The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of the Juniper Café, a small, local coffee shop in the downtown area of a small American city:
“We must reduce overhead here at the café. Instead of opening at 6 a.m. weekdays, we will now open at 8 a.m. On weekends, we will only be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The decrease in hours of operations will help save money because we won’t be paying for utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs during the hours we are closed. This is the best strategy for us to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to assess the reasonableness of both the prediction and the argument upon which it is based. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The owner of Juniper Café has determined that changes need to be made in order for the company to stay in business without eliminating jobs. The owner’s memorandum suggests adjusting the café’s hours of operation to reduce the amount spent on certain operating costs. While this may seem like a rational solution to the problem, there are other factors to consider. By opening at 8 a.m. rather than 6 a.m. on weekdays, the café is losing the revenue previously gained during those hours. Additionally, there may be employees that have always worked those early hours; the owner will likely need to schedule additional hours for these employees during other times or risk losing them. Finally, the owner needs to consider the change in the flow of consumers throughout the day.
Changing the opening hour from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. removes the possibility for revenue during those hours. If 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. was a busy time for the café, that revenue stream is now eliminated. The owner of the café must consider whether the loss of that revenue will be beneficial long-term for saving the company money. If 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. was the busiest time for the café, it would not be logical to eliminate those hours of operation. In order to ascertain whether or not this action could be beneficial long-term to the company, the café would need to consider what their busiest times are, and what the revenue stream looked like between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.
Further, employees previously had worked those hours at the café, and now those hours are eliminated from the schedule. If certain employees worked a 6-hour shift starting at 6 a.m. and ending at 12 p.m., a third of their hours are gone, meaning that they are making a third less in wages. The owner must find other hours for the employees of the early morning shift to work or risk the employees leaving the company. However, the owner must also balance the number of hours given to each employee; overcompensating for employees who worked from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and infringing on the shifts of other employees who work during the day may also elicit a reduction in wages for the latter. The owner must carefully balance wages and hours to maintain their workforce.
The owner may argue that the consumers who usually came during the hours in which they are now close may just come at a different time instead, and that revenue would not be significantly impacted. For example, an individual who came to the café every day at 7:30 a.m. may simply come at 9:30 a.m. instead. Assuming the owner could somehow guarantee that this would be the case for every consumer in question, it is necessary to consider how the influx of consumers could potentially impact the flow of all consumers throughout the day. For the sake of this example, assume that every consumer who came at 7:30 a.m. now comes at 9:30 a.m. Not only do the employees have to meet the demands of those consumers, but they also must meet the demands of the consumers who already were visiting during that time. That could mean an additional 100 consumers’ needs to meet, and employees may become overwhelmed. In that instance, additional employees may need to be working during that shift, which in turn means that more wages are being paid. The owner needs to consider whether paying additional employee wages to compensate for busy hours outweighs the amount of money potentially saved by changing hours.
The owner of Juniper Café has identified the need for change and has developed an initial solution to the problem. However, it seems they may have failed to consider several other factors that could be impacted by this change. There is a loss of revenue from the hours in which the café is now closed. Consumers who came during those times may not come at all, or they may come at a later time which could result in additional staffing needs. The needs of the employees, including the hours they work and their wages, must also be considered. These factors must be reviewed fully before any definitive change is made to the operating hours of Juniper Café.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 717 350
No. of Characters: 3291 1500
No. of Different Words: 243 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.175 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.59 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.398 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 201 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.724 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.67 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.517 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.507 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 462, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...urs of operation. In order to ascertain whether or not this action could be beneficial long-te...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 15, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... potentially saved by changing hours. The owner of Juniper Café has identified...
^^^^
Line 19, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the operating hours of Juniper Café.
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, look, may, so, third, while, for example, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 35.0 12.9520958084 270% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 26.0 13.6137724551 191% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 96.0 55.5748502994 173% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3412.0 2260.96107784 151% => OK
No of words: 712.0 441.139720559 161% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.79213483146 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.16559078211 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.49564068861 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.362359550562 0.468620217663 77% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1026.0 705.55239521 145% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.3457259574 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.857142857 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4285714286 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.07142857143 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.191948129294 0.218282227539 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0709330314763 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0524526505875 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.132600220773 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0256674881123 0.0628817314937 41% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 63.02 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.8 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.43 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.