepsinresponsetothePrudhoeBayoilfieldshutdownEXCEPT.
TheincreasingnumberoftheunaccompaniedchildrenacrosstheU.S.borderpresstheUnitedStatestodetainmoreandmorechil
A、Thepresidentsighedwhenheheardthesuggestion.B、Therepresentativerejectedthecommittee’ssuggestion.C、Thestudentqui
Ingeneral,oursocietyisbecomingoneofgiantenterprisesdirectedbyabureaucraticmanagementinwhichmanbecomesasmall,
A、Developingnewadvertisementsforoldproducts.B、Educatingpeopleaboutnewproducts.C、Designingusefulproductsforpeople
随机试题
下列胃镜检查术前护理中,错误的描述是()。
下列哪项不是传染病的基本特征( )。
胃溃疡节律性疼痛的特点是
期货公司应当()。
回溯整条产业链,中国奶粉业的困境是上游小农经济的困境。中国处于入口出生高峰期,所需奶粉量与出产之间存在巨大的缺口,高质量的奶源是稀缺产品,尤其在草场退化、奶农自养为主的今天。传统的畜牧模式已经成为中国奶粉发展最大的掣肘。我国的奶源无法满足暴涨的市场需求,如
下列关于春秋时期法制的表述,错误的是()。
结合材料,回答问题:材料1我们将扎实推进公共外交和人文交流,维护我国海外合法权益。我们将开展同各国政党和政治组织的友好往来,加强人大、政协、地方、民间团体的对外交流,夯实国家关系发展社会基础。
A、 B、 C、 D、 C
Peter’smotherkepttellinghimthat______inthestreetisdangerous,buthewouldnotlisten.(2007年中国人民大学考博试题)
TheSmithsonianInstitutionpreservesmorethansixty-fivemillionitemsofscientific,historical,orartisticinterest,______
最新回复
(
0
)