[00:00.00]Lesson Three Text
[00:05.30]Go-Go Americans Alison R. Lanier
[00:12.15]Americans believe no one stands still.
[00:17.48]If you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind.
[00:23.43]This attitude results in a nation of people committed to researching,
[00:32.21]experimenting and exploring.
[00:36.75]Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully,
[00:44.12]the other being labor.
[00:48.69]"We are slaves to nothing but the clock," it has been said.
[00:54.94]Time is treated as if it were something almost tangible.
[01:02.01]We budget it, save it,waste it, steal it, kill it, cut it, account for it;
[01:14.97]we also charge for it.
[01:19.83]It is a precious commodity.
[01:23.70]Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime.
[01:31.85]Once the sands have run out of a person's hourglass, they cannot be replaced.
[01:39.79]We want every minute to count.
[01:44.86]A foreigner's first impression of the U.S.
[01:50.42]is likely to be that ery one is in a rush ,often under pressure.
[01:57.47]City people appear always to be hurrying to get where they are going,
[02:04.53]restlessly seeking attention in a store,
[02:09.70]elbowing others as they try to complete their errands.
[02:15.94]Racing through daytime meals is part of the pace of life in this country.
[02:23.02]Working time is considered precious.
[02:27.28]Others in public eating places are waiting for you to finish
[02:34.23]so they toocan be served and get back to work within the time allowed.
[02:42.09]Each person hurries to make room for the next person.
[02:48.15]If you don't, waiters will hurry you.
[02:53.11]You also find drivers will be abrupt and that people will push past you.
[03:02.49]You will miss smiles, brief conversations, small courtesies with strangers.
[03:10.43]Don't take it personally.
[03:14.19]This is because people value time highly,
[03:19.55]and they resent someone else "wasting" it beyond a certain courtesy point.
[03:29.21]This view of time affects the importance we attach to patience.
[03:36.87]In the American system of values, patience is not a high priority.
[03:44.63]Many of us have what might be called "a short fuse."
[03:51.76]We begin to move restlessly about if we feel time is slipping away
[03:59.20]without some return be this in terms of pleasure, work value,or rest.
[04:09.47]Those coming from lands where time is looked upon differently
[04:16.31]may find this matter of pace to be one of their most difficult adjustments
[04:25.46]in both business and daily life.
[04:30.92]Many newcomers to the States
[04:35.67]will miss the opening courtesies of a business call,for example.
[04:42.15]They will miss the ritual socializing
[04:47.11]that goes with a welcoming cup of tea or coffee
[04:53.07]that may be traditional in their own country.
[04:58.53]They may miss leisurely business chats in a cafe or coffee house.
[05:06.18]Normally, Americans do not assess their visitors
[05:13.03]in such relaxed surrounding sover prolonged small talk;
[05:20.18]much less do they take them out for dinner,or around on the golf course
[05:28.12]while they develop a sense of trust and rapport.
[05:35.28]Rapport to most of us is I less important than performance.
[05:42.65]We seek out evidence of past performance
[05:48.21]rather than evaluate a business colleague through social courtesies.
[05:55.58]Since we generally assess and probe professionally rather than socially,
[06:04.64]we start talking business very quickly.
[06:10.10]Most Americans live according to time segments laid out in engagement calendars.
[06:19.38]These calendars may be divided into intervals as short as fifteen minutes.
[06:28.73]We often give a person two or three (or more) segments of our calendar,
[06:37.87]but in the business world we almost always have other appointments
[06:45.63]following hardon the heels of whatever we are doing.
[06:52.00]Time is therefore always ticking in our inner ear.
[06:58.95]As a result we work hard at the task of saving time.
[07:06.61]We produce a steady flow of laborsaving devices;
[07:13.37]we communicate rapidly through telexes,
[07:18.94]phone calls or memos rather than through personal contacts,
[07:26.51]which though pleasant,take longer especially given our traffic filled streets
[07:35.05]We therefore save most personal visiting
[07:40.02]for after work hoursor for social weekend gatherings.
[07:47.77]To us the impersonality of electronic communication
[07:54.83]has little or no relation to the importance of the matter at hand.
[08:02.56]In some countries no major business is carried on without eye contact,
[08:12.62]requiring face to face conversation.
[08:17.97]In America, too, a final agreement will normally be signed in person.
[08:27.53]However, people are meeting increasingly on television screens,
[08:35.68]conducting "teleconferences" to settle problems not only in this country
[08:43.05]but also by satellite internationally.
[08:48.82]An increasingly high percentage of normal business is being done these days
[08:56.27]by voiceor electronic device.
[09:01.62]Mail is slow and uncertain and is growing ever more expensive.
[09:09.49]The U.S. is definitely a telephone country.
[09:15.26]Almost everyone uses the telephone to conduct business,
[09:21.42]to chat with friends,to make or break social engagements,
[09:28.27]to say their "Thank you's," to shopand to abtain all kinds of information.
[09:37.33]Telephones save your feet and end less amounts of time.
[09:44.59]This is due partly to the fact that the telephone :is good here,
[09:52.04]whereas the postal service is less efficient.
[09:57.47]Furthermore, the costs of secretarial labor,
[10:03.92]printing and stamps are all soaring.
[10:09.57]The telephone is quick.
[10:12.91]We like it.We can do our business and get an answer in a matter of moments.
[10:20.96]Furthermore, several I people can confer together
[10:27.02]without moving from their desks,even in widely scattered locations.
[10:34.38]In a big country that, too, is important.
[10:40.91]Some new arrivals will come from cultures
[10:46.87]where it is considered impolite to work too quickly.
[10:53.35]Unless a certain amount of time is allowed to elapse,
[10:59.80]it seems in their eyes as if the task being considered were insignificant,
[11:08.73]not worthy of proper respect.
[11:13.20]Assignments are thus felt to be given added weight by the passage of time.
[11:21.85]In the U.S., however, it is taken as a sign of competence to solve a problem,
[11:30.81]or fulfill a job successfully, with rapidity.
[11:36.97]Usually, the more important a task is, the more capital, energy,
[11:46.43]will be poured into it in order to "get it moving." |