A lot of management training is given each year for Circle K corporation, a national chain of convenience stores. Among the topics we address in our course is the retention(保护力) of quality employees－a real challenge to managers when you consider the pay scale(标准) in the service industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants, “What has caused you to stay long enough to become a manager?” Some time later, a new manager took the question and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, “It was a $ 19 baseball glove.”
Cynthia told the group that she originally took a Circle K clerk job as an temporary position while she looked for something better. On her second or third day behind the counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year-old son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, and her first check would have to go for paying bills. Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check. When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small room in the back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was worried and confused.
Patricia handed her a box. “I overheard you talking to your son yesterday,” she said, “and I know that it is hard to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can’t pay good people like you as much as we would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you are important to us.”
The thoughtfulness, emphasis and love of this convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays.
49. Among many of the problems in the service industry, talked about in this passage, is ______.
A. how to ensure his employees’ high pay
B. how to attract more customers
C. how to look carefully after the employees
D. how to keep the good employees from leaving
50. A new manager, Cynthia would do her job well in keeping quality employees because she ______.
A. had mastered all the courses for the manager.
B. had already formed good relationship with the employees
C. knew the way how to deal with her employees
D. had her own personal experience
51. This passage shows us that to run a business well it is necessary for managers to let their employees know ______.
how much they can get for their job
B. what good positions they can get later
they are very important to the business
D. they are nice as well as useful
52. The story told in this passage tells us the employees care about ________.
A. only how large a pay they can get
B. love from the managing people rather than only money
C. if their children could be properly taken care of
D. what position they can be offered
