MY Major has a Major Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

MY Major has a Major Problem - Essay Example Despite the differences between these flaws, each of them represents a serious threat that needs to be addressed to secure growth, profit and success to firms. Various deficiencies have been noticed in managerial practices that range from problems in human resource management (HRM), business ethics and quality management, failure to understand management theory to the deregulation in the industry and the failure of businesses to join their forces. All these limitations represent a serious obstacle to business growth and endanger its security and success. In this article: â€Å"Spotlight on New Research: A Business Process Approach to Human Resource Management† the researchers find flaws in human resource management very problematic and mainly responsible for most failures in businesses. They consider that this matter has always been a problem for firms and hold it responsible for many bankruptcies (Cakar, Bititci, and MacBryde). The management of resources requires much commit ment and inner qualities, which many people do not possess, and the lack of this quality represents a real threat for firms. Besides, in addition to issues in human resource management, other problems have been identified in similar fields. ... Limitations in human resource management combined with the lack of business ethics and quality management will not guarantee a successful business but lead to a certain downfall. Similarly, some managerial tools and techniques have been found very deficient and not helpful for businesses. Therefore, it belongs to managers to identify the best practices that ensure growth and disregard those that have failed. This study: â€Å"Management Practices Driving Sustained Business Success† indicates that the success of businesses depends on the ability of managers to distinguish between the tools that work from those that do not (Gronholdt and Martensen).Therefore, some managerial tools may cause more problems with serious consequences to firms. Even though all techniques have been set up to secure growth, some practices have been found seriously deficient and not helpful for businesses. It takes much craft and vision for the best managers to recognize the traps of these limited tools and avoid putting them in practice. Among these flaws deregulation takes an important place because it implements unfair competition and endangers the stability of business. This article: â€Å"Integrating Business Processes for Global Alignment and Supply Chain Management† reveals that the lack of a genuine cooperation between firms and the supply chain causes various problems that result in deregulation, which constitutes a serious threat for corporate businesses (McAdam and McCormack). This danger faces firms in many countries where the collaboration between businesses is not secured and clear rules are not implemented. Another major deficiency in managerial practices

Using the plays of Aristophanes Essay Example for Free

Using the plays of Aristophanes Essay Using the plays of Aristophanes (Lysistrata), Sophocles (Oedipus) and Euripides (Medea), we are able to discuss some major themes and concerns present in Greek Drama, such as women, fate, and other underlying themes. One of the most prominent, and perhaps the most controversial themes present in Greek Drama is the position of women in Greek Society. These three writers have different opinions of women, and this is reflected in their plays. Euripides, in Medea, presents a view of women as sex-crazed creatures. This is emphasised by Jason (569-72), when he says: you women/ Have reached a state where, if alls well with your sex-life,/ Youve everything you wish for; but when that goes wrong,/ At once all that is best and noblest turns to gall. Women in Lysistrata add to this view when they exclaim: Ill walk through fire, or anything but to give up sex, never! (166). Furthermore, women are portrayed as inherently dishonest. This is expressed when Medea tells the Chorus: We were born women useless for honest purposes, / But in all kinds of evil, skilled practitioners (407). Women are also presented as emotional rather than rational in their responses to situations. For all the Chorus protests about Medea killing her children, when they actually heard her murdering them, lamented: the miserable mother , cursed, miserable woman (1278), but are so effectively overcome with their emotions that they do not stop her, as perhaps men would have. This attitude towards women is complemented in Oedipus, when Jocasta, instead of waiting to learn the truth, murders herself at her assumption. Another major concern in Greek Drama is the idea about gods and fate. In Medea, there is little intervention of the gods, let alone fate. Medea makes the decision and is responsible for the tragic end which befalls the characters. In contrast, Sophocles Oedipus, present us with a completely different outlook. In the play, almost every aspect is seen to be controlled, in order for the prophecy to be completed. For example, in the play, Oedipus is rescued by a messenger that same messenger who happens to deliver the news that Oedipuss father is dead. Of countless people, it was the same person. Furthermore, Oedipus kills his father, protected by five men, on a lonely road. Is it not ironic, or least unlucky, the Oedipus happened to travel on the same road, and meet, out of all the people, his father who he does not even realise is his father and kills him? Oedipus then arrives at Thebes, his birth place, and solves a riddle which no person has yet been able to solve; he becomes king and marries his mother. Coincidence surely not. Certainly, these examples prove that fate was an all important factor in Greek drama that once a decision has been fated, it can never be changed. Greek Drama, particularly tragedy, also carries a prominent underlying theme Passion over Reason. In Euripides play, Medea is driven by an overwhelming passion to have her revenge that she does not stop to think what she is actually doing. This idea is exaggerated in Oedipus when he blindly pursues his identity, in defiance of warnings from numerous sources including Teiresias, Jocasta and the shepherd. Eventually, this passion over reason leads to his downfall. The theme is also carried through in Lysistrata, although not to such a prominent extent. In the play, the men are at war because they have refused methods of reasoning, and let their passions take control. However, in the play this idea can also be taken in a different sense. The men can be seen to succumb to their sexual passions, and refuse the reasons of going to war. In conclusion, we can see that the plays of these legendary writers reflect some major themes and concerns of Greek Drama. Concerns such as the position of women, the outlook on the gods and underlying themes are all major issues present in the plays.

Aristotle: Above the Mean :: essays research papers fc

Aristotle: Above the Mean   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  With the strict oppression of thought by religion and government in the 2nd century B.C.E., it’s a surprise in itself that Aristotle, a man with such revolutionary thoughts and ideas was able to let his thinking be known to the entire world (as it was known back then). It is therefore even more surprising that his idea’s have survived these many centuries though books, a medium of writing that has a notorious reputation of being burned when something in its contents doesn’t match the current beliefs of the established system of government or the church. We can certainly all be thankful that his idea’s have survived thus far because of the tremendous impact that they have had on thought, government, and the way of life throughout the entire world in general. Aristotle was a revolutionary thinker whose ideas have no rival from anyone in his own school of thought.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In book Two of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle lets out arguably some of his best work. The idea that in life, people shouldn’t strive to be the best, but instead aim for the middle, or the mean as Aristotle calls it, was something new and innovative not only then, but even to some people today. He further backs his assumption up by supplying more than enough examples. To start out, Aristotle first defines what is â€Å"good† and what is â€Å"bad†. He does this by providing examples of several things that have both a good side along with a bad side. One example he gives is lawmakers. A lawmaker can have a positive effect on society or a negative one. Judging by the effect his laws have on the people, he is then determined to be either a bad lawmaker or a good one. Moreover, the lawmakers themselves have the power of making people into either good or bad citizens. This is done by instilling either good or bad habits into the citizens through the legislation that the lawmakers pass (Pg. 99). This once again, in turn, dictates whether the lawmakers themselves are good or bad lawmakers. Aristotle’s idea of this is (to use a clichà ©) is â€Å"Right on the money†. Even in today’s world, people are judged by their actions. That is to say, if someone does something good in their life, they are considered a good person, conversely, if a person is known for a failure, the people around them regard that person as a failure; or as Aristotle would simply put it, â€Å"bad†.

The Silver Linings Playbook Chapter 2

He Does Not Preach Pessimism My workout is interrupted midday, when Mom descends the basement stairs and says I have an appointment with Dr. Patel. I ask if I can go later that night, after I have completed my daily weights routine, but Mom says I'll have to go back to the bad place in Baltimore if I do not keep my appointments with Dr. Patel, and she even references the court ruling, telling me I can read the paperwork if I don't believe her. So I shower, and then Mom drives me to Dr. Patel's office, which is the first floor of a big house in Voorhees, just off Haddonfield – Berlin Road. When we arrive, I take a seat in the waiting room as Mom fills out some more paperwork. By now, ten trees must have been cut down just to document my mental health, which Nikki will hate hearing, as she is an avid environmentalist who gave me at least one tree in the rain forest every Christmas – which was really only a piece of paper stating I owned the tree – and I do feel bad now for making fun of those gifts and won't ever poke fun at the diminishing rain forest in the future when Nikki comes back. As I sit there flipping through a Sports Illustrated, listening to the easy-listening station Dr. Patel pumps into his waiting room, suddenly I'm hearing sexy synthesizer chords, faint highhat taps, the kick drum thumping out an erotic heartbeat, the twinkling of fairy dust, and then the evil bright soprano saxophone. You know the title: â€Å"Songbird.† And I'm out of my seat, screaming, kicking chairs, flipping the coffee table, picking up piles of magazines and throwing them against the wall, yelling, â€Å"It's not fair! I won't tolerate any tricks! I'm not an emotional lab rat!† And then a small Indian man – maybe only five feet tall, wearing a cable-knit sweater in August, suit pants, and shiny white tennis shoes – is calmly asking me what's wrong. â€Å"Turn off that music!† I yell. â€Å"Shut it off! Right now!† The tiny man is Dr. Patel, I realize, because he tells his secretary to turn off the music, and when she obeys, Kenny G is out of my head and I stop yelling. I cover my face with my hands so no one will see me crying, and after a minute or so, my mother begins rubbing my back. So much silence – and then Dr. Patel asks me into his office. I follow him reluctantly as Mom helps the secretary clean up the mess I made. His office is pleasantly strange. Two leather recliners face each other, and spider-looking plants – long vines full of white-and-green leaves – hang down from the ceiling to frame the bay window that overlooks a stone birdbath and a garden of colorful flowers. But there is absolutely nothing else in the room except a box of tissues on the short length of floor between the recliners. The floor is a shiny yellow hardwood, and the ceiling and walls are painted to look like the sky – real-looking clouds float all around the office, which I take as a good omen, since I love clouds. A single light occupies the center of the ceiling, like a glowing upside-down vanilla-icing cake, but the ceiling around the light is painted to look like the sun. Friendly rays shoot out from the center. I have to admit I feel calm as soon as I enter Dr. Patel's office and do not really mind anymore that I heard the Kenny G song. Dr. Patel asks me which recliner I want to relax in. I pick the black over the brown and immediately regret my decision, thinking that choosing black makes me seem more depressed than if I had chosen brown, and really, I'm not depressed at all. When Dr. Patel sits down, he pulls the lever on the side of his chair, which makes the footrest rise. He leans back and laces his fingers behind his tiny head, as if he were about to watch a ball game. â€Å"Relax,† he says. â€Å"And no Dr. Patel. Call me Cliff. I like to keep sessions informal. Friendly, right?† He seems nice enough, so I pull my lever, lean back, and try to relax. â€Å"So,† he says. â€Å"The Kenny G song really got to you. I can't say I'm a fan either, but †¦Ã¢â‚¬  I close my eyes, hum a single note, and silently count to ten, blanking my mind. When I open my eyes, he says, â€Å"You want to talk about Kenny G?† I close my eyes, hum a single note, and silently count to ten, blanking my mind. â€Å"Okay. Want to tell me about Nikki?† â€Å"Why do you want to know about Nikki?† I say, too defensively, I admit. â€Å"If I am going to help you, Pat, I need to know you, right? Your mother tells me you wish to be reunited with Nikki, that this is your biggest life goal – so I figure we best start there.† I begin to feel better because he does not say a reunion is out of the question, which seems to imply that Dr. Patel feels as though reconciling with my wife is still possible. â€Å"Nikki? She's great,† I say, and then smile, feeling the warmth that fills my chest whenever I say her name, whenever I see her face in my mind. â€Å"She's the best thing that ever happened to me. I love her more than life itself. And I just can't wait until apart time is over.† â€Å"Apart time?† â€Å"Yeah. Apart time.† â€Å"What is apart time?† â€Å"A few months ago I agreed to give Nikki some space, and she agreed to come back to me when she felt like she had worked out her own issues enough so we could be together again. So we are sort of separated, but only temporarily.† â€Å"Why did you separate?† â€Å"Mostly because I didn't appreciate her and was a workaholic – chairing the Jefferson High School History Department and coaching three sports. I was never home, and she got lonely. Also I sort of let my appearance go, to the point where I was maybe ten to seventy pounds overweight, but I'm working on all that and am now more than willing to go into couples counseling like she wanted me to, because I'm a changed man.† â€Å"Did you set a date?† â€Å"A date?† â€Å"For the end of apart time.† â€Å"No.† â€Å"So apart time is something that will go on indefinitely?† â€Å"Theoretically, I guess – yes. Especially since I'm not allowed to contact Nikki or her family.† â€Å"Why's that?† â€Å"Umm †¦ I don't know, really. I mean – I love my in-laws as much as I love Nikki. But it doesn't matter, because I'm thinking that Nikki will be back sooner than later, and then she'll straighten everything out with her parents.† â€Å"On what do you base your thinking?† he asks, but nicely, with a friendly smile on his face. â€Å"I believe in happy endings,† I tell him. â€Å"And it feels like this movie has gone on for the right amount of time.† â€Å"Movie?† Dr. Patel says, and I think he would look exactly like Gandhi if he had those wire-rim glasses and a shaved head, which is weird, especially since we are in leather recliners in such a bright, happy room and well, Gandhi is dead, right? â€Å"Yeah,† I say. â€Å"Haven't you ever noticed that life is like a series of movies?† â€Å"No. Tell me.† â€Å"Well, you have adventures. All start out with troubles, but then you admit your problems and become a better person by working really hard, which is what fertilizes the happy ending and allows it to bloom – just like the end of all the Rocky films, Rudy, The Karate Kid, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, and The Goonies, which are my favorite films, even though I have sworn off movies until Nikki returns, because now my own life is the movie I will watch, and well, it's always on. Plus I know it's almost time for the happy ending, when Nikki will come back, because I have improved myself so very much through physical fitness and medication and therapy.† â€Å"Oh, I see.† Dr. Patel smiles. â€Å"I like happy endings too, Pat.† â€Å"So you agree with me. You think my wife will come back soon?† â€Å"Time will tell,† Dr. Patel says, and I know right then that Cliff and I are going to get along, because he does not preach pessimism like Dr. Timbers and the staff at the bad place; Cliff doesn't say I need to face what he thinks is my reality. â€Å"It's funny, because all the other therapists I've seen said that Nikki wouldn't be back. Even after I told them about the life improvements I have been making, how I am bettering myself, they still were always ‘hating on me,' which is an expression I learned from my black friend Danny.† â€Å"People can be cruel,† he says with a sympathetic look that makes me trust him even more. And right then I realize that he is not writing down all my words in a file, which I really appreciate, let me tell you. I tell him I like the room, and we talk about my love of clouds and how most people lose the ability to see silver linings even though they are always there above us almost every day. I ask him questions about his family, just to be nice, and it turns out he has a daughter whose high school field hockey team is ranked second in South Jersey. Also he has a son in elementary school who wants to be a ventriloquist and even practices nightly with a wooden dummy named Grover Cleveland, who, incidentally, was also the only U.S. president to serve two terms that were not back-to-back. I don't really get why Cliff's son named his wooden dummy after our twenty-second and twenty-fourth president, although I do not say so. Next, Cliff says he has a wife named Sonja, who painted the room so beautifully, which leads to our discussion about how great women are and how it's important to treasure your woman while you have her because if you don't, you can lose her pretty quickly – as God really wants us to appreciate our women. I tell Cliff I hope he never has to experience apart time, and he says he hopes my apart time will end soon, which is a pretty nice thing to say. Before I leave, Cliff says he will be changing my medication, which could lead to some unwanted side effects, and that I have to report any discomfort or sleeplessness or anxiety or anything else to my mother immediately – because it might take some time for him to find the right combination of drugs – and I promise him I will. On the drive home I tell my mother I really like Dr. Cliff Patel and am feeling much more hopeful about my therapy. I thank her for getting me out of the bad place, saying Nikki is far more likely to come to Collingswood than to a mental institution, and when I say this, Mom starts to cry, which is so strange. She even pulls off the road, rests her head against the steering wheel, and with the engine running, she cries for a long time – sniffling and trembling and making crying noises. So I rub her back, like she did for me in Dr. Patel's office when that certain song came on, and after ten minutes or so, she simply stops crying and drives me home. To make up for the hour I spent sitting around with Cliff, I work out until late in the evening, and when I go to bed, my father is still in his office with the door shut, so another day passes without my talking to Dad. I think it's strange to live in a house with someone you cannot talk to – especially when that someone is your father – and the thought makes me a little sad. Since Mom has not been to the library yet, I have nothing to read. So I close my eyes and think about Nikki until she comes to be with me in my dreams – like always.

Successful Sportsman

An excellent sportsman incorporates many traits such as powerful physique, keen senses, discipline, calm and yet gregarious and outgoing. Unfortunately, teenagers lack tenacity resulting in the declining of numbers of sportsmen in our country. Little did they know, becoming a successful sportsman just requires integrity and perseverance. First of all, a successful sportsman consumes a balanced meal which consist all the necessary nutrients for enhancing their physique and metabolism. Besides that, more vegetables are included in the meal. It is because vegetables contain important minerals and vitamins which are beneficial to sportsmen. Including nutritious food such as seafood, meat, eggs and others are also profitable to sportsmen. Sportsmen should strongly avert on eating fast food because fast food contains excess amount of fat and salt which is unfavourable and an obstacle to becoming a successful sportsman. Enough sleep and rest is also a major requisite for becoming a successful sportsman. Studies have shown that sleeping for 8 hours is the most suitable and healthy time. Sleeping too much or too less could results in downright situation. Relax after training is too needed as to not over stress the sportsman. Over excessive training could results in tears and wears of your body and does not bring up the consequence that you anticipated. As the most important factor in becoming a successful sportsman, regular training is demanded. Continuous practice with suitable rest is best for a sportsman to prevent over stress. Having a discipline and determined heart is highly valued and necessary in training too. Rebellious behavior will only bring you to be unacceptable in the community. As a good sportsman, a sublime sportsmanship is needed. Avoid from breaking the rules and be prepared to accept losses. You cannot win in every game that you participated even if you are the most excellent sportsman in the world. Finally, a good coach which is charismatic and motivated is a necessity for developing a successful sportsman. A good coach is needed to seek and tap on to a conceal talent buried in a person. A good coach is also important in arranging strategies to raise the winning factor of a sportsman without breaking barriers and rules.