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  3. One of the many pleasures of watching Mad Men, a television drama about the advertising industry in the early 1960s,is examining

One of the many pleasures of watching Mad Men, a television drama about the advertising industry in the early 1960s,is examining

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问题     One of the many pleasures of watching Mad Men, a television drama about the advertising industry in the early 1960s,is examining the ways in which office life has changed over the years. One obvious change makes people feel good about themselves: they no longer treat women as second-class citizens. But the other obvious change makes them feel a bit more uneasy: they have lost the art of enjoying themselves at work.
    The ad-men in those days enjoyed simple pleasures. They puffed away at their desks. They drank throughout the day. They had affairs with their colleagues. They socialised not in order to bond,but in order to get drunk. Nowadays many companies are obsessed with fun. Software firms in Silicon Valley have installed rock-climbing walls in their reception areas and put inflatable animals in their offices, Wal-Mart orders its cashiers to smile at all and sundry. The cult of fun has spread like some disgusting haemorrhagic disease.
    This cult of fun is driven by three of the most popular management fads of the moment: empowerment, engagement and creativity. Many companies pride themselves on devolving power to front-line workers. But surveys show that only 20% of workers are "fully engaged with their job". Even fewer are creative. Managers hope that " fun" will magically make workers more engaged and creative. But the problem is that as soon as fun becomes part of a corporate strategy it ceases to be fun and becomes its opposite—at best an empty shell and at worst a tiresome imposition.
    The most unpleasant thing about the fashion for fun is that it is mixed with a large dose of pressure. Boston Pizza encourages workers to send" golden bananas "to colleagues who are "having fun while being the best". Behind the"fun"there often lurks some crude management thinking: a desire to brand the company as better than its rivals, or a plan to boost productivity through team-building. Twitter even boasts that it has "worked hard to create an environment that spawns productivity and happiness".
    While imposing fake fun on their employees, companies are battling against the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals. Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the day. A regiment of busybodies—from lawyers to human resources functionaries—is waging war on office romance, particularly between people of different ranks.
    The merchants of fake fun have met some resistance. When Wal-Mart tried to impose alien rules on its German staff—such as compulsory smiling and a ban on affairs with coworkers—it touched off a guerrilla war that ended only when the supermarket chain announced it was pulling out of Germany in 2006. But such victories are rare. For most wage slaves forced to pretend they are having fun at work, the only relief is to poke fun at their tormentors. Mad Men reminds people of a world they have lost—a world where bosses did not think that" fun" was a management tool and where employees could happily quaff Scotch at noon. Cheers to that.
By citing Wal-mart’ s example,the author intends to______.
选项 A、warn companies of potential culture shock in multinational management
B、encourage dissatisfied workers to fight against their boss
C、highlight the rarity of successful resistance against widespread cult for fun
D、express his admiration for disobedient German
答案C
解析 作者最后一段主要论述了员工对于企业快乐战略的态度。沃尔玛的例子反映了德国人对于普遍存在的快乐崇拜的管理模式的抗争，他们取得了最终的胜利。但是文中接着讲这种胜利非常罕见。大多数情况下心怀不满的员工只能拿开老板玩笑来解解气。由此可见作者之所以提到沃尔玛这个例子，他的目的是想要凸显出与快乐抗争成功的案例少之又少，从而侧面反映这种企业管理文化强大的渗透力和对员工的迫害。[C]正确。[A]选项，虽然沃尔玛退出德国市场的例子反映了跨国公司可能遇到的文化冲击，但这并不是本文的重点。[B]选项，文中作者只是揭示了企业管理中的一种现象，表达了对这种现象的不满，从头至尾都没有表露出要员工与老板抗争的意思，属过度引申，是对于作者意图的臆猜。[D]无中生有，偏离主题。
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