Pacing and Pausing

    Sara tried to befriend her old friend Steve's new wife, but Betty never seemed to have anything to say. While Sara felt Betty didn't hold up her end of the conversation, Betty complained to Steve that Sara never gave her a chance to talk. The problem had to do with expectations about pacing and pausing.

    Conversation is a turn-taking game. When our habits are similar, there's no problem. But if our habits are different, you may start to talk before I'm finished or fail to take your turn when I'm finished. That's what was happening with Betty and Sara.

    It may not be coincidental that Betty, who expected relatively longer pauses between turns, is British, and Sara, who expected relatively shorter pauses, is American. Betty often felt interrupted by Sara. But Betty herself became an interrupter and found herself doing most of the talking when she met a visitor from Finland. And Sara had a hard time cutting in on some speakers from Latin America or Israel.

    The general phenomenon, then, is that the small conversation techniques, like pacing and pausing, lead people to draw conclusions not about conversational style but about personality and abilities. These habitual differences are often the basis for dangerous stereotyping (思维定势). And these social phenomena can have very personal consequences. For example, a woman from the southwestern part of the US went to live in an eastern city to take up a job in personnel. When the Personnel Department got together for meetings, she kept searching for the right time to break in — and never found it. Although back home she was considered outgoing and confident, in Washington she was viewed as shy and retiring. When she was evaluated at the end of the year, she was told to take a training course because of her inability to speak up.

    That's why slight differences in conversational style — tiny little things like microseconds of pause — can have a great effect on one's life. The result in this cause was a judgment of psychological problems — even in the mind of the woman herself, who really wondered what was wrong with her and registered for assertiveness training.

    Imagine that you're looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from Linkedln: “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren't necessarily searching for a job, but you're always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We've noticed that you're spending more time on Linkedln lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you're happy here,” she says. Uh-oh.

     It's an awkward scene. Attrition (损耗) has always been expensive for companies, but in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labor markets. Thus companies are making greater efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving ,so that managers can try to stop them. Methods range from electronic monitor to well-designed analyses of employees' social media lives.

     Some of this work may be a reason to let employees to quit. In general, people leave their jobs because they don't like their boss, don't see opportunities for promotion or growth, or are offered a higher pay; these reasons have held steady for years.

    New research conducted by CEB, a Washington-based technology company, looks not just at why workers quit but also at when. “We've learned that what really affects people is their sense of how they're doing compared with other people in their peer group, or with where they thought they would be at a certain point in life, says Brian Kropp, who heads CEB's HR practice. “We've learned to focus on moments that allow people to make these comparisons.”

Technology also provides clues about which star employees might be eyeing the exit. Companies can tell whether employees using work computers or phones are spending time on (or even just opening e-mails from) career websites, and research shows that more firms are paying attention to these things. Large companies have also begun searching for badge swipes (浏览痕迹)—- employees' use of an ID to enter and exit the building or the parking garage—to identify patterns that suggest a worker may be interviewing for a job.

    Shakespeare's Birthplace and Exhibition of Shakespeare's World

    Welcome to the world--famous house where William Shakespeare was born in1564 and where he grew up. The property remained in the ownership of Shakespeare's family until 1806. The House has welcomed visitors traveling from all over the world for over 250 years.

    Enter through the Visitors' Centre and see the highly-praised exhibition Shakespeare's World, a lively and full introduction to the life and work of Shakespeare.

    Stand in the rooms where Shakespeare grew up.

    Discover examples of furniture and needlework from Shakespeare's period.

    Enjoy the traditional English garden, planted with trees and flowers mentioned in the poet's works.

    The Birthplace is within easy walking distance of all the car parks shown on the map, nearest is Windsor Street(3 minutes' Walk)

    The House may present difficulties but the Visitors' Centre, its exhibition and the garden are accessible to wheelchair users.

    The Shakespeare Coffee House (opposite the Birthplace).

    What's the meaning of "dark horse"? It's someone who wins when no one expects it.Han Xiaopeng took China's first gold on snow. He became an Olympic "dark horse" by winning the gold medal in men's freestyle aerial skiing(自由式滑雪空中技巧) at Turin in Italy. He made two almost perfect jumps for the highest score. Han had never won a world gold medal before, let alone(更不用说) in the Olympics!

    "I never thought this would happen," said the 23-year-old. "I feel like I'm in a dream." It's China's second gold medal at the Turin Olympics. But more important, Han's gold was the country's first ever in a snow sport. In 2002, China's Yang Yang won the gold for speed skating at the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, US.

    That Han's win was unexpected doesn't mean that he didn't work hard.

    Han grew up in Jiangsu Province. Before he started his training on snow, he used to be an acrobat(杂技演员) at a circus. In 1995, a coach found his talent(才能). The coach, Yang Er'qi, said Han had the agility(灵活性) and courage to be a ski jumper. When Yang first took the 12-year-old to northern China, the boy couldn't swim, skate or ski. But he wasn't afraid of the high platform(跳台) and kept on training.

    Han almost left the sport after hurting his knee months before the Salt Lake Games. In that Olympics he only got 24th. "I was hopeless at that time, but my family and the coach stood firmly(坚强地) behind me, helping me through," he recalled.

    Han Xiaopeng worked so hard that he won the gold medal in the Olympics at last. Because of his success, more and more people in China are becoming interested in skiing. We are proud of him and we hope he will have another big success in the next winter Olympics.

    In Kansas City, Missouri, a computer helps firefighters. The computer, which works very fast, has information about all the 350, 000 street addresses in the city. Within two or three seconds after a call is received, the computer provides necessary information for the firefighters. The information is then sent to them by radio from the computer centre in the City Hall. The exact place of the burning building and its size, type and any other details are clear to them.

    The Kansas City computer system also has a medical record of each of the city's 900 firefighters. This kind of information is especially useful when a firefighter is injured. With the information, doctors at hospital can treat the injured firefighters more quickly and easily.

    The firefighters themselves greatly appreciate the computer's help. They know about possible danger ahead of them and can prepare for it. Many times the computer information helps to save lives and property (财产). Sometimes the lives are those of firefighters themselves.

    Mike Horan, a firefighter captain, says, "I feel as if the computer is ready to help me if I get hurt."

    It has been described as art by some people, but to others it's an ugly part of modern life. What is it? Graffiti (涂鸦), of course. Look around cities in the UK today and you can see graffiti on buildings, walls, doors and even on buses or trains that have stayed in one place for too long. But where modern technology creates a problem, it also finds a way to deal with it. Last week, The Weekend West was shown around the factory of a small but successful company, Hubdean.

    Hubdean's achievement is a series of special paints which are graffiti-resistant. How do they work? It couldn't be simpler. Take any graffiti-covered surface. First, a treatment called Agproclear is used. Then, using a very hot pressure jet (压力喷嘴), this treatment is taken away and the graffiti disappears at the same time. Now you have a clean wall. But before this clean wall can be painted on by graffiti lovers, a new product, Agproshield, is used. This paint has a special surface which gives it two important advantages. Firstly, spray paint (喷雾颜料) won't stick to the surface very well, and secondly, the whole surface can be cleaned very easily, just using water. Once the surface is painted, no specialist equipment is needed to keep the area clean and graffiti-free.

    Not surprisingly, Hubdean's products are used by both local governments and private companies all over the UK, and now orders are being received from around the world. This brings the company a problem, however. Can they increase production to satisfy the needs? Of course, they can build a second factory or work with a large international company to make their products. The future is looking good for Hubdean!