【Flyer杀G】小组-7.18 Argument241, by Sean

柏拉图的世界UID: 2581296

ARGUMENT241 - The following appeared in a memo at the XYZ company.
"When XYZ lays off employees, it pays Delany Personnel Firm to offer those employees assistance in creating resumés and developing interviewing skills, if they so desire. Laid-off employees have benefited greatly from Delany's services: last year those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not. Recently, it has been proposed that we use the less-expensive Walsh Personnel Firm in place of Delany. This would be a mistake because eight years ago, when XYZ was using Walsh, only half of the workers we laid off at that time found jobs within a year. Moreover, Delany is clearly superior, as evidenced by its bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. After all, last year Delany's clients took an average of six months to find jobs, whereas Walsh's clients took nine."

The author points oustatest that it is a mistake for XYZ company to take Walsh Personal Firm in place of Delany for the purpose to offer employees assistacne assistance when they get laid off. The prime evidences the author cites here include that employees as well as other clients find found job more quickly after Delany's services, and Delany's bigger staff and large number of branch offices. However, the author's conclusion is undermined by several logic flaws, which mainly exist in those comparisons he/she proposed.

In the first comparison, the author points out that those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not, which, however, hardly lend any support to the author's claim that Walsh is not as good as Delany. Because it is simpley the situation of Delany alone. People deploying Delany's service may improve their ability to get new job indeed, but it is not necessry necessary that the same case won't happen after Walsh's services.

Another comparison is that Delany's clinets clients took less time to find jobs than Walsh's, yet it many not indicate a relatively better performance of Delany for XYZ's employees. The clients in the two personnel firms may come from companies different from XYZ, with various occupations. The author overlooks the possible distinctionsdifference amongin various types of companies that may undermine the eligibility of this eividence to indicate the situation in XYZ. Also, in view of the probability that clients in the two personnel firms are very different, we cannot be convinced that the average months taken to find job would reveal different capability of Delany and Walsh. Maybe the clients going to Walsh are older than Delany, thus they have to face comparatively more difficulties in finding new jobs.

In addition, the fact that when using Walsh, only half of XYZ's works find jobs within a year is an inferior evidence, due to lack of appropriate comparisonobjects to make a contrast. The author doesn’t tell us the situation at that time in Delany or other similar corporations, thus we cannot make sure that Walsh played bad at that time. If we try to compare time spent to find jobs in Walsh eight years’ before with the time spent last year in Walsh or Delany as the author mentions, whether Walsh is not capable would still remain uncertain. Eight years turn to be a rather long time, in which condition of job hunting can change a lot. Maybe eight years before this territory was suffering from economic recession, which leads to spreading unemployment and intensive competition in finding new jobs.. Granted that performance of Walsh in that time was disagreeable, the possibility that the firm has improved a lot through the span of time, and eventually is better than Walsh cannot be ruled out.

In the final analysis, the reference about bigger staff and larger number of branch in Delany does not necessarily indicate that Delany would serve better than Walsh. Probably staff and branch are already adequate in Walsh, although tinier than Delany, in virtue of the number of clients it handles. It is equally possible that staff in Delany is redundant and number of braches goes beyond practical demands. In this case, Delany might appear inefficient and extra payment to it turns to be waste.

To conclude, the author’s evidences and reasoning fail to justify his/her conclusion. In order to make his/her argument sounder, the author can provide more information about clients and relevant statistics in the two firms, as well as other evidences that reveal capacity of the firms more directly.