A place to refill

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

I carried an empty bottle into the café because a sign in its window offered free refills. The tap stood beside the entrance, away from the counter where drinks were ordered. I filled the bottle, replaced its lid and left without having to explain that I was not buying anything. The sign’s promise had a place where it could be carried out.

On earlier walks, I had sometimes asked at a counter and felt that a small request had interrupted someone’s real work. Here, the arrangement removed that negotiation. A customer ordering tea and a passer-by needing water did not have to compete for the same person’s attention. The ordinary tap was useful partly because someone had thought about how a stranger would approach it.

I am glad when businesses offer this kind of welcome, though a route should not depend on one café happening to be open. Clear hours and other available points matter too. For that afternoon, however, I continued with the bottle I had brought rather than another container from a shelf. A simple offer had become a simple action, which is more valuable than making the offer sound generous.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

The refill point in our public building was announced with a large poster, but the tap stood behind the reception desk. Visitors first had to attract an employee’s attention, then hand over a bottle while other enquiries waited. The service was free. Its use was not quite as straightforward as the cheerful arrow on the poster suggested.

Reception staff were helpful, but helping had become an extra interruption built into the design. A person who could manage the tap independently was still required to ask. When the building closed for a lunchtime meeting, the point disappeared from use although the poster remained visible through the door. An announcement had described availability without showing its actual conditions.

Keep the offer and make its operation clearer. Explain the hours, provide a sensible place to wait and, where the building can arrange it, let visitors use a suitable tap without involving the desk. A refill point should be judged by a person’s experience of obtaining water, not only by the size of the poster celebrating it. The useful part is what happens after the arrow.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about publicly available bottle-refill points. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.