| His Ideas 2 ~Single Seats |
September 16, 2020
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| The restaurant and bar industry is one of the biggest victims from the coronavirus outbreak. Thus, he started to think about how they could get customers to return by reducing the risks of contracting the coronavirus. The coronavirus's biggest nuisance is that sometimes carriers of the coronavirus have no symptoms, but yet they also can transmit their coronavirus to others. Even a person who got a PCR test this week and the result was negative, the next week that person might be positive. They might have no fever, and they might not cough, and so, they interact with others without any attention. But, if a non-symptom-person rarely coughs, how do they transmit their virus to others? The most probable way is by conversation. Some studies state that if you speak aloud, some very small droplets of saliva are released in the air. Maybe, the louder one speaks, the more the small droplets are released. Although he had never read about those types of experiments, he could easily guess that a person with a bigger voice would breathe in stronger, thus emitting more saliva when breathing out. And he came up with two ideas for the solution. One of them was very simple: if you are alone, you don't normally speak. [His Idea #2: Single Seats] A long time ago, there was a conveyer belt sushi restaurant near his apartment and he sometimes went there. The price was  reasonable, but more importantly, the atmosphere suited a single customer like himself. Later, the restaurant closed down and he never went to another conveyer belt sushi restaurant again, partly because he knew that there would be many families there talking energetically, and he felt that he couldn't eat peacefully. Another example was a 'family restaurant'. Their seats were large and close to each other, back to back. He used these tables when he was with his friends, but he never saw any single customers sitting at them. His idea was to make all the tables at restaurants to be only single seats. Restaurants would hesitate at this because groups are significant percentage of their customer base. He believed that there are some merits that would offset this loss. If they are all single seat tables, customers wouldn't speak and customers would give the restaurant their trust to be low risks to contract coronavirus. And, if customers don't speak, the room is silent, which is good for a certain type of person. ≪Business People≫ When the lockdown was carried out, people worked at home using computers and the internet. Adjusting to the current situation, a lot of companies arranged their remote work environment. So working remotely had become smoother than before. On the other hand, at home, there are a lot of distractions that would make workers distracted from work: TV, magazines, etc. If the family was there, they might interfere with their work. Actually, there have appeared some rental office booths that started after the coronavirus, which offered silent rooms and Wi-Fi. Workers would be happy if there was a nearby restaurant that offered a silent environment and Wi-Fi, as well as good coffee and meals. Their wives would also be happy because they wouldn't need to prepare their lunch. ≪Others≫ Like him, there were many people who regularly eat alone ~retired people, house wives, etc. If there are restaurants where they could relax and have time to read a book, etc. during their lunch, they would use them happily. You might think that the idea -- to exclude families, couples, and other groups -- is a kind of social discrimination. And maybe the idea wouldn't work well for bars because people go to bars in order to talk to others in a relaxed atmosphere and situation. But he had some other ideas for them. |
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No.400
*nuisance :いやなこと
*interact :交流する
*aloud :声に出して
*droplet :小さな水滴
*saliva :つば
*loud :声の高い
*emit :出す、放出する
*suit :合う
*partly because :理由の一つとして
*significant :重要な
*offset :相殺する
*loss :損失
*distraction :気を散らせるもの
*exclude :排除する
*discrimination :差別