Age has its privileges in America, and one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.

    People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent(有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren't.

    It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.

    Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.

    Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don't need them.

    It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.

Quiet Virtue: The Conscientious

    The everyday signs of conscientiousness (认真尽责)—being punctual, careful in doing work, self-disciplined, and scrupulous (一丝不苟的) in attending to responsibilities—are typical characteristics of the model organizational citizen, the people who keep things running as they should. They follow the rules, help out, and are concerned about the people they work with. It's the conscientious worker who helps newcomers or updates people who return after an absence, who gets to work on time and never abuses sick leaves, who always gets things done on deadline.

    Conscientiousness is a key to success in any field. In studies of job performance, outstanding effectiveness for almost all jobs, from semi-skilled labor to sales and management, depends on conscientiousness. It is particularly important for outstanding performance in jobs at the lower levels of an organization: the secretary whose message taking is perfect, the delivery truck driver who is always on time.

    Among sales representatives for a large American car manufacturer, those who were most conscientious had the largest volume of sales. Conscientiousness also offers a buffer (缓冲) against the threat of job loss in today's constantly changing market, because employees with this quality are among the most valued. For the sales representatives, their level of conscientiousness mattered almost as much as their sales in determining who stayed on.

    There is an air around highly conscientious people that makes them seem even better than they actually are. Their reputation for dependability influences managers' evaluations of their work, giving them higher evaluations than objective measures of their performance would predict.

    But conscientiousness in the absence of social skills can lead to problems. Since conscientious people demand so much of themselves, they can hold other people to their own standards, and so be overly judgmental when others don't show the same high levels of model behavior. Factory workers in Great Britain and the United States who were extremely conscientious, for example, tended to criticize co-workers even about failures that seemed unimportant to those they criticized, which damaged their relationships.

    When conscientiousness takes the form of living up to expectations, it can discourage creativity. In creative professions like art or advertising, openness to wild ideas and spontaneity (自发性) are scarce and in demand. Success in such occupations calls for a balance, however; without enough conscientiousness to follow through, people become mere dreamers, with nothing to show for their imaginativeness.

    Nobody likes to think they are “that guy” at work.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. So, what are some of the rudest things that people do at work — and why shouldn't you do them?

    Behaving in an unacceptable way

    The most common form of this is eating smelly foods at lunchtime. Other things alike include body smell and its opposite, the wearing of strong perfume, messy desks, or bad breath.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

    Checking email on your phone when you're talking to other people

    A recent survey shows that 49 percent of people said their bosses checked their phones while talking with them.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. If you've ever wondered why your team members are unmotivated, this may be why. In fact, when you're talking to someone at work, you should reject any non-important calls.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Do you like the sound of your own voice? Great. Perhaps it's time you learned to like the sound of other people's voices too. If you interrupt others when they speak, they'll dislike you and discount whatever you're saying. And if you routinely take up three quarters of the meeting with your monologues（独角戏）, people will turn off and, quite rightly, start checking email on their phones. However, if you listen to what others say and show interest by asking intelligent questions, they'll love you and be likely to give you their support when you speak.

    Showing off how much you earn

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. If you show off your income to someone and then discover you get less than them, you'll look like a fool. If you earn more, they'll feel tired of you. So keep them guessing and hide your earning power in quiet ways — like always paying for the team coffees.

A. Talking all the time

B. Being a good listener

C. Team-working can never be ignored

D. All these things will become part of your personal brand

E. It's better to be modest when you talk about your incomes

F. Bad behavior at work is common — and often we do it without thinking

G. An interesting email is more valuable than the person you are actually talking to

Life on a Ship

    We three children were very excited when we walked up the gangway (舷梯) of the British flagship China Star and saw officers, crew and staff rushing around. A Chinese housekeeper led the way and helped Uncle Jean and Aunt Reine with our luggage. Victor, Claudine and I lagged behind. The housekeeper was tall and thin and towered over everyone. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} As we followed him down a narrow corridor towards our cabins, Victor whispered to me, "One thing about having no hair at all on your head, you always look neat!"

    Though I was still feeling nervous and tongue-tied because it had only been three days since Aunt Reine took me out of St. Joseph's, I laughed out loud. That was the effect Victor had on people. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} "Boys to the right and girls to the left," said Uncle Jean. Our two cabins were directly opposite each other. Inside, everything was neat, bare and clean. While Aunt Reine, Claudine and I were unpacking, there was a knock on the door.

    Victor stood there, wearing a bright-red and orange life-jacket. "Why are you wearing that?" Claudine protested. "Our ship hasn't even sailed yet!" "In case the China Star starts going down. Then you'll really be sorry you're not wearing one yourself. Here! Let me show you something!" {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Our cabin was below deck. Outside we could see nothing but deep dark water.

    Claudine became alarmed. "Mama, how often does a ship sink?" she asked. Before Aunt Reine had time to reply, Victor quipped with a straight face, "Only once!" Aunt Reine and I could not help laughing in spite of ourselves. But then Victor did something my brothers would never have done. He took off his life-jacket, slipped it on his sister and showed her how to adjust the straps. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} At night, our housekeeper brought in a tiny roll-out bed because there were three of us.

A. Once Victor hid in a lifeboat for half an hour while we searched everywhere.

B. His head was completely hairless, and he was obviously unsteady.

C. He and Claudine made me feel at ease as soon as I met them.

D. There were only two narrow twin beds in our cabin, each covered with dark blue sheets.

E. He parted the curtain and looked out of the round window of the ship.

F. He jumped out as we passed below him, scaring and delighting us at the same time.

    I have some gray hairs. Do l dare to count them? Just the fact that I have enough to count scares me, and turns getting old into a reality. I'm certainly getting older. We all are. But why does it have to happen so quickly?

    We just celebrated my birthday. I say "celebrated" because we had cake and ice cream. For my kids, any excuse for ice cream and cake is a celebration. I'm not sure if to me it was a thing to celebrate, though. I like the special attention that birthday bring, but I don't wait for them 364 days of the year like my children do. For them, another number means more privileges and more things that they get to do. For an adult, another number means fewer things. that you can do, like "I can't run as fast as I used to…etc. "

    I went with my children to the old-age home near my apartment building. We walked inside the door. The contrast between my preschoolers full of energy and the old women siting in the wheelchair by the door made me lost in thought. Not so long ago, I was a bouncing preschool like my children. Not so long ago, there women were the mothers of small children. Fifty years ago, they were me, and in fifty years, I could be them. The visit, like my birthday, served as a reality check. "Life is so short and it goes by so quickly. Enjoy the moment that you are in, because you will never get it back, "I told myself.

    This is also what I want to leave behind to my children. I decide to try to start just by not complaining. In any difficult situation, I will try to find the good things about it, no matter how small the good things might be.