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TOPIC: ARGUMENT17 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper.
"Walnut Grove's town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, whereas ABC's fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ-which, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks-has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service: 80 percent of respondents to last year's town survey agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ's performance."
WORDS: 413 TIME: 0:30:00(revised) DATE: 2006-7-2
According to the above letter, the arguer failed to persuade us that the town council should continue using EZ disposal, 10-year contractor of Walnut Grove. The arguer asserted that though EZ’s monthly fee is $500 more expensive than its competitor ABC Waste, EZ should still be the choice since it collects trash double times as ABC's frequency, and also has ordered additional trucks. Besides, the arguer also provides survey results that 80% respondents were satisfied with EZ's performance last year. I found the recommendation specious on several grounds.
To begin with, the higher frequency of trash collecting cannot be considered as better service without further examination. If the daily trash amount in Walnut Grove is not that much, one collection per week might be a more efficient & scientific arrangement. EZ perhaps made a wrong management decision of the service frequency and resulted in higher operational cost than ABC. If that is the reason of higher monthly fee, it is unfair to let the residents in Walnut Grove to pay extra money for unscientific operations.
And, there is no evidence to explain the reason why EZ has ordered more trucks. Maybe the trucks of EZ are in very poor conditions so that they have to replace or upgrade their facilities to fulfill business requirement. While ABC might have more trucks in good conditions that could complete the transportation tasks better than EZ. Another possibility is EZ might not use the additional trucks for trash-collecting in Walnut Grove. Suggesting the assumption is valid, we can suspect whether or not EZ use the entire current truck force in Walnut Grove, while ABC might do.
Moreover, limited information about the survey on residents' satisfactions was mentioned in the argument so that we have reason to doubt on the credibility of the results. The arguer failed to provide the size of sample of the survey, and also the percentage of respondents, and also the profile of the respondents. If there were only 10% of the total residents responded to the survey, and 90% of them are teenagers, the survey results must be lack of credibility. Even if the residents were satisfied with EZ’s service, they might prefer ABC even more than EZ.
All in all, we cannot conclude that the town council made a mistake to switch from EZ to ABC. More background information of the trash collecting need of the town need to be discussed and more comprehensive comparison between the two companies is necessary for a right decision.
[ 本帖最后由 chengnicole 于 2006-7-3 12:13 编辑 ] |
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