| Sue: In Private lives today we meet Alan Gowans. He’s the manager of a large supermarket owned by Sainsbury's, one of the biggest food store companies in Britain. During the programme, we’ll join Alan in his office and on the shop floor. We’ll hear him talk about the kind of people who shop in the supermarket, and what they buy. But before we look at what’s on offer in British supermarkets, we learn a little about Alan’s life. Alan was born in a small town on the west coast of Scotland, where he and his brothers went to the local secondary school. The family lived in a council house - basic housing, owned by the state.
Clip Alan Gowans
I was born in Armadale in Scotland. I’ve got me mother and father and three brothers. A typical upbringing.（教养，养育）We lived on a council estate. We went to the local comprehensive. In terms of hobbies at a younger age - was obviously football mad. I joined a pipe band as a drummer - that took a lot of time in my youth.
Sue: Every Saturday and Sunday, Alan’s pipe band took part in local competitions. And when Alan and his schoolfriends weren’t playing traditional Scottish music, they listened to the latest records by the rock group Status Quo. Classical music was “softy” - it wasn’t tough.
Clip Alan Gowans
Now, really I’m quite happy to listen to most music. Probably as a child I would never have dreamt about getting involved in classical - we always thought it was a bit softy. But I thoroughly enjoy it now.
Sue: After he left school, Alan became a trainee metallurgist（冶金家）. But a possible career studying metals came to an end when the company he was working for ran into financial difficulties, and he was made redundant. （多余的）Alan joined the Royal Navy as an officer, and met Judy, who became his wife.
Clip Alan Gowans
When I left the pipe band, I gave up drumming for quite a while. And certainly, when I got married one of my dreams was to have a drum kit - which I eventually bought. But subsequently（后来，随后） I had to sell it about 8 months later because the next door neighbours and half the street were banging on my door, demanding that it went - so it did. But one day, I will ultimately（最后，最终） get a drum kit again.
Sue: Alan left the Royal Navy after two and a half years, and became a trainee manager at Sainsbury’s. Now he’s one of their most successful store managers, and the branch he’s in charge of is typical of many other large, out-of-town supermarkets in affluent（富裕的） parts of Britain. Most British cities and towns have “out-of-town shopping centres”. These have a large supermarket with a large car park. There’s also often a petrol station, a Do It Yourself hardware store, one or two fast-food restaurants, and sometimes a multi-screen cinema! Alan shows us into his office.
Clip Alan Gowans
This is my office, rather small and cramped（狭促的，难辨的） considering the size of the building! On my desk I have a VDU, which enables me to access into the systems which we have within the store. And above the desk, I have my various files - the most important one being my “profit and loss” account! And also in the office, we’ve got a CCTV - that’s an internal television system that allows us to monitor（监视，监听）various areas within the store. So, at the moment it’s focused in on one of our checkouts and checkout operators.
Sue: There are 30 checkouts in this supermarket, where customers pay for their goods. Checkout operators pass each item over an electronic scanner（电子扫描器）which reads the price, and produces an itemised bill for the customer. There are over 20,000 commodities on sale in the store - including fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, frozen food, bread and cakes, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and baby foods. There’s also cleaning products, cooking utensils,（烹饪用具） children’s toys and newspapers. Alan describes his customers as “up-market” - they can afford to buy expensive products. They also don’t have much time to shop or cook, so they tend to buy a lot of ready made meals.
Clip Alan Gowans
Usually the type of shopper we have are interested in getting out of the store as quickly as possible. That may seem a funny thing, but time is precious for people that live round here. We have a lot of professional types, working mums, and so therefore they want to come into the store, buy, and leave as quickly as possible. As a result of that, we sell a great deal of ready prepared products, so that could be ready prepared salad packs, ready meals - so that you basically stick the product in the oven（烤炉，烤箱）- and it’s on the table within half an hour or so.
Sue: At home, like many British people, Alan and his wife enjoy eating food from other countries. (If Alan cooks at all, it’s with a wok - a large bowl-shaped pan, used for Chinese-style cooking.) However, Alan and Judy do sometimes sit down to a traditional British Sunday lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Clip Alan Gowans
As far as my own shopping habits are concerned, I afraid I don’t tend to get too involved in that having worked in a supermarket all day, I tend to leave the shopping to my wife! In terms of the type of product that we tend to buy at home, our eating habits have changed over the years, I used to be “a meat and two veg man” - a typical British pastime（消遣，娱乐） - but recently we’ve tended to move to things like pasta（生面团,意大利通心粉） that we eat quite a bit of. I have a wok so I now tend to wok things - my wife is very happy about that because at least I’m doing it! We do have a Sunday lunch from time to time and again, we do eat out, generally maybe once or twice a week.
Sue: Alan isn’t tempted to do any shopping after a hard day’s work running the supermarket! As manager, he’s responsible for making a profit. To make a profit, he must ensure that the supermarket shelves are well-stocked with whatever customers want to buy. Today, Alan predicts good sales of meat which can be cooked on a barbeque outside, salad, drinks and ice- cream.
Clip Alan Gowans
The weather today is very sunny - I believe it’s gonna be about 25 degrees outside. And we really need to react to the customer needs. They will be looking to have barbecue（烧烤） products, they’ll be looking to be buying salad, they’ll be looking to buy drinks, they’ll be looking to buy ice-cream, that type of product.
Sue: Eating outside is becoming more and more popular in Britain. Alan leads us onto the shop floor, and as we walk along the long aisle（席位间）的通道 of refrigerated meat, we see staff unloading fresh packs of meat for summer evening barbeques. Then we stop in the middle of another long aisle - here, there are shelves and shelves of pet food.
Clip Alan Gowans
In Britain, we’re somewhat renowned for our pets. We now, within this store, have a display in excess of 40 feet, full of canned cat food and dog food and other foods for other pets - such as canaries! We do have very large sales on pet food within the company and that is reflected in the type of footage that we actually have within every store. You can have chicken, you can have liver, you can have beef, you can have pheasant,（稚，野鸡）you can have combinations of beef and game - any sort of product that you can think of that your pet might like, I’m sure we can supply it. Myself, I have a couple of canaries at home!
Sue: As we walk back to his office, Alan says that he likes hearing the sound of birdsong at home. Alan and his wife live on the outskirts of London in a bungalow,（平房） with a very well-cared for green lawn. DIY - or Do It Yourself home improvements - like putting up wallpaper - is not Alan’s favourite pastime!
Clip Alan Gowans
We’ve been married 14 years now and this is our 5th house. We live in a three bedroomed bungalow, with a double garage.（车库） We have a fairly large-ish garden - which I delegate everything to my wife - other than the lawn, which I do take great pride in my lawn and I’m forever being told off for buying all this expensive fertilizer（肥料） and lawn mowers etc. etc. But I do like a green lawn and I work hard at making sure that that looks “the business”! As far as DIY is concerned, you’re looking at the world’s worst DIY - we had to do some decorating, I tried desperately to get a decorator in to do it, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get one believe it or not, so I had to do it myself. I’ve never been so stressed in my life in putting wall paper up
-never again!
Sue: Alan would much rather relax in his home than decorate it. What does he enjoy doing when he's not spending time at home? Listen.
Clip Alan Gowans
When I get in from work, it really depends on the time of year, my great hobby is golf so given half a chance, I will grab my clubs and disappear off down to the golf course for a round. Fortunately, my wife plays so she can’t be described as a “golf widow”. But obviously, if the weather’s adverse（不利的） or it’s in the winter, generally, I’ll head straight for a gin and tonic（金汤力） or a beer, have a sit down, have a chat, and then either we’ll have dinner or we’ll go out to the pictures or the theatre or whatever the case might be.
Sue: And to end the programme, Alan talks about the kind of skills he thinks you
need to be a good supermarket manager - and what he really enjoys about the
job: the people.
Clip Alan Gowans
To be successful, or a good manager with Sainsbury’s, ultimately you require man-management skills. You’re dealing with 400 people, and that in effect means that you’ve got to have good communication skills, motivational skills, and that will assist greatly. On top of that, you’ve got to have a feel for the business, but I enjoy the job. I enjoy the job because ultimately I like people, they’re a great bunch to work for - you’ve got to have a sense of humour, you’ve got to work hard because we do tend to work fairly long hours and by that I mean say 45 hours a week. But I enjoy it - food retail is fast, it’s exciting, it’s extremely competitive, and great fun to be in.
(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)
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