Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 15

Accounting - Essay Example On April 16, 2010 the company release a news story that showcase one of its new innovative products called milk bags. The news release may have influenced the price of the common stock. J Sainsbury plc is the United Kingdom’s biggest player in the food industry with a market share of 16%. In 2009 the company achieved total revenues of 18,911 million pounds. The revenue total was 6% higher than in 2008. Normally greater revenues lead to better bottom line results. In the case of Sainsbury the greater revenues did not help the company improve its performance since its net profits decreased between 2009 and 2008. In 2009 the firm had net income of 289 million pounds, a figure that is 40 million pounds lower than the previous year. The net margin of the company was 1.53%, while the industry norm is 1.4% (Dun & Bradstreet, 2010). The return on equity and return on assets of the company were 6.88% and 2.88%. Both figures were lower than the industry average of 11.9% and 5.5% (Dun & Bradstreet, 2010). The current ratio of the company which shows that ability of the firm to pay its short term debt was 0.55. The current ratio industry norm is 1.9 (Dun & Bradstreet, 2 010). The results means the firm is underperforming in comparison with the industry and that the firm is at risk of having cash flow problems. The stock price of the company during April faced upwards tendencies. These types of movement are short term fluctuations. Based on the fact that the company is facing liquidity problems and the bad profitability results in terms in relation to its assets and equity I would not invest in the common stock of

Japanese Technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Japanese Technology - Essay Example This accounts to above $130 billion. A further indication of what Japan is capable of producing is the fact that it is the country that has received most Nobel prizes in Asia. These are facts evidence in the book, â€Å"Culture and Technology in Modern Japan† by Inkster Ian and Satofuka Fumihiko, as will be analyzed in this paper. It is also important to note that Japan is the one country in the entire globe that has prime international conglomerates such as Canon, Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Hitachi, Fujitsi, Toshiba, Epson, and NEC. Other great companies from Japan include Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Mazda. Japan’s innovative nature can also be found in such fields as Robotics, Chemicals, Metals, Semi conductors, and Optics. The amazing ability of Japan can be emphasized by the fact that it owns more than half of the world industrial robots. Moreover, six of the largest automotives of the world manufacturers have a Japanese origin. A world research on technology has also held that Japan has the most developed rail transport in the world. Madlev train is the fastest train in train in the entire globe with a speed of 581 kilometers per hour. This has for long, remained unbeaten. Needless to say, Japan rules the world space. The Exploration Agency and Aerospace are the reasons and foundations for Japan’s space related development and research. This has led to excellence in rocket development making its contribution to technology within the space commendable. The fact that Japan depends entirely on imported fuel; its priority has been centered on nuclear energy. It is the third chief world’s nuclear power. Currently, the country has 55 nuclear reactors, which provide 35% of the country’s electricity. The only energy that has proved hard to be produced in Japan is wind energy. This does not mean that Japan does not have the technology and

An Introduction To The Operations Management Concepts Business Essay

An Introduction To The Operations Management Concepts Business Essay Operations Management has been defined by Krajewski, et al. (2007) as the control and direction of the processes of the organization that changes its input materials to products and/or services for its customers. This report will compare how Mercedes-Benz and Honda manage their operations. The comparison might be useful because it would help identify various ways an organisation could be run in order to meet its goals and objectives. The report will give a brief background of the two organizations mentioned above and then would move on to the comparison of their marketing strategies and competitive priorities. Finally, the importance of frameworks such as capacity planning, inventory management, supply chain design, Total quality management and performance measures, would be discussed and how they could be useful in helping an organisation function efficiently and effectively. A) COMPANY BACKGROUND OF MERCEDEZ BENZ [MERCEDEZ-BENZ U.S. INTERNATIONAL, inc. (MBUSI)] and HONDA [HONDA MANUFACTURING OF ALABAMA, LLC. (HMA)]. MERCEDEZ-BENZ (MBUSI) Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc. (http://www.mbusi.com) was established for the main purpose of manufacturing the M-Class. The M-class was such a huge success that they decided in August 2000 to expand the facility not only to manufacture more units of It, but also to include the R and GL-classes to its product list. The expansion not only doubled the plant size but also the labor force. The plant consists of a body shop, paint shop and two assembly shops. MBUSI receives orders from their 135 worldwide markets. MBUSI uses the Just-in-Time (JIT) philosophy which implies that they do not stockpile large amounts of the inventory they use to assemble their cars. HONDA (HMA) HMA (http://www.hondaalabama.com) manufactures the odyssey, ridgeline and pilot models for the world wide market. HMAs investment in Alabama is over $1.4billion with the construction of a new Honda Engineering facility, on-site consolidation center and steel blanking operation. One of their goals is to be able to produce goods with high quality and sell at a reasonable price. HMA can be referred to as a Zero Landfill Facility due to the fact that they are committed to the principle of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. They have made efforts in curbing energy use during their production processes, and this has earned them an energy star award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A.1) OPERATION/TRANSFORMATION PROCESS OF THE ORGANIZATIONS MERCEDEZ-BENZ (MBUSI) The manufacturing process for both models begins in the Body Shop where the components that comprise the metal body are welded together. From the body shop, they are taken to the ultra-clean Paint Shop where the cars are painted. Finally, they end up in the Assembly where it becomes a new Mercedes-Benz M, R, or GL-Class ready for shipping. From beginning to end, these vehicles are created with style, functionality, and quality in mind (http://www.mbusi.com). HONDA (HMA) Honda Manufacturing of Alabama (HMA) has the largest output for Honda light trucks. It has the capacity to create over 300,000 odyssey minivans, pilot sport utility vehicles, Ridgeline pick-up trucks and V-6 engines annually (http://www.hondaalabama.com). A.2) COMPARISON OF THE ORGANISATIONS BASED ON MARKETING STRATEGIES The Ansoff matrix suggests four ways an organisation could develop strategically. The first one which is market penetration deals with going into the market yet further with existing goods, the next one, product development, has to do with developing new products for the existing market, the third which is market development deals with developing new markets and new segments for existing products while the final one which is diversification takes a radical step to create new products for new markets (Wood, 2007). The table below shows the similarities and difference in marketing strategies between MERCEDEZ-BENZ and HONDA. MERCEDEZ-BENZ HONDA PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MARKET DEVELOPMENT DIVERSIFICATION The marketing strategies mentioned in the table above will be discussed in the following paragraphs. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Product Development deals with producing new products or improving existing ones for the existing market. According to Mercedes-Benz (http://www.mbusi.com) and HONDA (http://www.automobiles.honda.com), below are some of the areas they have tried to improve their products. Mercedes (GL-CLASS/C-CLASS) and HONDA (PILOT/INSIGHT HYBRID) would be used as examples. MERCEDES-BENZ (GL-CLASS) HONDA (PILOT) SAFETY -12-Way protection of an 8-air bag protection -Electronic stability program(ESP) -Brake Assist(BAS) -Rollover sensor -Low tire pressure warning system -Active head restraints -Seat belts -Three-Row side curtain airbags with rollover sensor -Vehicle stability assist with traction control -Lower Anchors and Tethers for children(LATCH) Advanced compatibility Engineering(ACE) body structure -Tire pressure monitoring system(TPMS) SEATING/LUGGAGE CAPACITY -Room for 7 adults -collapsible seats for 2ndand 3rdrow, leaving more cargo space. -Room for 8 adults -collapsible seats for 2nd and 3rdrow, leaving more cargo space. 4-WHEEL AIR SUSPENSION 4-wheel air suspension which can raise its height by up to 3. This is useful for off road trips. TOWING CAPACITY -7500-ib towing capacity. -4500-ibs towing capacity. FUEL ECONOMY -Hondas variable cylinder management (VCM), which helps improve fuel economy. C-CLASS INSIGHT HYBRID ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS -Blue efficiency technology which is efficient at reducing CO2 emissions Reduced CO2 emission. From the table above, it can be observed that the two organizations have developed their products in various areas which include safety, fuel economy, environmental friendliness etc. product development could be said to be a good marketing strategy because many consumers are drawn towards goods they can derive good value for money from. However, the development of a product might result to an increase in its price. This price change might discourage certain consumers from purchasing it which could have a negative effect on the amount of sales of the product. MARKET DEVELOPMENT Market Development is concerned with creating new markets and segments for existing products. MERCEDEZ-BENZ and HONDA have registered their presence in many parts of the world. With respect to Honda, they have manufacturing companies in America, China, Japan, Europe, Indonesia, and India. When manufacturing automobiles in any region, the needs and values of the consumers over there should be put into consideration. This could help in getting the market to patronize you all the more. For example, according to (http://www.world.honda.com) because the European market is highly Eco-conscious, Honda manufactured and launched the Insight Hybrid and the CR-Z Hybrid in 2009 and 2010 respectively, in Europe. Honda also released the Accord Crosstour model in the African and Middle Eastern markets where the SUV category is widely popular in order to cultivate a new CUV (Cross-over Utility Vehicle) category that offers new added value. Mercedes-Benz also has markets in various parts of the globe which include; Africa, Asia, Australia/Pacific, Europe, North and Central America, South America. Apart from developing new markets in different parts of the world, Mercedes-Benz has also tried to look into new customer segments. According to (http://www.exampleessays.com), they are looking to expand their market base to youths. This is being done by using a more life-style marketing strategy which emphasizes a more fun loving, approachable and energetic side of Mercedes-Benz. This new message was obvious when they sponsored the Elton John concert in New York, and sponsoring of the professional tennis. Market development is a good marketing strategy in that it could help increase sales. However, when organizations enter into new markets without carrying out proper research on its suitability for their products, if it turns out that the market is not favorable enough due to reasons such as low purchasing power of consumers, then that product being introduced might not perform too well in the market. DIVERSIFICATION Diversification is developing entirely new products for a new market. Unlike Mercedes-Benz, Honda is into the production of different goods in different product lines. They manufacture Automobiles, Power sports (motor bikes and ATVs), Jets, Power equipments (Generators, lawnmowers, pumps, snow blowers etc), Honda Marines (Engines used for boats), and Honda Engines for (water pumps, agricultural equipments, forestry equipments, etc). Diversification is a very useful marketing strategy in that it helps expand the market base of the organisation and thereby increase the sales opportunities. However, for various reasons such as availability of substitute goods; strong competitors etc, certain brands might become weak or unprofitable and this could affect the organization negatively. A.3) COMPARISON OF THE ORGANISATIONS BASED ON COMPETITIVE PRIORITIES. MERCEDEZ (MBUSI) HONDA(HMA) CONSISTENT QUALITY VARIETY DELIVERY SPEED LOW-COST OPERATION DEVELOPMENT SPEED ON-TIME DELIVERY VOLUME FLEXIBILTY Some of the competitive priorities will be discussed below. CONSISTENT QUALITY Both Mercedes and Honda have consistent quality as a competitive priority. It may be argued that Consistency is being achieved due to the fact that production of cars is highly automated, and so the chances of error are slimmer. Honda and Mercedes for example have robots they use in their plants. These robots have been programmed to work in a particular which helps ensure consistency. VARIETY Both organizations have a wide range of goods available to customers. Mercedes has the A, B, C, CL, GL, S, SLK, E, R, M etc classes. On the other hand, Honda has different models of vehicles which include Accord coupe, crosstour, sedan, Civic coupe, hybrid sedan, si coupe, odyssey, pilot, Ridge line truck, etc. With this in place, the consumers have an array of choices. DELIVERY SPEED Delivery speed might be argued to be an important competitive priority to organizations because usually, consumers prefer going to places where they can get what they want when they want it. If an organisation can not deliver to its customers as quickly as possible, with time they might loose them. This could be one of the reasons why some companies decide to have branches all over the world just like Mercedes and Honda. The nearer you are to your market, the faster you can deliver. LOW-COST OPERATION Majority of Mercedes vehicles are luxurious and sophisticated. The materials involved in the manufacture of their cars are of higher quality and therefore could relatively cost more. This reflects in the price of the vehicle at the end of the day as Mercedes cars are usually very expensive. On the other hand, Hondas cost of operation might be a little lower because they manufacture vehicles that fall in the small car market; the raw materials used may not be as expensive as that of Mercedes. This is an area Honda and Mercedes differ. B.1) CAPACITY PLANNING AND THE EXPANSIONIST MODEL Capacity planning is employed to ensure that the processes in any given organisation run smoothly without any hitch. It would help identify the bottle necks, and then suggest ways of alleviating them. And also, through demand forecasts, it helps to guide the decision on whether or not to increase their capacity by buying more equipment, putting up more structures etc. There are a couple of tools used in capacity planning, and one of them is the expansionist model. The Expansionist strategy makes a forecast on demand and based on this, decides whether or not to expand capacity. The advantage of the expansionist strategy is that if the forecast is accurate, the chances of sales being lost to insufficient capacity becomes very narrow. However, if the demand does not increase as expected, the investment made in expansion might become a waste. Honda (http://www.world.honda.com) used the expansionist strategy when it forecasted that in 2004 they expected sales to increase by 36% of the previous year in the Asia-Oceania region. This made them increase the annual production capacity in India from 30,000 to 50,000 units. This decision to expand would have helped them reduce the chances of missing out on sales due to capacity insufficiency. B.2) INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AND JUST-IN-TIME (JIT) Inventory management has to do with monitoring the in-flow and out-flows of the goods of an organisation in such a way that they do not have too much in store, and at the same time are able to meet up with their demand. There are different methods of managing inventory in an organisation, and one of it is Just-In-Time (JIT). JIT is a philosophy which states that products should be ordered for and produced only when needed, and that they should not be produced to store away. The advantage of the JIT philosophy is that it produces a lean system which is anti-waste. JIT also helps save on cost such as storage, handling, shrinkage etc. However, if suppliers fail to deliver on the agreed date, fail to deliver materials of acceptable quality and/or deliver materials that require scrap or rework, the organisations processes would be disrupted. Mercedes ( http://www.mbusi.com) uses the JIT philosophy for its operations. In their body shop, they have about one days supply of materials, and on the production line they have about 40 minutes of parts. Their team uses a computerized system whereby if they need more materials, a member of the team pushes a button which sends a signal to the screen on the forklift which will inform the forklift driver on which part is needed for what particular station. They use this system as opposed to stockpiling of parts on the line. It works for them because it helps them to be lean B.3) SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN AND OFF SHORING Supply chain design has to do with the plan the organization has in place to ensure its supply chain does not hinder it from being competitive in the market. Supply chain design is both relevant to the service and manufacturing industries. In the service industry, it seeks to ensure that the resources needed to provide a service are always available in the right proportion, while in the manufacturing industry, it seeks to ensure that the organization does not have too much nor too little stock in its possession so they could meet up with their competitive priorities. One important aspect of supply chain view is off shoring. Off shoring involves establishing branches of an organization in one or more parts of the world. This could be done for various reasons one of which is to reduce the cost of logistics. However, if there is an over-estimation of the suitability of the intended location for the organization, and after setting up there for a while, they discover the prospects are not as bright as they thought probably due to insufficient power supply, they might have to fold up the organization which might be very costly because they would have invested so much in the project. It is therefore important for organizations to make sure it is absolutely necessary before embarking on an off shore project. Both Mercedes and Honda have off shore branches, and this can be reflected in the number of subsidiaries they have all over the world. One of the reasons why they do this is to be closer to their customers, so they can cut down on delivery cost. B.4) TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND 3 PRINCIPLES Total quality management (TQM) is used to ensure that the goods produced and services rendered by an organization are of good quality, and up to standard. The International Standard Organisation (ISO) sets the bar for all organizations. TQM takes into consideration three principles which include; level of customer satisfaction, degree of employee involvement and the rate of continuous improvement. Customer Satisfaction: This has to do with producing goods and rendering services that meet the need and satisfy the desires of the customer. It is important for an organization to satisfy their customers because they are the ones who keep them in business. If your customers are unhappy with your goods or services and they leave, then that organization might fold up in less than no time. Employee Involvement: This has to do with getting the opinion of workers on how to move the organisation forward. It might be argued that involving employees in some decision making processes is essential to the success of that organization because, it makes them feel useful and so they might want to put in their best in what they do. They are allowed to be innovative and to contribute their ideas to the organization which might end up taking the company to heights of greatness. Continuous Improvement: This deals with ensuring organizations processes are always efficient and effective. The competition in the market now a days is so stiff that organizations cannot afford to have a lackadaisical attitude towards the continuous improvement of their processes. If they do that, they would loose their customers to their competitors. It could be said that the application of the 3 principles to an organisation would be helpful for its survival. However, it might be expensive to handle especially when it comes to the continuous improvement bit because it might entail having to train staff on a frequent basis. Mercedes (http://www.mbusi.com) tries to continuously improve their processes by training their staff before and even after they commence work. B.5) PERFORMANCE RESOURCES AND BALANCED SCORE CARD Each organization need some form of benchmark to measure their level of performance. Kaplan and Nortons balanced scorecard could be used for this purpose, and it is discussed below. Financial Measures; this has to do with the measurement of the financial performance of the organisation. It takes into perspective concepts like Operating income, ROI, EBIT etc. Daimler AG, (http://www.daimler.com) the parent company of Mercedes had a net profit of C1.4billion in 2008 while in 2009, they recorded a net loss of C 2.6billion. This loss might be partly because of the economic recession. In 2009, (http://www.world.honda.com) Honda had an operating income of Y189, 643 millions while in 2010, it increased to Y363,775. Looking at these figures, one can tell at a glance their level of financial performance for those years. Customer-Relationship Measure; this deals with how well an organisation treats its customers. It considers issues such as customer satisfaction, customer retention etc. Mercedes is a brand which could be argued to be well known for making their customers happy because they produce cars with class. They try to meet the need of sophistication which their customers have. With the release of the CR-Z hybrid, Honda has also tried to satisfy a segment of its market which is the Environmental-conscious group. Business Process Measure; This tries to assess how well an organistion manages its operations. It includes measures such as Quality, cost etc. Using quality as an example, one could say it is necessary for both Benz and Honda to have it because consumers are willing to buy goods that are worth the value of their money. So if these organizations lack this requirement, very soon they would run out of business. Learning and Growth/Human Resource Measures; This deals with how the employees are treated in the organisation. Some measures for this include employee retention, employee satisfaction, training etc. Mercedes is having problems with staff retention due to the recession. As a result, they are retrenching workers because they want to reduce the amount spent on wages. Honda on the other hand has made efforts in trying to make their staff a bit comfortable. Honda guaranteed a sum of 31.7billion for employee bank loan so that if any of its employees take a loan a falters, that sum would bail them out. C.1) EVALUATION OF THE MIX The concepts in the mix might be argued to be essential to any given organisation. This could be because they each play very important roles in ensuring the operations of an organisation run smoothly. Capacity planning helps ensure they dont loose out on demand due to insufficient capacity. Inventory management ensures they have the right amount of stock at every given point in time. This is necessary because they do not want so much stored up away which could result in an increase in holding cost, and at the same time they want to be able to meet up with demand. Supply chain Design helps to ensure the suppliers do not serve as impediments to the organisation from meeting their competitive priorities. Total quality management and performance resources are in place to ensure that the goods and services being produced are of acceptable standard. Based on the functions of the various frameworks described above, it could be said that all the members of the mix are important to both Mercedes and Honda. C.2) IMPACT OF THE MIX ON COMPETITIVENESS It could be argued that capacity planning, supply chain design and inventory management are necessary for competitiveness. Supply chain design is necessary because you need suppliers whose emphases are; on-time delivery, consistent quality and low prices. This could help organizations meet competitive priorities such as low cost operation, consistent quality, delivery speed, on-time delivery, top quality. Having a good supply chain design would be necessary for Mercedes (MBUSI) because they practice a JIT system which is highly dependent on reliable suppliers in order for it to succeed. Capacity planning helps competitiveness in that it ensures the organisation always has enough products to meet its demand. This is essential because if customers seldom get what they want from an organisation, they might loose confidence in them and thereby stop patronizing them. Capacity planning would be useful to both Mercedes and Honda because theres a need to meet up with the demand for their products in order to build confidence in their customers. Inventory management might also be necessary for competitiveness because for an organization which has low cost operation as its competitive priority, having too much goods in store might not be useful in helping them achieve this goal due to holding cost. Therefore such organisations need to monitor the amount of goods they have in stock at a particular point in time. C.3) IMPACT OF THE MIX ON INNOVATION Performance resources and Total Quality Management could impact innovation. One of the metrics in performance resources which has to do with new product/service development could have an impact on innovation because its a benchmark that emphasizes product improvement. Also, the continuous improvement principle under TQM which states that organizations should try to deliver better goods and services on a constant basis could have an impact on its innovative skills. Mercedes and Honda use this mix. That is why it can be observed that each model of car they release is an improved version of the previous one. C.4) IMPACT OF THE MIX ON SUSTAINABILITY The mix contains important principles which include capacity planning, inventory management, supply chain design, performance resources and Total quality management. If these principles are being applied to both Mercedes and Honda, these organizations would most likely remain in the market for quite a long period of time because the application of the mix gives an operational and competitive edge, and being able to compete in the market is necessary for survival. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This report has helped to highlight how important it is for organizations to manage their processes well by applying principles such as TQM, Capacity planning, inventory management etc because then, they will not only meet their competitive priorities, but they will be able to compete effectively against competitors in their target market.

I Want to Coach High School Football :: Teaching Education Philosophy

I Want to Coach High School Football As I was preparing to leave high school and look for a career, I had to make an immense decision. I had to decide what field I wanted to pursue, and how to go about it. I knew I wanted to teach because it offered everything I wanted in a profession including, good benefits, decent pay, the chance to work with children, and the chance to eventually coach High School Football. No other career I found can offer all of these advantages. Although I know I want to teach there is more to the teaching profession than that. First, I have to learn the curriculum and then how to bring that material across to the students. The actual learning process comes naturally for me, but I had to stop and think about how I would bring it across once I become a teacher. This involves many aspects of my life and what I feel is important. I feel ones teaching philosophy pulls from every portion of an individuals belief system. These can include your moral and ethical beliefs, your personality, and also what you, as a teacher, feel is important for the students to learn. To me this seems to be a very big responsibility, so when I started considering my teaching philosophy, I did not take the task lightly. It seems to me that there is a very thin line between fulfilling your own expectations as a teacher, and giving the children what they need and even what they want. I decided that I as a prospective educator, found no teaching philosophy that fulfilled all of my beliefs and hopes. I felt that choosing one philosophy in its entirety was to extreme. I feel that there are parts of all of the philosophies that are excellent, but the philosophies as a whole fail the students in some aspects. That is why for me, I chose an eclectic philosophy. I broke down all of the ways of thinking and came up with my own personal philosophy to use some day when I achieve my dream of being a teacher. I feel it is very important to teach the basic skills first.

The factory system took little account of the needs of workers – How far do you agree with this statement?

On the whole I agree with this statement. Most factory owners did not take into the account the needs of their workers. However, there were some exceptions, sir Titus salt for example. To begin with I shall look at the factory system in general and the appalling living and working conditions it imposed on its workers. In the factory towns houses were squeezed into the centres of towns or around the factories. Landlords crammed as many people into houses as they could. The water supply was another problem. Sewage and rubbish was left in the backyard, piled up in the street or thrown into open drains, which ran down the roads. Even where there were drains and sewage pipes, they normally ran into the local rivers – where people collected their water. Most factory owners built the house quickly which made them not safe and also built them closely together witch meant diseases, people having to share toilets which caused dirty water. People had to buy fresh water from carts and rich people. â€Å"Sixty thousand of the population had no running water except from wells and rain water† (From the commercial directory of Leeds – 1834) The dirty water caused lots of disease such as cholera. Cholera was a disease that arrived from the continent. It could kill a person very quickly. People only used to live to 19 on an average due to disease. The reason for this was that people worked at least 9 hours a day and only had four hours sleep. Most people were too tired to eat after they came home from work. Most people only got paid fifteen shillings, which is equal to fifteen pence per week. If they wanted to work over time they only got a further three pence. Many people went to live in the towns so that they could find work in the factories. Before this they had worked in their homes. Factory life was very different. Children were often beaten black and blue with a strap or kicked in the ribs. If you got injured. For example lost your finger in a machine you wouldn't have got any wages. Girls who had long hair often had their hair chopped off as a punishment for bad work. The power loom would of would of made a terrible noise this causing harm/ear acre for the factory workers most of the time they was nothing to stop the workers from breathing in the dust from the machines. † My eldest. The cog caught her finger and screwed it off below the knuckle† (Samuel Coulson, Father of two girls, giving evidence to the committee – 1832) The factory owners only paid their workers very little amount of money or even none at all when they were off due to sickness, they may have even lost there jobs and became paupers. Those people who were fit were made to go to the workhouse often families were separated. The food was poor and they had to where a uniform. There were 129 steam factories in Bradford and Bradford had become the world centre of the worsted industry. Worsted is a fine woollen cloth used to make women's dresses and men's suits. The town often attracted tens of thousands of migrants – mainly young men and women who wanted to work in the mills, they came from all over the British Isles. The town was unable to cope with them. No one took responsibility for a long time. There were terrible problems of drunkenness, violence and crime. The pollution of the atmosphere in Bradford was dreadful. When the magistrates tried to introduce the workhouse system to Bradford in 1836 they had to flee to Leeds as the mob tried to take control of the town. This map shows that there was only a little built up area in Bradford about 1800 But in 1879 they where much more houses built more closely together and more people were living in them. The rapid growth of population caused terrible problems because there were no rules or regulations about building houses. Here I include a source from the Bradford Observer June 5th 1845. Thompson's buildings – this locality is situate on an eminence at the foot of which runs a filthy beck, or stream, impregnated with the refuse of dye houses, manufactories, and dwellings contiguous to it. The streets are narrow and filthy, and the general arrangement of the dwellings unfavourable to health. The inhabitants uniformly complain of ill health. In 12 cases taken on rotation, the figures showed that the dwellings are inhabited by ninety-five persons, having only twenty four beds, or eight to one bedroom, the average size of which is seventeen feet by fifteen. Case 7: Family 9 ,rooms and beds 2, house workers 5. Case 8: Same numbers of family, beds, and rooms as last; house workers 4. Case 9: Family 6; rooms and beds 2, house workers 4. Case 10: Family 10, rooms and beds 2; house workers 5. Case 11: Family 7; rooms 2; bed 1; house workers 4. Case 12: Family 11; rooms 3 beds 2, house workers 5. Case 13: Family 8; rooms, beds, and workers 2; females, charcoal. Case 14: Family 12, rooms 2, beds 3, workers 4; females 2; coals. Case 15: Family 7; rooms and beds 2; workers 4; female 1. Case 16: Family 10; rooms 2, beds 3; workers 4. Case 18: Family 4; room and bed; workers 2; female 1. This meant that they would be more pollution; they would be more sewage in the streets, which would attract rats and other vermin. The pollution was so bad that the canal was called â€Å"STINK RIVER†. A survey in 1845 revealed that between 8 and 12 people lived in two rooms on average. This, along with poor sanitation, badly built (jerry built) houses caused the life expectation in Bradford to be the lowest in Yorkshire – only 20 years of age. They were exceptions though my first example is Robert Owen 1771 – 1858. Between the years 1815 to 1820 they was distress and a lot of unemployment. Parliaments were Luke warm about the new idea, but the setting up of villages of co-operation remained the basic aim of socialists and the co-operative movement up to the middle of the nineteenth centaury. One of the most dramatic events in Robert Owens life was the forming of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in 1834. Though the settlements were a failure, the co-operative movements inspired Robert Owen, spread rapidly through Britain between 1826 and 1835, when some two hundred and fifty Co-operative societies were formed. They set up stores for the sale of high quality goods at reasonable prices and formed producers' co-operatives to help the unemployed. It was the co-operative retail shop, which gave the movement its greatest success. Here I include the map of Robert Owens successful mill, New Lanark. Owen gave socialism all its basic ideas. He laid the foundations of the co-operative movement and left his mark on trade unionism. He was a pioneer in a factory reform and progressive education, and few men have played such a large part in social reform. Now I go on to look at my second example, Sir Titus Salt. Sir Titus Salt was born at Morley in 1803. He first worked for his father as a wool merchant. He later set up his own spinning plant in Bradford in 1834. By this time he had married Caroline Whitlon, The daughter of a rich Lincolnshire sheep farmer. He first carried out a social survey among his workers to see what size house they needed. It had not previously occurred to anyone that a worker with ten children needed more rooms in his house than a worker with one child. Sir Titus Salt chose a site adjoining the Leeds Liverpool canal, the River Aire and the newly made railway station, So he had ideal transport facilities for his trading. It was a massive mill, he chose innovative architects, and agreed to their suggestion of Italianite style. There was space, light and warmth in his new mill. The location was superb, in a green and pleasant are. The mill opened in 1853 on Titus Salts 50th birthday. He then created an entire village of houses, park, school, library, recreation and a learning institute and an outdoor sport facility. The streets were named after his children and family. He called this village â€Å"Saltaire†. Titus employed a large number of workers in combing, spinning and weaving his cloth. He had business connections throughout Europe and America and yet â€Å"For in his making his thousands he never forgot, the thousands who helped him to make them† Titus had simple but good education, and would have liked to become a doctor, but could not stand the sight of blood, so that ambition was quashed, although it did show that young Titus was aware of health and disease. His family were Congregationalists, and religion was very influential in their upbringing. On the whole I agree that the factory system took little account of the needs of its workers but there were exceptions, sir Titus Salt and Robert Owen were one of these exceptions.

The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE

She felt caught as she stared at the dark Hill-king astride his red horse, caught by the sky, by the stars winking into the new-fallen darkness, by the sand and encircling Hills; they seized her and held her down. She was a figure in some story other than her own, an embroidered shape in a Hill tapestry, a representation of something that did not exist in her Homeland. Then the crowd gave a roar and surged inward; she closed her eyes. But they were patting her ankles, her legs, her back, making her human again, with human bewilderment and human luck. She began to distinguish words in the roar: they were shouting, â€Å"Harimad-sol! Laprun minta! Minta – musti! Harimad-sol!† Tsornin and Isfahel were driven together, and they stood patiently while the crowd rose and foamed around them. Isfahel turned his head and Tsornin turned his, till their flared nostrils touched briefly in a salute. Out of the corner of her eye Harry saw Corlath blot the drop of blood at his mouth with the back of his hand. The crowd fell away from its center, breaking into smaller eddies that laughed and swung each other by arms and hands and shoulders. Sungold and Fireheart edged away from each other, their riders silent and motionless. Harry could not look at Corlath. He reached out one hand toward her, perhaps to touch her, but Tsornin sidled just one step farther and Corlath's hand dropped away. Mathin appeared on Harry's far side and touched her elbow, and Harry smiled gratefully at his familiar face. Mathin did not speak to her, but turned away, and she slid off Sungold and the two of them followed him, walking slowly, permitted their due of weariness at last. Mathin stopped where two taris were already set up, and knelt down to build a fire, companionably ignoring his two pupils; and Harry was glad to lay aside the glory of laprun-minta. The headache haze and sense of displacement began to ebb as she mechanically stripped off Sungold's saddle and rubbed him down. The smell of Mathin's cooking crept to greet her and cheer her, and remind her who she was, or who she had become. She was the Daughter of the Riders. Harry ate too much that night. She ate till her stomach hurt – Mathin had kept them on strict rations during training – but she was only half aware of what she was eating. Many of the lapruni she had faced today came to her, to touch her hand and offer what seemed a sort of fealty; they materialized at the edge of the firelight, as indistinct as they had seemed to her that afternoon: they wore red robes and blue robes and brown robes and black, for none wore a sash, and their swords hung in scabbards by their sides instead of drawn against her. And they called her Harimad-sol, and laprun-minta, and their voices were hushed and reverent. Harry ate too much because it made her feel more real. As the evening progressed other taris were set up nearby: she had noticed that Mathin was using a pot larger than the one for the two of them she had seen every night for six weeks. Soon she found they were sharing their fire and supper with Innath and Faran and Forloy and Dapsim, and others of the king's Riders. They watched without comment as the lapruni came to show themselves to the Daughter of the Riders, who kept putting more food on her plate as they appeared and vanished. Once when Harry looked up she saw Mathin handing Corlath a plate. The king slouched down, cross-legged, and began to eat. Harry would have liked to ask why the lapruni were saluting her, for it seemed beyond a simple acknowledgment of the loser to the victor, but she did not ask. Mathin had taught her patience, and she had known all her life how to be stubborn. It seemed a bit unfair to complain, she thought, as it – or as I – have turned out; but couldn't I have been told a little more beforehand? She looked into the eyes of those who sought her and called her Harimad-sol, and tried to think of them as individuals, and not as robes and tunics and fallen sashes. The lapruni all went away without her having to speak to them, for they did not seem to expect her to answer them with anything but her presence. This was both restful and unnerving. One laprun was a woman. For her Harry did have a question. â€Å"What is your name?† The girl's robe was blue, and Harry suddenly recognized her as the rider on the bay mare. â€Å"Senay,† she replied. â€Å"Where is your home?† Senay turned to face northwest. â€Å"Shpardith,† she said. â€Å"It is there,† and she pointed into the blackness. â€Å"Twelve days on a fleet horse.† Harry nodded, and the girl left to return to her own fire, and others came to speak to the laprun-minta who sat with the Riders and the king. When she looked around again she realized that there were eighteen dark figures besides herself and the king; all the Riders, from wherever they had been, had returned. And Narknon reappeared, and Harry hugged her eagerly, for she felt in need of something to hug. She offered her bits of meat, which Narknon graciously accepted, although she attempted to nose through Harry's plate herself, to make sure Harry wasn't keeping back any of the best bits for herself. Harry slept dreamlessly, her hand on the hilt of her sword; when she awoke and found this so, she stared at her hand as if it did not belong to her. She crept out of the tari and looked around. The sky was light; yet most of the taris still had bodies in them, and there were more blanket-swathed figures motionless around banked or burned-out fires. Mathin's lips moved as he rebuilt their fire. She turned to look behind her. Corlath was gone; there was only a small ripple in the sand where he had lain, or it might be only the wind. Mathin handed her a cup of malak. It was reheated from last night, and bitter. Harry shrugged into her stiff grimy surcoat, hoping there would be bathing sometime today, and thinking wistfully of the little valley behind her, and its green pool. Her split sash lay beside her, where she had stuffed it through the tari's open flap the night before. She picked it up and, after a moment's thought, wrapped it around her waist again, tucking torn edges underneath till it would stay fixed. She did not do it very well, and she thought of asking Mathin for help, but chose not to. After the wildness of the night before, this morning everyone went quietly about the business of packing up and returning, it seemed, to where they had come from. A few lingered: Harry and several of the Riders, for many of them had vanished with Corlath, and perhaps a dozen riders she did not recognize, and a few of the lapruni. She looked for Senay hopefully, but did not see her. The wind whispered over the bare land. But for the black hollows of dead fires, there was nothing to show that several hundred people had spent the last three days here. Mathin turned Windrider east, east where the City lay just beyond one of the enigmatic rockfaces before them. Tsornin fell into step beside Windrider; Viki came along behind them, still grumbling to himself; and the others, some thirty riders, strung out behind them. Harry peered over her shoulder several times, watching the procession winding behind her, till she caught Mathin's expression of restrained amusement when he glanced over at her. After that she looked only straight ahead. Narknon padded softly among them all. There was another big hunting-cat with them, a handsome spotted-mahogany male an inch or two taller than Narknon; but she scorned him. Tsornin strode out like a yearling having his first sight of the world beyond his paddock. Harry tried to keep her back straight and her legs quiet. Yesterday she had been glad of her perfectly fitted saddle, for it gave her suppleness and security; today she was glad of it because it told her where her legs were supposed to be even when they felt like blocks of wood. Her shoulder hurt, and her head felt woolly, and her right wrist was as weak as water, and she had a great purple bruise on her left calf. My horse is ignoring me, Harry thought. Or maybe he's trying to cheer me up. She had gone over him with great care the evening before, and again this morning, and applied salve to the few small scrapes he had collected. He had no suspicious swellings, no lameness, and his eyes were bright and his step buoyant. He made her feel woollier. â€Å"Are you trying to cheer me up?† she said to his mane, and he cocked a merry ear at her and strutted. They had just begun to step upward off the plain into the Hills when they rounded another abrupt shoulder of rock like the one she and Mathin had passed for her first view of the laprun fields; and here was a wide highway mounting steeply to massive gates not far away. There lay the City. They passed through the gates, borne beneath an arch two horse-lengths thick, their horses' hooves echoing hollowly. There was a cold grey smell, as if of caves, although the gates had stood for a thousand years. They walked down a broad avenue where six horsemen might walk abreast. It was stone-paved, laid out in huge flat cobbles, some grey or white or red-veined black; it had edges of earth where slender grey trees grew. Behind them were stone walkways where children played; and beyond them were stone houses and shops and stables and warehouses; stone flower-pots stood in doorways and on window ledges. The green-and-blue parrots Harry had seen in the traveling camp were perched on many shoulders, and some of them joined, gay and noisy, in the children's games. Often with a flirt of wings one would carry off the stone counter or mark a group of children was using, while the children shrieked at them, and occasionally threw pebbles at them, but only very small ones. â€Å"Is there no wood?† said Harry. â€Å"Nothing but stone?† She looked up at the roof and walls and gables mounting up the hillside behind the gates, tiers of stone, multi-colored stone, no shingles or slats or carved wooden cornices, or shutters or window frames. â€Å"There is wood here,† said Mathin, â€Å"but there is more stone.† Innath rode up on Harry's other side. â€Å"Mathin cannot see the strangeness of this place,† he said; â€Å"his village is just as stony as the City, only smaller. Where I come from we cut down trees and plane them smooth and slot them together, our houses and barns are warm and weathered, and do not last forever and haunt you with the ghosts of a thousand years.† â€Å"We use wood,† said Mathin. Innath made a dismissive gesture. â€Å"The grand receiving-rooms here have wooden paneling – you'll see some of them at the castle – and parlors, where people really live, often have wooden screens as ornaments.† â€Å"There are wooden chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Mathin. â€Å"There are more stone chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Innath. â€Å"They don't often rearrange the furniture here.† Harry looked around. She saw doors so well hung on their hinges that they were opened and closed by a child's touch, yet made of stone slabs so heavy she wondered how they had been wrestled into their places to begin with. Free-standing walls, she saw, were often as wide as the reach of her two arms; yet often too the inner wall facing on a courtyard encircled by tall houses was so fine and delicate, cut into filigree work so complex, it looked as though it must tremble in the lightest breeze; as if one might roll it up like a bolt of silk and store it on a shelf. â€Å"To be either a stonemason or a carpenter is to be respected,† Mathin said. â€Å"The best of them are greatly honored.† â€Å"Hear the horse-breaker,† said Innath. Mathin smiled. The children began calling: â€Å"The lapruni are here! And the Riders – and the laprun-minta!† â€Å"Harimad-sol,† Innath called to them, and Harry blushed. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† agreed the children; and people came out from the houses and down the narrower ways off the wide central way to look. Harry tried to look around her without catching anyone's eye, but many of the onlookers sought hers; and when one succeeded, he – or she – would touch right wrist to forehead and then hold the flat empty palm out toward her. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† she heard, and eagerly they added, â€Å"Damalur-sol.† The children danced in front of Tsornin's feet to make her look at them, and clapped their hands; and she smiled and waved shyly at them, and Tsornin was very careful with his hooves. They rode on. At first the Hills rose up behind the low buildings, but as they went farther in, the buildings grew taller and taller and seemed part of the Hills themselves; and the trees that lined the way grew larger, till the shade of them could be felt as one passed beneath. Then another gate rose up before them, the wall around it running into the flanks of the mountains as if wall and gate had been formed with the mountains at the beginning of time. They went through this gate too, and entered a wide flat courtyard of polished stone. This stone was mirror-white, and it blazed up fiercely in the morning sunlight, and Harry felt as if she had emerged from underground. She blinked. Before her stood Corlath's castle; no one had to explain to her what this huge stone edifice must be. She tipped her head back to see the sharp points of the turrets, brilliant as diamonds. It was itself a mountain, proudly peaked, seated among its brothers; its faces glittered dangerously. The shadows it threw were abrupt and absolute; one wall reflected white, another black. The central mass was taller than the Hill crests here; the road they had climbed had reached near the summit of the dark Hills, and like an island in the crater lake of an extinct volcano, the castle stood in its stone yard that shone as bright as water in the sun. Harry sighed. Men of the horse were approaching them in the swift but unhurried way she remembered from the days on the desert in the traveling camp; and she felt a sudden sharp stab of memory, as if that were a time many years past, and the present were sad and weary. She slipped down from Tsornin's back and he suffered himself to be led away when one of the brown men spoke to him gently by name and laid a hand in front of his withers. Narknon sat down neatly at Harry's feet; Harry could feel her tail twitching at her ankles. Those who had ridden with her began now to go purposefully in their own individual directions. Mathin said to her, ‘†It is here I am to leave you. Perhaps it may be permitted that we ride against each other again and you may practice your skills upon me, Daughter of the Riders.† He smiled. â€Å"We will meet again at the king's table, here in the City.† Harry looked up toward the castle when Mathin left her, feeling a little forlorn; and it was Corlath himself who walked to meet her. She swallowed rather hard, and blessed the sunburn that would prevent her fierce blush from showing as clearly as it would on an Outlander's pale skin. â€Å"We meet again, Harimad-sol,† Corlath said. There was a tiny scab at one corner of his mouth; he looked down at her with a cold dignity, she thought; he is the master of this place, and what am I? Even Daughter of the Riders could not comfort her as Corlath stood before her with his castle shining savagely behind him. But then he spoiled the effect – or perhaps the effect was all in Harry's eyes to begin with – by saying, â€Å"So that's where the thrice-blasted cat disappeared to. I should have guessed it.† He did not look very majestic while glaring at a cat; so Harry said crossly, â€Å"I wish I knew what was going on.† Corlath looked at her thoughtfully, and Narknon, with customary feline charm, stood up and went to twine herself around Corlath's legs. Corlath's face softened and he rubbed her ears. Harry could hear her purr; she could almost feel it through the soles of her boots on the white stone. Narknon was a champion purrer. â€Å"And don't tell me that no one knows what is going on and that it is for the gods to decide, either.† Corlath's face wavered and then broke into a smile, although whether at Harry or the big cat, Harry didn't know. â€Å"Very well,† he said. â€Å"I won't. I will tell you that you are the First of the laprun trials, laprun-minta, which you already know, and as such the most important of the lapruni, the untried.† Corlath's hand lay motionless on Narknon's head. â€Å"The army marches, to do what it can, in less than a fortnight's time. You and the best of the lapruni will ride with us.† Narknon bumped Corlath's hand violently and the fingers stirred and began scratching again. In a lighter tone Corlath continued, â€Å"In other years that the laprun trials are held, there is a week's celebration at their end, and a great many songs are sung, and lies about one's own prowess told, and all the minta of past years claim that their year was the best, and much wine and beer is drunk, and it is all very cheerful. This year we have not the time, and many of those who would be part of it are far away, and those who are here are busy, and the work they do is melancholy.† He paused as if hoping she would say something, or at least raise her eyes from Narknon's sleepy face and look at him; but when she did finally look up, he immediately squinted up at the sky. â€Å"But tonight there will be a feast in your honor. You are not the least of those who have been laprun Firsts. There are many who will come tonight merely to look at you.† Harry stopped smiling at the cat. â€Å"Oh,† she said. â€Å"Come. I will show you where you will stay till we leave the City.† She followed him across the smooth courtyard and around one wing of the castle; as they rounded the tip, set back from the edge and guarded by the castle's great bulk was a wall that at first seemed low; but it was fully ten feet high as they approached. It curved back on itself as if it protected something within that was very precious. In the wall was a door, the height of a tall man. Corlath opened it, and looked around for her. She stepped in first, Narknon crowding at her heels, with the odd feeling that he was watching her anxiously for her reaction. It was very beautiful. Here the courtyard was not stone, but green grass, and a stream ran through it from one end to the other, with a fountain at the center, and a stone horse reared in the midst of the falling spray. On either side of the stream was a path of paving-stones, grey and blue, that went all the way around the fountain. There were curved stone seats on either side of the fountain, with the stream running between them. Beyond all this was what Harry thought of instantly as a palace, for all its diminutive size; it was no bigger than the gateman's cottage on her father's – now Richard's – estate, back Home. But this cottage had slender peaked towers at each of its five corners, and a cupola at the center of the slanting roof, with a delicate fence surrounding it. But for the cupola, it was only one story high, and the windows were tall and thin. The walls and roof were a mosaic of thousands of small flat blue stones, with colors from aquamarine to turquoise to sapphire, but Harry had no idea what these stones might be, for they were opaque, and yet they gleamed like mother of pearl. She sighed, and then to her horror she felt her eyes filling with tears; so she ran forward. It seemed as though even her leather riding-boots made no sound on the stone here, and she plunged her hands into the water of the fountain, and put her face under the spray. The coldness of it quieted her, and the drops danced around her. Narknon climbed up on one of the benches and lay down. Corlath followed them through the door in the wall and then went on to the little mosaic palace. There was no door in the arched entrance. Harry stepped slowly inside. Here the stream had slipped around behind and entered by some back way, for in the center of the front room was another fountain, and the stream ran in under the rear wall; but here the stone horse stood on all four legs and bowed his head to drink from the pool at his feet. There were tapestries on the walls, and rugs and cushions on the floor, and one low table, and that was all. Corlath opened the stone door beside the place where the stream came under the wall. She looked in. The stream entered over a tiny falls of three stone steps under the far wall, to run under the near wall and out to the fountain in the front room. The water tinkled as it fell. The floor of this room was thick with carpets, and against the wall opposite the stream was the long bolster-like object she had learned to recognize in the traveling camp as the Hill idea of a bed, although she had entertained higher hopes of the furnishings of the City. There were pillow-sized cushions at one end, and body-sized rugs folded up at the other end. She went back into the bigger room and looked around again. There was another door between two long blue-and-green tapestries. She walked over to it and opened it, wondering if she would find a dragon breathing fire from a heap of diamonds, or merely a bottomless chasm lined with blue stones, but instead it was only a bit more of the grassy courtyard, and a few steps away was a door in the wall surrounding this magic place into what she thought vaguely must be the castle itself. She closed the door and turned back; Corlath was dangling his fingers in the pool just in front of the horse's stone nose. He looked as if he were thinking very hard about something. Harry leaned back against the door behind her and stared at him, wondering what he was looking at, and waited for him to remember her. He looked up finally, and met her eyes. She didn't think she flinched. â€Å"Do you like it?† he said. She nodded, not quite sure of her voice. â€Å"It has been a long time since this place sheltered anyone,† he said; she wanted to ask how it came to be here at all, who had built it so lovingly and why; but she didn't. Corlath left her there. He walked out past the fountain of the rearing horse, and at the door where they had first entered he paused and turned back toward her. She had followed him from the small jeweled cottage, and stood next to the low bench where Narknon lay at her ease. But he said nothing, and turned away again, and closed the door behind him. She went to the little back room with the bolster and took off her surcoat. Her hands met her torn sash; her fingers curled around it and then she pulled it off in her two hands and tossed the pieces away from her. They fluttered to the floor. She lay down by degrees, leaving the lower half of her left leg h anging over the edge of the bolster, where the bruise need not come in contact with anything, and carefully arranged her sore shoulder. A young woman woke her, but she was dressed as the men of the household were dressed, in a long sashless white robe, and had the same mark they did on her forehead. â€Å"The banquet will begin soon,† said the girl, and bowed; and Harry nodded and sat up stiffly, and yawned, and contemplated her bruises, which seemed to be spreading. She unfolded herself, and weaved to her feet. She put on her blue robe but left the sash lying, and followed the girl out of the mosaic palace and through the castle door into an antechamber. She looked to the left and saw a room with tables, high tables, and real chairs: not chairs like the ones she had known at Home, but still chairs, with legs and backs, and some with armrests. The girl guided her to the right and into an immense bathroom, with the bath itself sunk into the floor, the size of a millpond, and s teaming. The girl helped her out of her clothes, and Harry sat for a moment at the edge of the lake and dabbled her tired feet in it. Her attendant hissed with sympathy over the bruises. Once she was fairly in and wet all over, two more young women appeared, and one of them presented her with a cake of white soap. The third young woman unbound her wet hair – now that it was wet, it smelled terribly of horse – and started rubbing shampoo into it. The shampoo smelled like flowers. She thought, I bet Corlath's shampoo doesn't smell like flowers. She would rather have climbed out of her own clothes – in spite of the aches and pains – and washed her own hair. The young woman who had given her the soap washed her back with a scratchy sponge, and Harry repressed the urge to giggle; she hadn't had anyone wash her back for her since she was five years old. She was clean at last and wrapped in towels, and sat quite patiently while the young woman who had washed her hair now tried to work the tangles out of it. It was long and thick and hadn't been combed properly smooth for weeks. Better her than me, Harry thought cheerfully; there are advantages to servants, perhaps; and this girl is very gentle †¦ Harry caught herself dozing. I'm going to be less than a success at my own banquet if I can't even stay awake, she thought. I suppose the last six weeks are all catching up with me now, and Mathin's grey dust. She tumbled off her stool at last, the towels removed, and a heavy white shift dropped over her head. They put velvet slippers on her feet and a red robe around her shoulders, and twisted a gold cord around her hair but let it hang down behind her so she had to flick the end of it aside when she sat down. At Home, one never wore one's hair loose when one was no longer a child; at night it was braided, during the day it was tied up. Harry shook her hair; it felt funny. These last weeks she had tied and pinned it fiercely under her helmet, where it couldn't get caught in anything, like the branch of a tree, or Mathin's sword, or under her own saddle. The young woman who had awakened her had rubbed salve into her shoulder and leg before they dressed her, and Harry found that she could move more freely, and the weight of the robe didn't bow her down, nor the sleek surface of the shift rub her like sandpaper. The three girls ushered her across the anteroom to the room with the chairs, and they all three bowed, and looked shyly at her with smiles hovering in their eyes, so she grinned at them and flapped the edges of her clean scarlet robe at them, and they smiled happily and left. Harry sat down tentatively in one of the queer crook-legged chairs, and leaned back luxuriously. Rugs and cushions and stools can be very comfortable, but they are inevitably backless, and it was apparently not done to lean against a tent wall; no one else did it, at least, so she hadn't tried. The shift billowed around her as she shrugged farther into the chair: No sash, she thought. There was a long hall she could see through an open door; and after a few minutes Mathin appeared through another door at the far end of it and came toward her. In his hand was a bit of maroon cloth; and when he came through the door, the air that swept in with him smelled of flowers. Harry smiled. â€Å"Well met, Daughter of the Riders,† said Mathin, and unrolled what he had in his hand. It was her old sash, washed clean. The smile left Harry's face, and when Mathin held the sash out to her, still in its two pieces, as if he would tuck it around her waist, she backed up a step. He stopped, surprised, and looked at her face, white under the tan. â€Å"I think,† he said slowly, â€Å"that you do not understand.† He held his arms out to his sides, and the hand indicated a line on his own dark green sash. â€Å"Look here.† Harry looked and saw a similar tear, but carefully mended, with tiny exact stitches of yellow thread. â€Å"All the Riders wear them so. Many of us won the slash at the hand of the king after being First at the laprun trials – as I did, many years ago. It was Corlath's father gave me this cut. Two or three of us have won them at other times. Any one lucky enough to have a sash cut off by a sol or sola will wear the mended sash ever after.† Harry, faintly in the back of her mind, heard Beth saying: â€Å"They come in those long robes they always wear – over their faces too, so you can't see if they're smiling or frowning; and some of them with those funny patched sashes around their waists.† Mathin said: â€Å"I will teach you to mend yours; you must do it yourself, as you clean your own sword and pay your own homage.† He looked at her slyly and added: â€Å"All those sashes you lopped off their owners you may be sure will be saved and mended; and the cuts will be bragged of, given by the damalur-sol whose prowess was first seen when she was First at the laprun trials.† Harry suffered Mathin to put the maroon sash around her waist again. He did not tuck it together, as she had, so that the slash did not show; instead it went in front, proudly – Harry gritted her teeth – and was fixed by a long golden pin. Then she silently followed him down the corridor. There were pillars reaching up three stories to meet the arched ceilings; the floors were laid out in great squares, two strides' length, but within each black-and-white border were scenes drawn in tiny mosaic tiles. Harry tried to look at them as she walked over them, and saw a great many horses, and some swords, and some sunrises and sunsets over Hills and deserts. She had her eyes so busily on the floor that when Mathin stopped she ran into him. They stood under one of the three-story arches the pillars made, but on either side of them the spaces between the tall columns were filled in, and tapestries hung on these walls, and they stood in the doorway to an immense room. It too was three stories high, and a chandelier was let down from the ceiling on a chain that seemed hundreds of feet long. Mathin and she went down six steps, across a dozen strides of floor, and up nine steps to a vast square dais; around three sides of the square was a white-laid table. At the one edge of this dais where there was no table were three more steps up to a long rectangular table on a smaller dais; and around this table sat Corlath and seventeen Riders. There were two empty seats at Corlath's right. Chairs, Harry thought happily. Chairs seem quite commonplace in the City, even if they don't understand beds. They sat, and the men and women of the household brought food, and they ate. Harry cast a sharp eye over those bearing the dishes; it seemed that those of the household here in the City were about equally divided, men and women. Harry turned impulsively to Mathin and said, quietly so that Corlath would not hear, â€Å"Why were there no women of the household with us in the traveling camp?† Mathin smiled at his leg of fowl. â€Å"Because there were so few women riding with us.† Corlath said, â€Å"There will be some to go with us in ten days' time, if you wish it; for even an army on its way to war needs some tending.† Harry said stiffly, â€Å"If this wish of mine is not a foolish one, it would please me to see women of the household come with us.† Corlath nodded gravely; and Harry thought of that first banquet she had attended, still dizzy and frightened from her ride across the desert, bumping on Corlath's saddlebow. She was still dizzy and frightened, she thought sadly, and touched the gold pin in her sash; it was cold to her fingers.. There was talk over the food of the laprun trials just past and of how so-and-so's son had ridden well or poorly; all the Riders had been watching the trials with an attention made more acute by the nearness of the Northerners. Mathin mentioned that a young woman named Senay had done well; a place should be offered to her when the army was ready to march. The kysin had ranked her high, and so she was still in the City, hoping for such a summons. â€Å"Where is her home?† Corlath asked. Mathin frowned, trying to remember. â€Å"Shpardith,† Harry said. â€Å"Shpardith?† Mathin said, surprised. â€Å"She must be old Nandam's daughter. He always said she'd grow into a soldier. Good for her.† â€Å"Mathin's growing into a billitu, do you think?† said Innath, and a ripple of laughter went around the table. Harry turned to look at Mathin, and thought he was looking even more stolid than usual. â€Å"I choose only the best,† said Mathin firmly, and everyone laughed again. A billitu is a lady-lover. Harry smiled involuntarily. No one mentioned the brilliant performance of the youngster on the big chestnut Tsornin who had had the luck to carry off the honors, and Harry began to relax as the meal progressed, although, she thought, staring into her goblet, the wine was probably helping. All was cleared away at last, and then came a pause so measured and expectant that Harry knew before she saw the man bearing the leather sack that they would bring out the Water of Seeing. This time she could understand when the Riders spoke of what they saw: war was in almost everyone's eyes, war with the Northerners, who were led by someone who was more than a man, whose sword flickered with a light that was the color of madness, and terror filled the heart of anyone who rode against him. Faran laughed shortly and without mirth and said that what he saw was no use to anybody; Hantil saw his own folk riding grimly toward the City bearing a message he did not know. Hantil came from a village in the mountains that were the northern border of Damar. â€Å"I do not like it,† said Hantil; â€Å"I have never seen my father look so stern.† Innath sighed over his Sight. â€Å"I see the Lake of Dreams,† he said, â€Å"as if it is early spring, for the trees are in bud. The Riders ride along its edge, but our number is only fifteen.† Mathin tipped a swallow of the Water into his mouth, and stared into the distance; and it was as though he were turned to stone, a statue in the stone City; but his face broke into a sweat, and the drops rolled from his forehead. Then he moved, became human again, but the sweat still ran. His voice was rough when he spoke: â€Å"I am on fire. I know no more.† As soon as Harry's hands closed around the neck of the flask, a picture swam before her; in the brown leather of the bag, among the fine tooling, there was another image placed there by no leather worker. She saw Tsornin standing on the desert, and his rider carried a white flag, or a bit of white cloth tied to the end of a stick. â€Å"What do you see?† asked Corlath gently, and she told him. She could not see the rider's face, for there was a white cloth pulled over nose and chin; but she shivered at the thought of seeing her own face so eerily: and worse yet, what if it were not her face? Tsornin broke into a canter and then a gallop, and Harry saw what he approached: the eastern gate of the General Mundy. Then the picture faded, and she was looking at the curiously tooled leather of the Water bag again. She raised it to her lips. Something like an explosion occurred in her head as she tasted the Water. She shuddered with the shock. Her right arm was numb to the shoulder, and it was her left hand's grasp on the neck of the bag that prevented her from dropping it. Then she felt another shock like the first, and realized that Tsornin was between her legs, and he screamed with rage and fear. The sky seemed to be black, and there were shouts and shrieks all around her, and they echoed as in a high-walled valley. One more of those shocks and she would be out of the saddle. She felt it poised to fall on her – and her vision cleared, and there was the table again. She looked at her right hand; it was still there. She looked up. â€Å"I don't – I don't know exactly what I saw. I think I was in a battle and – I seemed to be losing.† She smiled weakly. Her right arm was still not working properly, and Corlath lifted the bag out of her left hand. He took a sip in his turn; and Harry, watching, saw his eyes change color till they were as yellow as they had been the first time she had seen him in the Residency's courtyard. Then he closed them, and she saw the muscles in his face and neck and the backs of his hands tense till she thought they would burst through the skin; and then it was all over, and he opened his eyes, and they were brown. They moved to meet hers, and she thought she saw something of his vision still lingering there, and it was something like her own. â€Å"I have seen our enemy's face,† Corlath said calmly. â€Å"It is not pretty.† Then the man came to carry the Water away, and the wine was brought back, and the shadows were chased away for a little. The Riders began looking expectantly toward Corlath, but this was a happier expectancy than that which had predicted the Meeldtar, and Harry caught the eagerness herself, though she knew not what it was for, and looked around for clues. They had eaten their meal alone in the vast hall, and their few voices ran up into the ceiling like live things with wills of their own. But after the Water bag had been taken away, people had begun to appear around the small dais where the king and his Riders sat; they entered from all directions and settled on cushions or chairs. Some of them mounted the lower dais and sat around the great table that surrounded the Riders. More of the folk of the household appeared, some bearing trays and some low tables, and set out more food, or passed it among the increasing audience. There was a murmur of talk, low but excited. Harry rubbed her fingers up and down the length of the gold pin in her sash till it was no longer cold. One of the men brought Corlath his sword, and he stood up and slung the belt of it around him. Harry wondered sourly how many years it took to learn to sling oneself into a sword as easily as yawn; and then wondered if she wanted to spend so many years that way. Or if she would have the choice. She had not liked waking up to find herself clutching her sword hilt as a child might clutch a favorite toy. Perhaps it was as well to have to think of shoulder and waist, belt and buckle. Another man came in, carrying another sword. Corlath took this one too, and held the scabbard in his left hand, letting the belt dangle; and he pulled it free and waved it, gleaming, under the light of the candles in the great chandelier. There was a blue stone set in its hilt, and it glared defiantly in the light. This was a shorter lighter sword than Corlath's, but the suppleness of it, and the way it hung, waiting, in the air, gave it a look of infinite age, and sentience, as if it looked out at those who looked at it. â€Å"This is Gonturan,† said Corlath, and a murmur of assent and of recognition went around the hall; the Riders were silent. â€Å"She is the greatest treasure of my family. For a few years in his youth each son has carried her; but she was not meant for a man's hands, and legend has it that she will betray the man who dares bear her after his twentieth year. This is the Lady Aerin's sword; and it has been many a long year since there has been a woman to carry it.† Harry was staring at the blade, and barely heard Corlath's words; she was watching a flame-haired woman riding in a forest that seemed to grow against the flat of the shining sword; in her hand was another sword, and the hilt sparkled blue. All the other Riders were standing up, and Corlath reached down and seized her wrist. â€Å"Stand up, disi,† he said. â€Å"I'm about to make you a Rider.† She stood, dazed. A disi was a silly child. There was another who rode with the woman who carried the Blue Sword; he rode a few paces behind her. â€Å"A Rider?† Harry said. â€Å"A Rider,† Corlath replied firmly. She dragged her eyes away from the winking sword edge and looked at him. Another man of the household set a small flat pot of yellow salve at Corlath's right hand. The king dipped the fingers of that hand in it, then drew them to smear the ointment across his palm. He had shifted Gonturan to his left hand; now he seized the blade near the tip with his right, and gave it a quick twist. â€Å"Damn,† he said, as the blood welled between his fingers and dripped to the floor. He picked up a napkin and squeezed it. â€Å"Take my sword, Harimad-sol,† he said, â€Å"and do the same – but not so enthusiastically. I think, though, that Katuchim has not the sense of humor that Gonturan does, so do not fear him.† She dipped her fingers in the salve, and touched them gently to her palm; reached out and, as awkwardly as if she had never learned one lesson from Mathin, dragged Corlath's sword from its scabbard. It was so long she had to brace the hilt against the table to get a reasonable angle on the edge. She closed her fingers around it, thought about something else, and felt the skin of her palm just part. She opened her hand, and three drops of blood only sprang from the thinnest of red lines across her skin. â€Å"Well done!† said Mathin over her shoulder, and the Riders cheered; and the whole hall picked it up, shouting. Corlath grinned down at her, and she could not help smiling back. â€Å"There have been more graceful kings and Riders since the world began, but we'll do,† said Corlath to her, quietly, below the roar around them. â€Å"Take your sword, and mind you treat her well. You will have Aerin's shade to answer to, else.† Harry's fingers closed round the blue hilt and she knew at once that she would handle this sword very well indeed – or it would handle her. For a moment she found herself wishing that she had been carrying Gonturan the day of the trials, and at this a slow sly smile spread across her face. She raised her eyes to Corlath's face – he had taken his own sword back and sheathed it, and one of the Riders was tying the napkin around the wounded hand and saying something sardonic; but Corlath only laughed, and turned back to watch her. Such was the slow sly smile he offered her in return that she rather thought he knew just what she was thinking. â€Å"Damalur-sol!† the people cried. â€Å"Damalur-sol!†

Teacher Merit Pay Benefits and Disadvantages

Teacher Merit Pay Benefits and Disadvantages Teaching unions around the United States are lessening their opposition to merit pay for teachers and finding new ways to experiment with the concept, passionate reactions erupted from teachers everywhere. So, what exactly are the pros and cons of paying teachers differently based on the results they produce in the classroom? The issue is complex. In fact, it has been debated for over 40 years in the world of education. The National Education Association (NEA) adamantly opposes merit pay, but is it an idea whose time has come? The Pros Americans value hard work and results, and our capitalist system hinges upon rewarding such results. Most professions offer bonuses and salary increases to exemplary employees. Why should teaching be the exception? The fact that a sloppy teacher and a dedicated teacher earn the same salary just doesn’t sit right with most people.Incentivized teachers will work harder and produce better results. What motivation do teachers currently have to go above and beyond the jobs basic requirements? The simple possibility of extra cash would most likely translate into smarter teaching and better results for our children.Merit Pay programs will help recruit and retain the nation’s brightest minds. It’s the odd teacher who hasn’t considered leaving the classroom and entering the corporate workplace for the twin benefits of less hassle and more money potential. Particularly intelligent and effective teachers might reconsider leaving the profession if they felt that their extraordinary efforts were being recognized in their paychecks. Teachers are already underpaid. Merit Pay would help address this injustice. Teaching is due for a renaissance of respect in this country. How better to reflect the esteemed way we feel about educators than through paying them more? And the highest performing teachers should be first in line for this financial recognition.We are in the middle of a teaching shortage. Merit pay would inspire potential teachers to give the profession more consideration as a viable career choice, rather than a personal sacrifice for the higher good. By tying teaching salaries to performance, the profession would look more modern and credible, thus attracting young college graduates to the classroom.With American schools in crisis, shouldn’t we be open to trying almost anything new in the hopes of making a change? If the old ways of running schools and motivating teachers aren’t working, perhaps it’s time to think outside of the box and try Merit Pay. In a time of crisis, no valid ide as should be quickly denied as a possible solution. The Cons Virtually everyone agrees that designing and monitoring a Merit Pay program would be a bureaucratic nightmare of almost epic proportions. Many major questions would have to be adequately answered before educators could even consider implementing Merit Pay for teachers. Such deliberations would inevitably take away from our real goal which is to focus on the students and give them the best education possible.Goodwill and cooperation among teachers will be compromised. In places that have previously tried variations of Merit Pay, the results have often been unpleasant and counter-productive competition between teachers. Where teachers once worked as a team and shared solutions cooperatively, Merit Pay can make teachers adopt a more â€Å"I’m out for myself only† attitude. This would be disastrous for our students, no doubt.Success is difficult, if not impossible, to define and measure. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has already proven how the various unleveled playing fields in the American education system inherently set up a wide variety of standards and expectations. Consider the diverse needs of English Language Learners, Special Education Students, and low-income neighborhoods, and you’ll see why it would be opening a messy can of worms to define standards of success for American schools when the stakes are cash in the pockets of real teachers. Opponents to Merit Pay argue that a better solution to the current educational crisis is to pay all teachers more. Rather than design and regulate a messy Merit Pay program, why not simply pay teachers what they are already worth?High-stakes Merit Pay systems would inevitably encourage dishonesty and corruption. Educators would be financially motivated to lie about testing and results. Teachers might have legitimate suspicions of principal favoritism. Complaints and lawsuits would abound. Again, all of these messy morality issues serve only to distract from the needs of our students who simply need our energies and attention to learn to read and succeed in the world.​ So what do you think now? With issues as complicated and evocative as Merit Pay, ones position can be naturally nuanced. In the big picture, all that really matters is the learning that happens with our students when the rubber meets the road in our classrooms. After all, theres not a teacher in the world who entered the profession for the money. Edited By:  Janelle Cox

Women And Traditional Roles In Girl Interupted. Essays - Free Essays

Women And Traditional Roles In Girl Interupted. Essays - Free Essays Women And Traditional Roles In Girl Interupted. Essay #2 Women and traditional roles in Girl Interrupted Films tell us stories and present us with values and messages about our society and what needs to be changed. In the film Girl, Interrupted, Susannas struggle with self-discovery and her fight to find a place in society illustrates the view that the women who do not fit into traditional roles should be ostracised from mainstream society given that they pose the threat of change. It is clear that women like Susanna, who have little ambition in becoming a carbon copy of their mother, are seen as a threat and therefore classified as crazy. Susanna is clearly misunderstood by her peers as well as the authority figures in her life. She is not a degenerate but a young girl frustrated with her limited options for the future. When Susanna is held after class by her teacher to discuss why she is the only senior not going on to college, she tries to reach out for support from her teacher by explaining that she's not a druggie but she is concerned about ending up like her mother. The teacher does not hear this and claims that there are more options for women today. Susanna is trying to open up and seek some guidance, but the only solution she gets is that she gets is to start acting like everyone else. This scene reveals how secluded and trapped Susanna feels, nobody seems to understand her even her parents don't know what to do with her. The people she is reaching out to, brush off her ambitions of being an artist, as something to do in her spare time, and place social pressure on her to do what is expected. Even her peers expect more from her; at the after-grade party the boy that is trying to pick her up is talking about his scholarship and future, but this does not impress Susanna. He sees this as strange and is willing to believe her when she jokes about joining the Krishna's because she seems to have no plan for the future. This scene demonstrates that Susanna is also faced with peer-pressure. Susanna is not attracted to the status quo; the fact that this guy is basically doing the same thing as everybody else is tiresome and uninviting. Her peers do not accept her because she is unlike them and crazy for having no interest in her future. Being institutionalised at Claymore, Susanna is faced once again with the choice of conforming or being labelled as insane because she is different. The definition of normal is set in stone; according to the institution, any one who does not act or react according to the text book definition is ''crazy. When Susanna is being shipped off to Claymore she gets a Taxi driver who asks her what she did to be going to an asylum. She tries to explain but the only answer she can give is that she is sad, he claims that everybody gets sad. She goes on to say that she smoked a little weed, he says that if thats so then they should put Bob Dylan away, Susanna answers that she is not Bob Dylan. This examines the fact that Susanna doesn't think she is crazy she is merrily a girl who has no choice but to do as they say. She thinks that she is different from the people who surround her, but the world is a bigger place. At Claymore she learns that the more you open up to the doctor the better her chan ces of being released. This is where Susanna has to decide if she should do what is expected or not. Val influences her to ride the system out and not to get trapped in Claymore like Lisa, she tells Susanna that she does not think she is crazy. Val sees Susanna as lost which she is, the fact that at least one authority figure is willing to understand, her encourages Susanna to break free of the system she is trapped under. Closed windows are a running theme throughout the film they symbolise Susannas closed window of opportunity; she can see out them but cannot

Avon Company Product Analysis

Avon Company Product Analysis Avon is a cosmetic company created to conduct business on enhancing women’s beauty. This brand is now a global leader with massive growth and high revenues. Being the world’s largest direct seller, Avon has captured a large market in more than hundred countries with millions of the sales representatives across the globe. The product line of Avon is quite large in spatial extent; it includes beauty products, fashion jewellery, clothing etc. This brand is giving the grounds for expectation and is achieving the solid status in the market. Avon is transacting with many countries and selling their brands in the regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific (Avon Company, 2010) map-marketFigure 1. COMPANY BACKGROUND Avon was established in America in 1886 with distinctive approach of selling womens cosmetics with the name of Avon calling.This idea of business was initiated by David McConnell from newyork.The main merchandise of business was not perfum e and creams but at the age of sixteen mcconnell started to sell books through door to door selling.He found out he was not able to entice the consumers to buy the books so he initiated the campaign by offering free gifts as perfumes which he produced with the collaboration of the pharmacist.Subsequently this turned out to be an incentive that became a mainline product for avon and the books were abolished, paving the way for Avon cosmetics’ existence. The door to door selling was made specifically to specification and later by 1887 Mcconnell hired around 13 women representatives. Moreover with the passage of time the company began to grow and the name was changed from california cosmetic company to Avon Products, Inc. Presently it ranks first across the nation in cosmetic industry with high revenues. MACRO ENVIRONMENT PEST ANALYSIS POLITICAL As avon is based in U.S we have to focus on the realtionship between both UK and US which is uniquely close and they share enormous tra de and economic relations. Both are top trading partners of each other hence the business relations of both the countries are strong and have wielding power. Also the trade bonds and affiliations are strengthened (U.S foreign policy, 2010) Avon uses its websites to market its products worldwide they have to follow the copyright policy of the United Kingdom. UK Government recently came up with the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) conditions in order to protect consumers which are buying online and have no direct control with the seller. These Regulations are only applied to the consumers that purchase goods or services from a business and not if it is business-to-business purchases, land sales, vending machine purchases, and purchases made via auctions. Whereas to give distinguishing characteristics to the company such as trademark, one needs to get legal documents which gives permission to do something. (IPO, 2010). Avon completely defends and shields its trade mark so the con sumers can shop without difficulty and with safety. (Avon products, 2002) No one is treated in a different manner on the basis of their genders, age and religion. Every Employee may it be a male or female engaged in business if does not get their rights and employers fail to equally balance them can be fired and dismissed

Letter of recomendation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Letter of recomendation - Essay Example [Your name] was a highly demanded dental assistant amongst other dental students and applicants at my office. This difficulty can serve as a testament to her level of dedication and the impression she constantly had on other dental experts at the hospital. Second, [your name] carried out many procedures as a dental assistant since her official enrollment in April 2011. These tasks ranged from implants and bondings to x-rays and extractions. Even though these procedures are routine for a dental assistance, the results exhibited by [your name] surpass those of other dental assistants in the facility. For instance, [your name] only repeated x-rays when there was the x-ray machine was faulty or the patient was very nervous or uncooperative. In addition, [your name] partook in various root canal seminars and the dental digital program tutorial seminar. Clearly, [your name] made use of her determination and duties towards fulfilling the expectations of the admission requirements of a student from a standard dental school. Third, [your name] developed multiple understanding and serene relationships with my patients while working in my office. I value these bonds because in fact learned a great deal about the role of a dental assistant during diagnosis, treatment, and even recovery. Moreover, [your name] seemed to enjoy acquiring more personal and relevant information about my patients before and during treatment largely because he concerned a lot over their quick recovery. [Your name] told me that building strong relationships with my patients helped hasten their treatment and recovery. Lastly, [your name] facilitated a very friendly and peaceful workplace because of compassionate coworker relationships. I observed [your name]’s expression of a responsible and determinant attitude towards her job as a dental assistant and colleagues. [Your name]’s arrival from Cuba in 2011 was met by the

Presenting the first step of the three step writing process Assignment

Presenting the first step of the three step writing process - Assignment Example During the completion step, the writer revises, proofreads, and distributes the final report among the audience. The three step writing process is important to create purposeful presentations, which are comprehensible, brief, and focused, all at the same time. Planning Planning of business messages requires a business professional to do following tasks: A. Analyzing the situation is the most important step of planning, as it includes clearly identifying the purpose of report and analyzing the audience type. It not only saves time but is also convenient in terms of budget. Business message must be purposeful, worthwhile, and realistic, and must go in accordance with the IQ level of the audience. For example, if the intended audience is elderly employees, then it is no use using too many technological words, as they will not be able to understand. B. The information, that should necessarily be ethical and pertinent, is gathered keeping in consideration the needs of the audience. This i nformation outlines the purpose of the business message to be conveyed. For example, business message intended for females must encompass the needs of women only, and not the general population. This may include messages about maternity leave; and, these messages will be laid out in a way that interests only females. C. Medium, through which the message will travel onto the audience, is considered. The writer considers whether to deliver message through, for example, conversation, speech, lecture, phone call, email, or brochure; and, also considers cost and availability of the chosen media. The audiences’ access to the chosen media is also considered. For example, not every person uses computer and internet, that is, electronic media. There may be some individuals who may use internet inside the workplace but do not have computers at homes. So, to deliver the message to general audience, all pros and cons of chosen media are considered. D. Lastly, the information gathered or the message outlined is organized. Organization saves times and makes the message more clear and understandable, while building audience interest at the same time. For example, a claim without evidence is a kind of unorganized message that is not reliable at all. Real World Example Let’s suppose that the employer has to arrange a vacation, and has to ask the employees to report their convenient dates for vacations. The first step would be planning, in which the employer has to analyze the problem. Information about employees and their past vacations is analyzed. Medium is selected. Emails are a common form of interaction between employees, so this channel may be preferred. In writing phase, a clear message is laid out. For example: â€Å"All employees are requested to submit their convenient dates for the oncoming vacation to the manager by October 15th,† is a good message encompassing all kinds of employees. This kind of message is not only clear and simple, but also gives others a chance to collaborate, in a shared environment, with each other and with the officials. In completion step, the message is revised, proofread, and is distributed through the chosen medium, which may be email or a simple report form. Insight I believe that the three step writing process needs the writer to possess basic writing skills; and, that he must be able to understand the importance of clear, concise, accurate, and pertinent business message. I have learnt that an

Critical Incident Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Critical Incident Paper - Essay Example The most significant reason for a business to embrace diversity is to ensure that creativity is maintained. People from diverse cultural backgrounds usually approach problems from different perspectives. A combination of creative ideas usually leads to the realization of a practical solution (Scott 2007). However, the values and principles of each culture have to be respected in order to achieve the desired integrity in the workplace. In this particular incident, there was a misunderstanding between the management and some of the workers regarding certain cultural values whereby people are restricted from engaging in certain activities during a certain period of the year that has been set aside for fasting and remembering the problems that the society has been going through and coming up with ideas of how to tackle them, and also assist the disadvantaged people in the society. This particular incident presented a dilemma to some of the employees, who were required to participate in a send off party prepared to honour the outgoing executive director. The event involved celebrating and feasting, which was not in line with the cultural practices of the employees who were required by their culture to shun from feasting for a whole month. On the other hand, each off the employee had a role to play in the banquet organized by the management. Although the employees who were affected by their culture comprised a minority of the employee population, it was necessary for the management to recognize them. As Dana (2000) observes, ignorance, negligence and discrimination in the workplace lead to conflict. There was a general misunderstanding by the management regarding the significance of this cultural event, and the implication of preventing some of the employees from participating fully in it through engaging them in the banquet. It is important for managers in any work place