実践ビジネス英語 ディクテーション (4/24, 25)

NHKラジオ「実践ビジネス英語」”Talk the Talk”のディクテーションです。 Lesson 2のテーマは、‘Whither the Retail Business’（どうなる、小売ビジネス）でした。Vignetteでは、消費行動の変化によって小売業に大きな変化が起きていること、今後はロボットなど先進技術の活用がカギになることなどが話題になりました。 Talk the Talkでは、主に服装について話されています。

Whither the Retail Business

（S: 杉田敏先生　H: Heather Howardさん）

S: In our current vignette, the A&A staff talk about the changing standards for work apparel.

You’ve said that you dress pretty casually at work, right, Heather?

H: That’s right. I wear jeans almost every day.

It’s mainly for two reasons.

One, I don’t go outside of my office too much or work right now, or meet with outside people.

And two, I’m pretty busy with my daughter and all, so I don’t have a lot of time or energy to think about clothes.

There is something to be said for making a bit of effort, however.

It’s good for our mental state, if nothing else.

I had two pairs of earrings that went with everything, and so I was wearing them all the time for a while.

Then, one day, my daughter said, “Mommy, I want you to get some more earrings. You always wear the same ones.”

So, we went shopping together and got three more pairs.

And you know what? I’m really enjoying having more options to choose from.

It’s given me a little boost morale-wise.

S: Your daughter’s very perceptive.

H: Thank you.

S: You know, back in the 1990s, I stayed in a plush hotel in midtown Manhattan.

I went down for breakfast and saw a sign at the entrance to the breakfast hall: Jacket and tie required.

You had to wear a jacket and a tie for breakfast!?

Even in those days, American fashion was already fairly informal compared to Europe.

I took it as a sign of snobbery and went outside for breakfast.

And I never stayed at that hotel again.

H: I don’t blame you.

I’ve been to restaurants that had a dress code for dinner, but breakfast?

It doesn’t seem like good business to impose restrictions on your customers just when they’re easing into the start of their day.

S: The definition of “business casual” has become so vague these days.

Dressing in shorts and a t-shirt, or a sundress and flipflops is too casual; wearing a full suit is overly formal.

Anything in between is business casual.

H: Flipflops are definitely out.

One of my personal rules of thumb is no shoes where all my toes are visible at work.

Pumps with a little opening in the front would be OK, but no sandals or other shoes that look like I’m headed for the beach.

S: Appropriate fashion also depends on geography and the type of business you’re in.

Silicon Valley is different from New York and there’s more flexibility in the advertising and communication businesses than in banking or accounting.

H: That makes sense.

When you’re dealing with someone in advertising, say, you want to see originality, creativity.

When the other person is in banking or accounting, however, you want to get a sense of reliability, respectability.

S: The vignette also talks about different ways that cashiers are being made redundant in retail outlets.

H: Just the other day, I was shopping for clothes and the store I was in had introduced self-service registers.

I didn’t even run things over a scanner.

I just put my shopping basket on the register and it correctly scanned all the items even though they were all jumbled up together in the basket.

Then I put in my cash, got my change and bagged it all up myself, oh, and scanned my smartphone app to make sure I got my purchase points.

It’s amazing.

Just twenty years ago, who knew this kind of things would be possible?

Words and Expressions

snobbery: 上流気取り、俗物根性

flipflops: ビーチサンダル

お疲れさまでした♪

これまで、実践ビジネス英語のディクテーションをアップしてまいりましたが、今回をもちまして終了させていただきます。コメントをお寄せ下さった皆さま、本当にありがとうございました。

長い間お読みいただきまして、ありがとうございました。