The phenomenon of stress has been widely discussed and referred to as one of the central problems of our age. Globalization and

admin2019-04-17  11

问题     The phenomenon of stress has been widely discussed and referred to as one of the central problems of our age. Globalization and the improved technology it brings only seems to make this problem worse, creating more options while at the same time making our lives more complex. Closely bound up with stress is the problem of "time famine". In Britain, for example, the combination of the longest working hours in Europe and the highest proportion of working women in Europe means people have less and less time to themselves. Add to this the rise in the number of single-person households and the work ethic promoted by successive governments since the early eighties and it becomes easy to see why time is now at a premium for so many of us.
    One response to this has come from the USA, so often the forerunner in what is fashionable, in the form of lifestyle management. This involves hiring a company to repair the house, do the shopping and a host of other time consuming tasks. Some analysts insist that the management of people’s time could be big business in the next 10 years. In the USA lifestyle management companies have been around for a while but now it seems that the British are keen to use them too.
    What most potential customers want is quality time. This means taking away the day to day hassles connected with running our lives. Whereas in the past there always seemed to be time for arranging private lives and keeping up with everyday demands of house, health, children or holidays, nowadays the work obsessed population, tied to the office, do not appear to be able to cope with such inconveniences. In other words, people require a separate Personal Assistant for their lifestyle!
    The jury is out, however, as to whether this new service is beneficial or not. Being constantly pressed for time is undoubtedly stressful and what could be better than relieving such pressures by offloading some of our more mundane tasks on a willing helper? Perhaps this can also be a way to ensure that you get quality service:. It is often said that a large part of Britain’s service sector aims purely and simply at short term profit in return for bad quality goods and poor service. If you put experts in charge of finding a good plumber at a reasonable rate you can at least be assured that your leaking pipes will be fixed properly.
    This raises an important question, however. Is it really good for us to create more time to spend at work when we are already exhausted from working long hours? It may be far more important to take control of our private lives ourselves and in so doing relieve stress by giving ourselves a proper escape from the cares of the work-place. After all, if you do not have time to look after your own home and to organize your own life, then, just maybe, you have got your priorities wrong. There may be one reason why, in the end, the lifestyle management business will not take off in the UK and that is the inherendy conservative nature of the British. To really embrace this new concept we might all need to rethink our lives!
"time is at a premium"(line 8, paragraph 1)probably means that______.

选项 A、the longer we work, the less important time is
B、time has become harder and harder to find
C、people have more free time in America than in Britain
D、saving time is a fashionable lifestyle trend

答案B

解析 由文章第一段最后一句可知人们忙于各种事情,时间对于个人而言十分珍贵,所以选B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/vkVUFFFM
0

最新回复(0)