Discussion

 

1.- Regular whole house cup raids.

Advantages:
• Members would be motivated to return cups.
• Cups would be found and returned by kitchen manager.
Disadvantages:
• Kitchen manager and the witness would have to spend too much time doing the cup-raid.
• Members would feel that their privacy is violated.

2.- Semi-random cup-raids.

Advantages:
• Random raids would provide incentive to return cups regularly.
• Cups would be found and returned by the kitchen manager.
• The kitchen manager and the witness would not have to waste as much time on these minicup-raids.
Disadvantages:
• Members could still feel that their privacy is violated but not so than with a regular cup-raid.

3.- Common fees to buy more cups.

Advantages:
• There would be more items available for use.
Disadvantages:
• Members who do not take items from the kitchen would be punished.
• Members will be encouraged to take items since they will charged even if the do not.
• This will not solve the problem. Cups will still be taken necessitating more fines in a vicious circle.
• Kitchen manager will have to waste time making regular trips to the restaurant supply.

4 .- Provide disposable cups.

Advantages:
• Members have the alternative to taking cups to their rooms.
Disadvantages:
• Disposable cups may be too expensive.
• Disposable cups are bad for the environment.

 

Thinking about a good solution, one could say that the best solution would be that people should be conscious and should not take the cups to their rooms, but the problem of cups has risen because it does not happen like that. Therefore, a more drastic solution must be taken. In this case, the least harmful solution and the one that is likely to solve the problem in an easiest way is to perform semi-random cup-raids.

In brief, according to those advantages and disadvantages I would suggest we solve the problem of cups in Taos performing the latter one, that is, doing semi-random cup-raids. It is true that people can feel that their privacy is being violated, but they probably won’t be checked each time there is a cup-raid like it would happen with the regular cup-raids. Also, we won’t need to buy disposable utensils so the residence will save money and won’t contribute to pollute the environment. Finally, as the semi-random cup-raids will be announced, people will still have a change to return the cups from their rooms and if they forget it, they will be the only ones who will be punished, not everybody as it would happen charging a common fee to the whole house.