But there are also dissent voices, which question the apparent neutrality of service
standards. Service standards are thought to be devices in the hands of management by
which they attempt to reduce complexity to relatively simple patterns and transform
the firm into a more controllable place. In their attempt to order reality according to the
preferred rationality, top management use service standards as lenses through which
individuals are viewed, judged, measured, and compared against the others. Those individuals who do not conform to the prescriptions laid down by these standards are
either ‘given help’ (via training programmes) to adjust their behaviour or are simply
pushed away. An operator said: