Client expectations have been studied infrequently in career counseling. This study provides preliminary data about precounseling expectations, which were conceptualized as preferences and anticipations. Ninety-two university students ( 22men and 70 women) who sought career counseling completed an open-ended questionnaire. The results suggested the following conclusions: (a) Clients have fairly clear ideas about what they want (preferences) from career counseling and about what the experience should be like; (b) clients are somewhat less certain about what the career counseling experience will actually be like (anticipations) and less optimistic about it; (c) a number of mismatches exist between clients' preferences and anticipations; (d) clients do not have well-developed expectations about their dislikes in career counseling; and (e) few differences are evident between clients who have had previous counseling and those who have not.

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In response to concerns raised by Tracey (1992) and Tinsley (1992), several issues are discussed.Research in a new area should incorporate a variety of methods and philosophies including those that are more empirical or discovery-oriented in focus rather than being driven solely by borrowed theory. Failure to acknowledge the differences between personal and career counseling has hampered expectations research in career counseling. No empirical basis currently exists for selecting the best assessment format for instruments measuring expectations in counseling. Both preference and anticipations rather than a single, global expectations construct need to be assessed in career counseling, and a reliable and valid assessment instrument is currently not available for that purpose.Because expectations in career counseling has been a much neglected topic of research, we were extremely pleased by the editor's decision to publish an article about our research (Galassi, Crace, Martin, James, & Wallace, 1992) in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, as it represented an opportunity to focus attention on this area of investigation. In addition, the heuristic value of that article has been markedly enhanced by the fact that two well-known investigators have chosen to provide reactions to the issues that we raised (Tinsley, 1992;Tracey, 1992).Space restrictions make it impossible to respond to each of the points raised by the two investigators. We have chosen to emphasize what we view as the major decisions that should guide research on expectations in career counseling, as illustrated by our study (Galassi et al., 1992), and we begin with the concerns raised by Tracey.Many of Tracey's comments are concerned with the overarching assumptions on which research on expectations in career counseling is predicated. Included among his concerns are whether the research should be theory-driven, which assessment format will best capture the phenomenon of interest, and which of many data-analytic strategies will most clearly illuminate the hidden, but underlying, relationships in the data. Decisions about such matters, especially in a relatively new area of investigation, are critical as they can markedly affect the research practices and results obtained for years to come. Unfortunately, these decisions are not clear-cut, nor is there an unequivocal empirical basis on which they can be made.Tracey's criticisms about theory lack specificity. He indicated that we have incorporated little theory or past results in

S MOTOR LODGES started one year ago to test linens, which resulted in our recommending &dquo;no-iron&dquo; sheets to all of our motor lodges with laundries. In doing so, we became the first company to approve and use &dquo;noiron&dquo; sheets on a company-wide basis to any of our lodges interested in running laundries.We were cautious in our investigation and tried in every way to prove that the lodges' traditional laundering methods should be continued. This we could not do. &dquo;No-iron&dquo; sheets have definitely revolutionized our industry's laundering practices, and most of our industry will no doubt be back in the &dquo;laundry business&dquo; within the next five years.The problems of space, heat, cost, maintenance and qualified employees have all been decreased with the elimination of the mangler. Eliminating the ironer cuts each problem in half. Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges now have 140 laundries, compared with 40 one year ago. This growth is mainly due to our use of &dquo;no-iron&dquo; sheets.There are now at least eight companies producing no-iron sheets and more will certainly join the ranks as demand increases. Our experience has mainly been with sheets and pillowcases from Erwin Mills of Burlington Industries, Inc., whose product is made of 50% cotton and 50% fortel polyester. Other manufacturers have mixtures varying up to 65% polyester. At this stage of the game, we have been very happy with the 50-50 mixture but feel confident that improvements will be made in coming years.These new sheets and pillowcases give us longer life because of their greater tensile strength and higher durability than normal linen. Other features of significance are that they wash and dry faster, have less shrinkage, and will release grease, lip rouge, make-up, hair tints and stains more readily than cotton threads. Many of our sheets have gone through over 400 washings and show little if any wear.Our linen in the past has always been of the highest quality and standards. Minimum requirements were set at 180-count percale sheets, as satisfaction to our guests is of utmost importance. Our testing of the new linen started with guest reactions and from the very first day in use, guest comments were excellent. As a matter of fact, comfort on &dquo;no-iron&dquo; sheets seems to improve with their usage.Employee relations in jobs like laundry rooms are also benefited, an important matter in eliminating turnover and increasing worker productivity.These new sheets allow us to eliminate 90% of the heat (no ironer) which makes a position in our laundry rooms much more acceptable to both new and old employees. Cost ReductionsCost of operation is important to us. &dquo;No-iron&dquo;sheets have enabled our lodges to install their own laundry equipment and thus decrease outside laundry bills by as much as 60%. Many operators completely paid for their equipment and linen inventory costs in less than one year after their &dquo;noiron&dquo; laundry was in operation. An 80 to 100-room motel can cut $5,000 to $10,000 off existing operatin...

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