自考英語綜合二上冊課文 lesson 3
Lesson Three Text
Go-Go Americans Alison R. Lanier
Americans believe no one stands still.
If you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind.
This attitude results in a nation of people committed to researching,
experimenting and exploring.
Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully,
the other being labor.
"We are slaves to nothing but the clock," it has been said.
Time is treated as if it were something almost tangible.
We budget it, save it,waste it, steal it, kill it, cut it, account for it;
we also charge for it.
It is a precious commodity.
Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime.
Once the sands have run out of a person's hourglass, they cannot be replaced.
We want every minute to count.
A foreigner's first impression of the U.S.
is likely to be that ery one is in a rush ,often under pressure.
City people appear always to be hurrying to get where they are going,
restlessly seeking attention in a store,
elbowing others as they try to complete their errands.
Racing through daytime meals is part of the pace of life in this country.
Working time is considered precious.
Others in public eating places are waiting for you to finish
so they toocan be served and get back to work within the time allowed.
Each person hurries to make room for the next person.
If you don't, waiters will hurry you.
You also find drivers will be abrupt and that people will push past you.
You will miss smiles, brief conversations, small courtesies with strangers.
Don't take it personally.
This is because people value time highly,
and they resent someone else "wasting" it beyond a certain courtesy point.
This view of time affects the importance we attach to patience.
In the American system of values, patience is not a high priority.
Many of us have what might be called "a short fuse."
We begin to move restlessly about if we feel time is slipping away
without some return be this in terms of pleasure, work value,or rest.
Those coming from lands where time is looked upon differently
may find this matter of pace to be one of their most difficult adjustments
in both business and daily life.
Many newcomers to the States
will miss the opening courtesies of a business call,for example.
They will miss the ritual socializing
that goes with a welcoming cup of tea or coffee
that may be traditional in their own country.
They may miss leisurely business chats in a cafe or coffee house.
Normally, Americans do not assess their visitors
in such relaxed surrounding sover prolonged small talk;
much less do they take them out for dinner,or around on the golf course
while they develop a sense of trust and rapport.
Rapport to most of us is I less important than performance.
We seek out evidence of past performance
rather than evaluate a business colleague through social courtesies.
Since we generally assess and probe professionally rather than socially,
we start talking business very quickly.
Most Americans live according to time segments laid out in engagement calendars.
These calendars may be divided into intervals as short as fifteen minutes.
We often give a person two or three (or more) segments of our calendar,
but in the business world we almost always have other appointments
following hardon the heels of whatever we are doing.
Time is therefore always ticking in our inner ear.
As a result we work hard at the task of saving time.
We produce a steady flow of laborsaving devices;
we communicate rapidly through telexes,
phone calls or memos rather than through personal contacts,
which though pleasant,take longer especially given our traffic filled streets
We therefore save most personal visiting
for after work hoursor for social weekend gatherings.
To us the impersonality of electronic communication
has little or no relation to the importance of the matter at hand.
In some countries no major business is carried on without eye contact,
requiring face to face conversation.
In America, too, a final agreement will normally be signed in person.
However, people are meeting increasingly on television screens,
conducting "teleconferences" to settle problems not only in this country
but also by satellite internationally.
An increasingly high percentage of normal business is being done these days
by voiceor electronic device.
Mail is slow and uncertain and is growing ever more expensive.
The U.S. is definitely a telephone country.
Almost everyone uses the telephone to conduct business,
to chat with friends,to make or break social engagements,
to say their "Thank you's," to shopand to abtain all kinds of information.
Telephones save your feet and end less amounts of time.
This is due partly to the fact that the telephone :is good here,
whereas the postal service is less efficient.
Furthermore, the costs of secretarial labor,
printing and stamps are all soaring.
The telephone is quick.
We like it.We can do our business and get an answer in a matter of moments.
Furthermore, several I people can confer together
without moving from their desks,even in widely scattered locations.
In a big country that, too, is important.
Some new arrivals will come from cultures
where it is considered impolite to work too quickly.
Unless a certain amount of time is allowed to elapse,
it seems in their eyes as if the task being considered were insignificant,
not worthy of proper respect.
Assignments are thus felt to be given added weight by the passage of time.
In the U.S., however, it is taken as a sign of competence to solve a problem,
or fulfill a job successfully, with rapidity.
Usually, the more important a task is, the more capital, energy,
will be poured into it in order to "get it moving."
