Business Spotlight Übungsheft 11/2024: Hörverständnis

    A remote cashier appears on a screen at an outlet of the SanSan Ramen restaurant, in New York, April 4, 2024. A handful of New York City restaurants are experimenting with virtual staff members, who greet customers on a screen via Zoom from the Philippines.
    © VICTOR J. BLUE/Redux/laif

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    The listening exercises in Business Spotlight Plus (p. 5) are based on the article “The cashier who isn’t here” (Names & News, p. 9). Here, we provide you with the audio file and transcript.

    The cashier who isn’t here

     

    At Sansan Chicken, a restaurant in New York, local customers come in for the teriyaki chicken bowl, vegan ramen or one of the many other dishes on the menuSpeisekartemenu. To order and pay, they talk to a polite, cheerfulfröhlich, gut gelauntcheerful cashierKassierer(in)cashier. All of this is normal, except that the cashier isn’t in New York but sitting at a computer thousands of miles away, in the Philippines[wg. Aussprache]Philippines.

     

    This service was started by entrepreneurUnternehmer(in)entrepreneur Chi Zhang, the founderGründer(in)founder of Happy Cashier. For small businesses struggling with inflation and high rent, the appealAnreizappeal is clear: The remote workerTelearbeiter(in)remote workers earn $3 an hour, compared with an hourly minimum wage in New York of $16. For the cashiers, despite the 12-hour time difference, it’s a comfortable job they can do from home.

     

    Virtual assistants are common in some customer-service settings, but not in the hands-onpraktisch; hier: wo tatkräftige Hilfe vonnöten isthands-on restaurant business. Many people are understandably worried that this trend will push wages down for American workers across the industry. But Rosy Tang, manager of the Sansan Chicken restaurant in Manhattan, told The New York Times: “This is a way for small businesses to survive.”