The Quality of People and Products

by Jonathan Athens

Go to any restaurant, hotel, or business place that deals directly with the public, and the person behind the desk in the lobby is usually a clean-cut young man or an attractive, welldressed lady. This is a common, unwritten practice employed by most businesses as a way of "putting their best" forward. Look at almost any advertisement and you'll find the same kind of people selling anything from toothpaste to cigarettes. It is a means of making a product more attractive to the consumer.

Of course, the consumer has the ultimate choice as to which brand of toothpaste to use or whether to buy cigarettes. When it comes to patronizing a hotel or restaurant the consumer has the same right. However, the right of the business office (or hotel or restaurant) to choose the kind of person they want to promote their product or service is slowly being taken away.

As an advertising consultant for a local newspaper syndicate, I deal with a variety of businesses with the goal of helping them attract customers as well as prospective employees. One day a print shop owner called and asked to place a classified ad for employment. The print shop owner told me he wanted a young lady to work the front desk of his office. The lady should be adept at dealing with the public and capable of juggling the paperwork that had piled up.

"Can I do that?" he asked, sounding somewhat unsure. "Certainly," I told him. "It's your business, your money, your advertisement. You can do what you please." The print shop owner called back to place the final copy of the employment ad only to discover that I was wrong. My supervisor explained in detail how and why. It wasn't the newspaper's policy, she said, nor hers. Rather it was the state's policy. To advertise for an attractive young lady or man with a pleasant personality is discrimination on the basis of age, sex, and appearance. Reluctantly, I informed the print shop owner and worked with him to rewrite the ad so that it did not give an indication of anything other than the job title, the pay, the location of the shop, and the hours of business.

The print shop owner began his business years ago without government grants or assistance, and neither did he have contracts with the government. Still, he had to play by the government's rules of hiring and firing. After keying the advertisement into the computer system, I sat back and thought of how many people were going to apply for the job and how many the owner was going to have to turn down before finding the right applicant. I then thought of the number of people who were going to read the ad not knowing what the employer was specifically looking for, and waste their time and effort along with his money just to be told "no."

Two forms of civil rights legislation affect the business owner's right to hire. Equal Opportunity guarantees that a person be considered for a job without regard to race, age, or sex. Affirmative Action, on the other hand, commands that a person be hired with regard to such criteria.

How contradictory the two anti-discrimination laws are! And the results are pernicious. If someone is hired on any basis other than individual merit, the employer will generally have employees who perform substandard work. Time, money, and energy are spent trying to correct and/or overcome substandard work -- time that could be devoted to improving product quality. The bottom line is that a corporation is only as good as its product, and the product is only as good as its makers.

A popular misconception is that a "product" is a merely a material item with physical dimensions. But services are products, too. The product a waitress makes is food service. The product a salesman makes is selling. The product a mechanic produces is automotive maintenance. The product a doctor provides is health care. If any of these positions were to be filled strictly by Affirmative Action, what kind of service would the consumer get? The consumer can always go to another restaurant for better food service, another doctor for a second opinion, and another salesman for a different kind of product. But what if the options are limited? What if there are no choices?

The consumer ultimately loses his freedom of choice. It is a freedom no person and no business can afford to be without.