Alfred Stieglitz essays

Alfred Stieglitz essays Alfred Stieglitz: The Legendary Photographer One of the most influential men in the field of photography was Alfred Stieglitz. The first art photographer in the United States, Stieglitz more than any other American compelled the recognition of photography as a fine art. He spent his life fighting for the recognition of photography as a valid art form. In 1923, he was asked if he would give the Museum of Fine Arts some of his photographs. This was significant because it was the first time that a major American Art Museum included photographs or even considered them for display. In 1924, Stieglitz sent 27 photographs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was the first photographer to reach this achievement in America. He became standard that all photography was compared to in the United States. Had Alfred Stieglitz never taken a photograph in his life, he would still be numbered among the most significant influences in American cultural life in the period before the World War II. Nevertheless, it is Stieglitz's body of photog raphic work which has firmly established his place among 20th c. artists. In 1883, at the age of 19, he took his first pictures while attending a school in Berlin. He was fascinated by the medium and started to experiment with new techniques and push the limits that were the standard at that time. He was told that a camera could only be used in the daytime. He decided to challenge that theory and set up his camera in a small cellar. The cellar was lit only by weak electric light bulb and focused on a dynamo. Then he made a 24 hour exposure which resulted in a perfect negative. This negative effectively rebuked the necessity of daylight. Later in his life, Stieglitz took the first successful "rainy day", "snow storm" and "night" photographs. He took pictures in a time when photography was considered an only scientific curiosity and not art. The controversy over the art value of photography became widespread...

Past Conditional Sentence Worksheets

Past Conditional Sentence Worksheets Here is a quick review of the third, or past unreal conditional form. In general, the third conditional is used to imagine past situations results that would have been different if something else had been changed. Teachers can use this guide on how to teach conditionals, as well as this conditional forms lesson plan to introduce and practice the first and second conditional forms in class. Third / Past Unreal Conditional If Subject Past Perfect (positive or negative) Objects, Subject Conditional Perfect (would have done, positive or negative) Objects Examples: If he had finished the work on time, we would have played a round of golf yesterday afternoon.If the meeting had been successful, we would have become partners with Smith and Co. The if clause can also be placed at the end of the sentence. In this case, no comma is required. Examples: They would have been very happy if he had passed the exam.Jane would have married Tom if he had asked her. Third Unreal Conditional with Wish Wish can also be used with the past perfect to express a desired, unreal result in the past. Subject Wish Subject Past Perfect (positive or negative) Objects Examples: I wish I had had more time to study when I was young.She wishes he had been promoted to CEO. Conditional 3 Worksheet 1 Conjugate the verb in parentheses in the correct tense used in the third conditional. If they _____ (have) the time, they would have attended the meeting.Jason _____ (recognize) the winner if he had been told.If I _____ (know) his name, I would have said hello.If the president had been informed in time, he _____ (make) a different decision.If Mary _____ (try) again, she would have been successful.The children wouldnt have been so upset if they _____ (be give - use passive voice) the candy.If Jerry _____ (spend) more money on the repair work, it would have worked well.We _____ (believe) them if they had told us the story.She would have finished the report on time if she _____ (know) all the facts.If we _____ (not buy) that car, we wouldnt have gone on vacation. Conditional 3 Worksheet 2 Conjugate the verb in parentheses in the correct tense used in the third conditional, or sentence with wish. She _____ (wish) she had known about the problems. If they _____ (ask) the right questions, they _____ (receive) the right answers.She wouldnt have been allowed to speak if she _____ (disagree) with his point of view.I _____ (wish) they had thought twice before doing that.We wish we _____ (know) about those people.Alice _____ (not speak) to him if she had been asked ahead of time.They wouldnt have thought twice about dinner if they _____ (ask) to help out with preparation.She wishes she _____ (apply) for the bank position.If I _____ (invest) in Apple, I would have become a millionaire!Oliver _____ (not know) the answer if you had asked him. Check your answers on the next page. Conditional 3 Worksheet 1 Conjugate the verb in parentheses in the correct tense used in the third conditional. If they had had the time, they would have attended the meeting.Jason would have recognized the winner if he had been told.If I had known his name, I would have said hello.If the president had been informed in time, he would have made a different decision.If Mary had tried again, she would have been successful.The children wouldnt have been so upset if they had been given the candy.If Jerry had spent more money on the repair work, it would have worked well.We would have believed them if they had told us the story.She would have finished the report on time if she had known all the facts.If we hadnt bought that car, we wouldnt have gone on vacation. Conditional 3 Worksheet 2 Conjugate the verb in parentheses in the correct tense used in the third conditional, or sentence with wish. She wishes she had known about the problems.If they had asked the right questions, they would have received the right answers.She wouldnt have been allowed to speak if she had disagreed with his point of view.I wish they had thought twice before doing that.We wish we had known about those people.Alice wouldnt have spoken to him if she had been asked ahead of time.They wouldnt have thought twice about dinner if they had asked to help out with preparation.She wishes she had applied for the bank position.If I had invested in Apple, I would have become a millionaire!Oliver wouldnt have known the answer if you had asked him.

Company Performance Critical Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Company Performance Critical Analysis - Essay Example The company focuses on developing sustainable energy future for the consumers, community and investors by exploring the suite of reduced emission and renewable energy creation opportunities (AGL Energy Limited, 2014). This document gives a two-year analysis of the financial report for AGL Company for the year ended 30th June 2013 and 2014 in order to examine the company’s performance for the period. The financial report of the company provides the shareholders and other stakeholders with information on social, environmental, governance, risk issues affecting the company as well as the financial performance during the respective years. AGL is the consolidated entity with four reportable functional sections, and the results of each section are reported according to the reporting structure of the internal management during the reporting period (AGL, 2014). The four operational sections include Merchant energy, retail energy, upstream gas and energy investments. Merchant Energy develops, operates and sustains assets for power generation. Also, they manage risks related to obtaining and distributing natural gas and electricity to its retail and wholesale clients. Merchant Energy distributes natural gas and electricity to consumers and offers energy efficiency and carbon management services (AGL, 2014). Retail Energy segment sells natural gas, electricity and products and services associated with energy to residents and small scale business clients. Upstream Gas section deals with the exploration of gas, development and production of tenements and facilities for storing gasses (AGL, 2014). Energy Investments consist of Diamantina Holding Company Pty Limited and equity accounted investments in the ActewAGL Retail Partnership. It owns the Loy Yang power station and the nearby coal mine that is currently reported in the Merchant Energy operating segment (AGL Energy Limited, 2014). In the year ended June 30th, 2011 AGL company

WORKPLACE SECURITY AND WORKER PRIVACY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

WORKPLACE SECURITY AND WORKER PRIVACY - Essay Example Of them 20 enactments relate to Minimum Wages, which are prescribing wage increases @ $0 .25 every year, bringing the wage levels in some States to $ 8.00 per hour. There are conditions imposed on employers not to include in this, tipped wages beyond $ 3.00. Besides this, 18 amendments relate to Workplace Security, 12 to Time off and 11 to three categories, viz., Prevailing Wages, Wages Paid and Worker Privacy. In this essay, let us go into the impact of these two legislations, in the current business scenario, particularly with an organization providing customer service call centers for multiple organizations; located in 5 other States and 6 cities in India. Workmen's compensation legislation prescribes compensation for employment injuries and the employer's responsibility is well defined in that respect. But, in the case of Workplace violence, besides the fact it is a bad culture deteriorating the organizational image principally, the employer's liability in terms of damage and legal remedies is beyond one's comprehension. In light of the doctrine that employer is responsible for the employee's conduct affecting a third party, who may be a fellow employee, customer or even a casual visitor, the employer is basically obligated to ensure that there is no scope for work place violence, particularly caused by the conduct of the employee. The law extends further more, in the sense, hiring and retaining a person who is likely to cause violence, will also put the employer into jeopardy. The potential application of negligence actions to cases where an employee has been caused injury by harassment at work was confirmed in Waters (AP) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2000] IRLR 220. The House of Lords held that "if an employer knows that acts being done by employees during their employment may cause physical and mental harm to a particular fellow employee and he does nothing to supervise or prevent such acts, when it is in his power to do so, it is clearly arguable that he may be in breach of his duty of care to that employee". [Equality and Human Rights Commission, 03-03-2009 ()] Employers can be found liable for negligent retention for not terminating an employee who has violated company policy on workplace violence. Or, if an employer failed to perform a thorough background check on an employee who proves to be a safety threat, an employer could be liable for negligent hiring. [Correy E. Stephenson, Lawyers USA.Boston:Oct 23, 2006.( )] The learned Judges have pronounced that employers owe potential customers a legal duty to use due care in retaining an employee who attends to those customers, as in the case Watson v. City of Hialeah. In this case a marital counselor had

Women in the Renaissance Essay Example for Free

Women in the Renaissance Essay â€Å"What was life like for Renaissance women? † â€Å"If you were a woman in that time, would you have liked it? † and â€Å"How was the treatment towards women? † Questions like these keep pestering my mind as I research about the Renaissance. It is preposterous at how little freedom women were given compared to this day and age. Not only that, it is clear and obvious that men in the 14th to 16th century in England were given special privileges, while females were not. This is absurd. Women should have been treated as equals with men and without inferiority. The English Renaissance was a period of time filled with great injustice, harsh treatment, and unfair consequences. The life that most women live currently is a luxury compared to the Renaissance since females may major in whatever career she wants, choose who she wants to marry, and in general, make her own decisions. Yet, it has not always been this way. In the Renaissance, females were deemed inferior to males and there were laws that restricted women’s rights. For example, Protestantism â€Å"underscored women’s wifely and maternal roles and simultaneously closing down religious orders that had heretofore offered women a realm for their exercise of spiritual and social power† (Smith 25). Men could not even give females any power, even if was just religious powers. Any authority for females was looked down upon, for men believed women would misuse it since â€Å"as inheritors of eve’s sinfulness, women were pronounced disobedient, lustful, and physically foul† (Smith 25). Females were assumed that way so thus were the inferior gender and treated differently. As males were superior, it was accepted that they had the higher authority so their wives and daughters followed his orders. The daughters had no say to who her father married her to. The main purpose of daughters was as a bride. If they could not marry or lacked the dowry to become nuns, they had to find work (â€Å"Women† 324). Almost all girls were not allowed to decide who they could wed. Their father mainly chose the groom and marriages were often a matter of business. It did not matter whether or not his daughter loved the guy. In addition, the fathers expected â€Å"certain values for girls: chastity, obedience, and silence† These were thought to prepare daughters for their second stage of life, as a wife (â€Å"Women† 324). Chastity was needed because girls could not be married without it, obedience for listening to the betrothed, and silence to not argue with the husband. Sometimes, young girls married men twice or three times their age (â€Å"Women† 324). Imagine having a spouse as old as one’s father, or worse, grandfather! In nobles, the girls had their husbands chosen already at the age of ten or eleven. After five or six years, on the actual wedding, they would meet each other for their first time (â€Å"Women† 324). They were usually married to men with power and wealth; the main reason of the wedding meant sharing a lord’s property or a noble name and continued success. Many women married men they barely knew, or never met. After following her father’s orders, she then had to obey the demands of her new husband (â€Å"Women† 324). Women in the family had different roles depending on what social class they were. The roles of mostly upper class women consisted of different struggles than that of lower class women. For example, upper class women were, â€Å"placed [with] crippling limitations [on] developing artistic or intellectual skills a woman might possess† (â€Å"Women in the Renaissance†). If a woman had sophisticated abilities and wealth, there were more marital offers that came from other nobles. Also, the girls, from a young age, were taught needlework, etiquette, and other talents. In the lower classes, women tended to have â€Å"less freedom of movement in lower classes; they were always handicapped by the physical strains and dangers of constant childbearing and by endless hard labor to provide for [the] family† (â€Å"Women in the Renaissance†). Most of the lower class had to do all their work themselves instead of hiring helping hands or servants since the majority could not afford it. All the cooking, shopping, and cleaning were usually done by the females. They had no time for etiquette and needlework but for other labors in the household. Marriage in households was not the best either. â€Å"Man ruled, women was his property, and he was free to humiliate, strike, and even murder her† (Gail 40). That sounds harsh but it happened. The husbands were even able to murder their wives if their wives were caught in adultery. Adultery was consistently viewed as a wife’s crime; punished by execution and viewed as treason† (â€Å"Women† 317). It was not unheard of for the husband to kill her since divorce did not exist. It seemed that it was always the wife’s fault for seducing other men (â€Å"Adultery†). Regularly, men engaged in sexual relations outside marriage without having to be killed. Women were often married as a matter of business and not by love so of course they would be unhappy and unsettled in their relationships with their husbands. Most tended to simply submit their lives and deal with the marriage. Others refused to accept their fate and looked to satisfy their own desires elsewhere. Yet, â€Å"for a woman who gives into her desires is thought to be deviant; however, the male supremacy in early modern England only perpetuates the female desire to be unbound by societal expectations† (â€Å"Adultery†). Would it not be frustrating to have to be with a man one did not love? Since males controlled females, it was only predictable that women would want to rebel. There were women who wanted to express their opinions but in other ways. The only way â€Å"women could rise [was] through education and struggle† (Gail 42). It was only reasonable that women could finally be noticed through their intellectual abilities. However, â€Å"most men of the day, including churchmen, scholars and educators, stood together against women, and constantly spoke of them with contempt† (Gail 42). Males believed it ridiculous for women to be able to have a formal education instead of learning how to be a proper wife. In spite of all this, the Renaissance was known as the time of the rise of women. It was Spain that â€Å"was known as the country of learned women† due to the Saracen influence (Gail 42). The Saracen women were â€Å"granted spiritual equality to men and women† because of the Prophet Muhammad, whose followers invaded Spain in 711 (Gail 42). Juan Luis Vives, a tutor in Spain, educated Queen Isabella’s four daughters and then traveled to England, where he stirred interest for educating girls (Gail 43). He published books that supported schooling for girls. He began this idea and others took it up. The notion of having almost all females literate was a new thing. Not everyone agreed but there was a slight change. â€Å"During the Renaissance women lost economic power, but, at least briefly, gained status and opportunities for education† (â€Å"Did women have a renaissance? †). The women would finally have literacy instead of lighter, more informal material. Not only that, the time of questioning of women’s inferiority was the beginning of â€Å"Querelles des Femmes,† or the disputes about women (â€Å"Women† 325). â€Å"The educated daughters of humanists, businessmen, and clergy wrote to counter arguments for female inferiority and subordination to men† (Nym Mayhall 45). The women were finally taking actions for their treatment. No more would they keep waiting on men. One such woman was Christine de Pisan who wrote Livre de la cite des dames, or Book of the City of Ladies (Nym Mayhall 45). This was the first important impact of a woman to this discussion. Pisan argued about the schooling and training of women and how it was what made them inferior to men. Not only that, she disputed that â€Å"women’s subordination resulted not from women’s natural inferiority but from men’s envy of women’s virtue† (Nym Mayhall 46). Men know what females can achieve and feel threatened by the competition! That is why there is subordination between the genders. Other European women elaborated upon these opinions. Some include the French writer Marie de Gournay, British playwright Aphra Behn, and Venetian poet Lucrezia Marinella (Nym Mayhall 46). Many early feminists wrote texts that â€Å"contradict[ed] notions of women’s inferiority inherited from classical authors and Christina texts and arguing that women were fully human, not restricted by their natures or biology† (Nym Mayhall 46). This led more females and males to participate in this heated discussion. The idea of equality between genders was beginning to change for the better bit by bit. There were famous females who began to defy men and act upon their beliefs. Some wrote and published their views, others simply followed their dreams that men had taken away, and a few noblewomen used their wealth and status to influence things. The females showed that women were as good as men, whether they liked it or not. For instance, Isabelle d’Este was a noblewoman who was the Marchesa of Mantua. She was not only a patron of the arts, but [also] an inspiration to great artists [like Titian and Da Vinci]† (â€Å"Isabelle d’Este†). To name a few other women, there was the French writer Marie de Gournay, Venetian poet Lucrezia Marinella, and British playwright Aphra Behn (Nym Mayhall 46). These people tried to defend the reputation of women and show the excellence in females by creating literal works. Further women such as Italian Gaspara Stampa and French Louise Labes wrote poetry, romances, stories, novels, and plays (â€Å"Women† 326). Many other females wrote but compared to males, the published works were little. Yet, it’s the thought that counts. Women writers published their thoughts and opinions. Life in the English Renaissance was comparably challenging to that of our current life. There were more limitations and expectations for females. It would terrify most girls in this day and age to marry at such young ages and not even know who the groom is! What if he was twenty years older? Such things were one of the many worries of girls in the Renaissance, alongside with household chores and duties. It was all because of the chance of being born female. Four hundred years from the Renaissance, there is finally equality between both genders. Though there may sometimes be evidence of inferiority, overall females have the freedom to choose and decide what they want and never have to be restricted by rules. There is no need to fear the consequences of reading a book in public or disobeying one’s father in a matter of marriage.

John Pappajohn :: essays research papers

John Pappajohn was born July 31, 1928 in St. Luke's Greece to George and Maria Pappajohn. His father was a U.S. citizen and thus he is a U.S. citizen by birthright. He immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 9 months with his mother and they joined his father in Mason City. Iowa. In 1961, he married Mary L. Limberis of Minneapolis, Minnesota and the two of them have a daughter, Ann Pappajohn, who resides in New York. Mr. Pappajohn attended Mason City public schools and then attended the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, and received a bachelor's degree in business in 1952. Upon graduation from college, he started his own insurance business. In 1962, he moved to Des Moines and organized the Guardsman Life Insurance Company. He was Chairman of the Board of Guardsman Insurance from 1962 to 1969, at which time he sold his interest and dedicated himself full time to venture capital investments. He organized Equity Dynamics Inc. in 1969 and continues as its President today. He also organized Pappajohn Capital Resources (a venture capital fund) in 1969. Pappajohn Capital Resources is well known on Wall Street as a venture capital fund primarily investing in high tech, medical and healthcare projects. He has over 35 portfolio companies in his fund and has averaged over 68% annual return on investments for over 25 years. At the present time, he serves as director on the following company Boards: Radiologix, Inc., Dallas, TX PACE Health Systems Inc., Des Moines, IA Allion Healthcare, Inc., Huntington Station, NY Logisticare, Atlanta, GA Patient Infosystems, Inc., Rochester, NY MC Informatics, Inc., Irvine, CA. He has served as director in over 40 public companies and also serves as a director for many private companies. He is a member of many professional organizations including The Society of Financial Analysts, Association for Corporate Growth, National Association of Corporate Directors and the Association for Investment Management and Research. He was a Horatio Alger Award recipient in 1995 and serves as a member of the Board of Directors and on the Executive Committee for the Horatio Alger Association. He also is on the Board of Trustees for Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece, the University of Iowa Foundation Board of Trustees, Iowa City, IA., and formerly a Trustee for Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, MA. He was named Iowa Business Leader of the Year in 1992 and was inducted into the Iowa Business Hall of Fame in 1996. He served as a member of the Advisory Board for the J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. He was initially appointed by President Ronald Reagan and re-appointed by President George Bush.

Marketing Reserach

Question â€Å"Marketing Research† Respond to the following: . -Of the marketing research tools identified in the textbook, evaluate those that would be most appropriate for a small business. Textbook=[Iacobucci, D. (2012). MM, 2nd Edition. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning] -When it comes to marketing research, speculate to the blunders that beginning marketers commonly make. Provide a rationale with your response. Answer :- Market research is an effective way to learn about potential customers, their opinions, habits, trends and future plans.It is used to determine the geographic area of a business and demographic characteristics of customers such as age, gender, income and educational level. Marketing research helps a firm identify and solve problems, identify and evaluate market opportunity and develop the effort needed to exploit it. Steps of the Marketing Research Process 1. Identify and Define the Problem/Opportunity – This is the first step in finding a solution; a poor diagnosis will lead to an ineffective solution. 2. Conduct a Preliminary Exploration – Confirming a rejection, the problem as stated by the decision maker is a crucial phase of the research project.In order to do this the researcher must talk to knowledgeable persons both inside and outside the firm. This often gives the researcher a new perspective on the problem. 3. Determine Research Objectives – The earlier steps have given the researcher a better understanding of the problem, and he or she can now begin to formulate hypothesis to fit it. Hypothesis are tentative explanations of a problem, formulated on the basis of weight and knowledge about the problem. The hypothesis may prove to be either right or wrong. 4. Determine Data Needs – Researcher use primary and secondary data.Primary data are originated and collected for a specific problem. They must be generated by original research through observation and/or inquiry. The advantage of such data is that they relate specifically to the problem at hand. In gathering them, new problem may be uncovered and the focus of the research project sharpened. The main disadvantages are the cost and time required to collect them. Secondary data already exist, they are historical data gathered by people either inside or outside the firm to meet their needs.If those needs are similar to the researcher’s needs secondary data can be useful. Although they are cheaper and faster to collect than primary data, their relevance, accuracy, credibility and timeliness must be established before they can be used. 5. Determine Data Sources – The major internal source of primary data is company personals, Retailers, wholesales, customers and competitors are important external sources of primary data. Knowing what primary data are needed gives an indication of who might have them. The major internal source of secondary data is company records.Libraries, trade associations and government publication s are important external sources of secondary data. 6. Create the Research Design – The research design specifies the overall framework and the specific procedures for collecting and analyzing the data. This is the most important step in the research process. Research Design can be classified by function and by methodology. Functional Categories – (a). Exploratory Research. (b). Descriptive Research (c). Casual Research (d). Predictive Research. Methodological Research – (a). Historical (b) Survey (c) Experimental (d) Motivational 7.Collect the Data – Once the researcher has determined data needs, data sources, and the framework and procedures to collect and analyze them, the problem becomes one of searching for and securing data. In collecting data, the researcher implements the research design. For secondary data, a good understanding of internal and external sources is necessary. Primary data, however , must be collected through observation and inquiry . 8. Analyses Data and Convert to Information – The data that have been collected according to the research design must be analyzed and interpreted.This leads the researcher to either accept or reject the research hypothesis After coding and editing, data are analyzed. This involves descriptive responses, calculating averages etc. in order to convert raw data into an understandable form for the purpose of interpreting the data. Tabulation, for example, involves arranging the data in a table, graph, or other summery format to facilitate their interpretation. More sophisticated data analysis techniques may also be used as the research moves beyond the description of the data to sophisticated statistical analysis of them.Cross tabulation is often used to show how variable relates to another variable. 9. Communicate the Information – Communicating research findings to decision makers is a crucial step in a research project because the project will be a failure if the resul ts are not communicated effectively. Among the criteria for judging the quality of a research report are completeness, organization, understandability, interest level, accuracy, clarity, conciseness include : specific sections of the report typically (a) Title page (b) Table of contents (c)Executive summery (d) Introduction (e) Body (f) Conclusions and recommendations and (g) Appendices.

Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 15~16

CHAPTER FIFTEEN A Song for Your Supper Amy picked the whale. It had been a stressful morning for her, and Quinn wanted to convey his complete confidence in her, so he handed over the headphones and took directions as they narrowed down which of their whales was actually the singer. â€Å"Wait a second,† Amy said. â€Å"Shut down the engine.† And then she did something that Quinn had seen no one do for twenty-five years, and then it had been his mentor, Gerard Ryder, who most people agreed had been eccentric to the point of being full-blown bat shit. Amy hung over the side by her knees and put her head in the water. After about thirty seconds she swung up, spraying a great crest of seawater all over the boat, then pointed north. â€Å"He's over there.† â€Å"That doesn't work, you know,† said Quinn. It was pretty much accepted that humans didn't have directional hearing underwater. He was just gently trying to remind her. â€Å"Go that way. That's where our whale is.† â€Å"Okay, there may indeed be a singer over there, but you didn't locate him by hearing him.† She just stood there next to him – dripping on his feet, the console, the field notes – looking at him. â€Å"Okay, I'm going.† He started the engine and pushed the throttle over. â€Å"Tell me when I get there.† A couple of minutes later Amy signaled for him to cut the engine, and she was hanging over the side with her head in the water while the boat was still coasting. â€Å"Well, this is just stupid,† Nate said while Amy was submerged. Amy dedunked long enough to say, â€Å"I heard that.† â€Å"Looks like you're bobbing for whales, is what it looks like.† â€Å"Shut up,† said Amy, up for a breath. â€Å"I'm trying to listen.† â€Å"You look like that cartoon character in ‘B.C. that used to watch fish all day.† â€Å"That way,† said Amy, up again, pointing and dog-shaking the water out of her hair onto the Ph.D. â€Å"About six hundred yards.† â€Å"Six hundred yards? You're sure?† â€Å"Give or take fifty.† â€Å"If we're within a half mile of a singer, I'll buy you dinner.† † ‘Kay. What do you suppose the freight is to fly a lobster from Maine to my plate in Lahaina?† â€Å"I'm not going to need to know that.† â€Å"Drive the boat, please. Over there.† And she pointed again, not unlike Babe Ruth indicating the Wrigley Field fence over which he would hit the famous promised home run (except Amy was thin, a girl, and alive). Quinn heard the singer even before they put the hydrophone in the water. The whole boat started resonating to the song as they coasted into a drift. Amy hopped up on the bow and pointed to some white spots dancing below the surface – pectoral fins and a tail. â€Å"There he is!† If there had been a crowd, they would have gone wild. Quinn smiled. Amy looked back at him and grinned. â€Å"Steak and lobster,† she said. â€Å"Something red and French and expensive for the wine, something on fire for dessert – don't care what it is, long as there's flames coming off it – then a backrub before I send you back to your cabin alone, disappointed and confused. Ha!† â€Å"It's a date,† said Quinn. â€Å"No, it's not a date. It's a bet, which you have lost miserably because you had the audacity to doubt me, and for which you shall remain ever sorry. Ha!† â€Å"Shall we work now? Or would you like to gloat a bit longer?† â€Å"Hmmm, let me think about it†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She's so small, yet she contains so much evil, Quinn thought. He threw the field journal at her and read her the longitude and latitude off the GPS. â€Å"Film's in the camera. New roll. I loaded it this morning.† â€Å"I was thinking I'd gloat some more.† Amy picked up the notebook, then paused as she opened it to begin writing. â€Å"Singing stopped.† â€Å"Sometimes I think they just stop singing to freak me out.† â€Å"He's moving,† Amy said, pointing. â€Å"Moving,† Quinn repeated. He looked over the side and saw the white pec fins and flukes flash out of sight. â€Å"Hold on.† He started the engine. â€Å"They can hunt these kind, as far as I'm concerned,† Quinn said after they'd been on the whale for two hours. They'd recorded three full cycles of the song and gotten a crossbow biopsy, but the whale simply would not fluke, so they hadn't been able to get an ID photo. A lot of good it did to have a DNA sample when you couldn't identify the animal. â€Å"Hunt them and make them into pet food,† Nate continued. â€Å"Get their tainted, nonfluking genes out of the gene pool.† â€Å"Maybe you should have a doughnut or something, get your blood sugar up,† Amy said. â€Å"Use their pathetic, nonfluking baleen for corsets and umbrella stays. Use their vertebrae for footstools. Use their intestines to make giant, nonfluking whale sausages to serve at state fairs. Remove their putrid unfluking gonads and –  » â€Å"I thought you liked these animals.† â€Å"Yeah, but not when they won't cooperate.† The whale had led them five miles out toward Molokai and very close to the wind line, where the waves were too big and the current too fast to stay on a singer. If the whale continued in this direction, they would lose him within the next two dive cycles and the day would be wasted. What was even more frustrating was that this animal was hanging in the water and singing with his tail only a few feet below the surface. Typically, a singer in the channel would be thirty to fifty feet down – this guy was at about seven. Nate kept having to pull up the hydrophone to keep it from bopping the whale in the noggin as they drifted over it. â€Å"He's coming up,† Amy said. She grabbed the camera off the seat and aimed it at a spot twenty yards or so in front of the boat so the auto-focus and exposure would already be set. Nate pulled up the hydrophone with two yanks and started the engine. The whale was moving faster this time. Nate adjusted the throttle to put Amy at the right distance for a full-frame tail shot. One breath and he was down for ten seconds, another breath twelve seconds, another breath and the great tail peduncle arched high into the air. â€Å"Looks like he's going to do it,† Nate said. â€Å"Ready,† Amy said. The tail cleared the water by just a foot, presenting an edge view instead of a flat horizontal view that would give them all the markings, but Nate thought he saw something. Something that looked like black letters on the underside of the tail. â€Å"You get that? You get that?† â€Å"I got what there was. He didn't present very well.† Amy had run the motor drive for the whole cycle of the dive, maybe eight frames. â€Å"Did you see those markings? On the underside? The black†¦ uh, stripes?† Quinn whipped off his sunglasses and wiped them with his T-shirt. â€Å"Stripes? Nate, I didn't see anything but edge through the camera.† â€Å"Damn it!† â€Å"Look, he fluked. Maybe he will again.† â€Å"That's not the point.† â€Å"It's not?† â€Å"Get up on the bow, see if you can find him.† Amy stood on the bow and directed Quinn. When she dropped her arm, he killed the engine. And there was the whale, hanging there, singing, his tail not ten feet under the water. They weren't a hundred yards off the wind line, and the boat was drifting away from the whale faster than it had before. They'd be over it for only a minute or so. This close to the wind line, they'd probably lose him the next time he came up. Nate was not going to finish this day wondering if he was having hallucinations again. â€Å"Amy, hand me my mask and flippers from the bow cabinet, would you?† â€Å"You're going in the water?† â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"But you never go in the water.† â€Å"I'm going in the water.† Nate opened a plastic Pelican case and pulled out his Nikonos IV underwater camera, checked to make sure it was loaded. â€Å"You're not a water guy.† â€Å"See if there's a weight belt in there, too.† â€Å"Clay says you're not a water guy. You're a boat guy.† â€Å"I'm going to get an ID photo from under his tail. If he's going to be accommodating enough to stay this close to the surface, I'm going to go get the photo.† â€Å"Can you do that?† â€Å"Why not?† She handed him a belt weighted with ten pounds of lead, and Nate buckled it around his hips. He pulled on the mask and fins, then sat on the gunwale with his back to the water. â€Å"You're going to drift off of me. I'm not going to try to swim to catch you, so come back and get me. Wait till I wave. I don't want you to start the engine until I'm sure I have the picture. Keep recording until you come get me.† † ‘Kay.† Amy's mouth was sort of hanging open as if she'd just been slapped. â€Å"This is no big deal.† â€Å"Right. You want me to do it? It's my fault I didn't get the shot last time.† â€Å"Not your fault. The shot wasn't there. See ya.† Quinn put the snorkel in his mouth and rolled backward off the boat. At seventy-five degrees, the water was still cold enough to knock the breath out of him. He floated to the surface and tried to take controlled breaths until his system adjusted. The whale was close, only a hundred or so feet away. The song reverberated in Nate's ribs as he kicked over to it. This had to be the â€Å"bite me† whale. Even if he'd somehow been wrong about there actually being letters, there were certainly some strange markings on this animal's tail. And there was more than that, too, if he could prove to himself that this was the same animal. It would mean that the whale had stayed in the general area of the Au'au Channel for over three weeks, which was fairly unusual. Of course, conclusions weren't reached from that lack of data. It could simply be that they hadn't computerized the catalog of Hawaiian ID photos the way they had in Alaska. And without the first picture there'd be no proof that this was the same animal, but Quinn would know. He would know. That had become the impetus of this silly mission, not just proving that he wasn't hallucinating. He was a man of science, of facts, of reason. He didn't need to prove he was sane. I'm out of my mind, he thought. He'd never even heard of anyone trying to do an ID photo underwater. The animal was perfectly motionless, a great swath of gray in a field of infinite blue. But Quinn thought he saw movement on the far side of the whale. He lifted his head out of the water and looked back at the boat. Amy gave him a thumbs-up. He took a deep breath and made his dive to take the photo. If he'd been wearing tanks, he might have let the weight belt take him down slowly, but he knew he'd be able to stay down for only forty to sixty seconds, so he went headfirst, kicking hard until he was down twenty or so feet. Then he leveled off, holding the camera in front of him, and looked up at the underside of the whale's tail. There it was, in big, sans-serif, spray-paint-like letters: BITE ME! He nearly forgot to take the picture. How could this possibly be? Had the animal somehow been caught in a net when it was younger and marked by a sardonic fisherman before being released? Was it one of those animals that had swum up a river and got stranded, then been rescued by an army of fish-and-game people? He centered the tail in the viewfinder and hit the shutter. Advanced the film and shot again. Then he needed to breathe. He turned and kicked to the surface, but again he saw the dark shape moving near the whale. Remora, he thought. Although it looked too big to be one of the parasite fish that often attached themselves to whales. At the surface he looked back down at the singer, near the left pec where he'd seen the movement. The animal was doing ribbits. Quinn smiled around his snorkel, took three deep breaths, held, then dove again. This time, before he could get the camera up, he saw the movement of a dark fin on the far side of the whale, and he squinted to see deep into the blue distance. Blue-water willies, was how he'd always thought of it. The feeling you get when you realize that something big and carnivorous could come at you from any direction, then you start looking for gray missiles in the blue, like looking for a malevolent face to appear at a dark window. Then the whale moved. The wash of the tail pushed Quinn back, but he maintained his bearings and started toward the surface, trying to keep his eye on the animal. The whale turned around in little more than its own length and shot toward Nate. He kicked laterally, trying to move to one side or another, then up, so he'd be tossed over the top of the animal rather than under it as it came up, because it was definitely going to bump him. He looked back beyond his fins as he kicked and saw the whale adjust its direction to keep coming toward him. Nate kicked once for the surface, then looked back again to see the animal's enormous mouth opening beneath him. No, this can't be happening, he thought. The panic rising in his chest demanded air, but it was as if the entire ocean had opened up a hole behind him, and he wasn't going to make it to the surface. The whale came halfway out of the water as it scooped him up, and Nate saw sky, and white water, and baleen fringing the upper jaw above – all of it framed by the huge trapezoid that was the whale's open mouth. Then he felt the whale sinking back, and he saw the baleen close over him. He rolled into a ball, hoping not to be crushed by the jaws, hoping to be spit out as a horrible dining mistake. But then the great tongue came forward, warm and rough, driving him against the baleen plates – it was like being smashed into a wrought-iron fence by a wet Nerf Volkswagen. He could feel the baleen ripping the skin on his back as the tongue covered him, pressing the seawater out around him as it would strain krill, then crushing him until the last of the air exploded from his body and he blacked out. PART TWO Jonah's People Men really need sea monsters in their personal oceans. For the ocean, deep and black in the depths, is like the low dark levels of our minds in which the dream symbols incubate and sometimes rise up to sight like the Old Man of the Sea. – JOHN STEINBECK CHAPTER SIXTEEN Shoes Off in the Whale! â€Å"Shoes off in the whale!† a male voice said out of the dark. Quinn could see nothing. His entire body ached like, well, like it had been chewed. He crawled to his hands and knees on what felt like wet latex. He reached down and felt for his feet. He still had his flippers on, and logic protested through his confusion. â€Å"I'm not wearing shoes. These are fins.† â€Å"Shoes off in the whale! And don't try and make a break for the anus.† Two things that, if asked about an hour earlier, Nate might have said with conviction he'd never hear in a lifetime of conversation. â€Å"What?† Quinn said, squinting into the dark. He realized that he was still wearing his dive mask and reached up to push it back. â€Å"I'll bet he didn't bring the pastrami on rye I asked for either, did he?† came the voice. Shapes began to define themselves in the darkness, and Nate saw a face not a foot away from his. He gasped and pulled away from it, for although it seemed to be examining him with great interest, the face was not human. Clay Demodocus was known throughout the world as one of the calmest, most level-tempered, most generous and considerate individuals in the entire milieu of marine biology. His reputation preceded him when he went on assignment, and people took it for granted that he would remain amiable throughout a long voyage in cramped quarters, as well as efficient in his own work, respectful of the work of others, and cool-headed in an emergency. Because he often had to subjugate himself to the head researcher on any given assignment, Clay did not indulge in ego battles and testosterone-slinging contests with researchers or crew. None of these qualities were evident when he went over the desk of the Coast Guard commandant and stopped only inches from head-butting the tall, athletic-looking officer. â€Å"You call this search off now and I'll see to it that your name is remembered for all time in concert with Adolf Eichmann and Vlad the Impaler. Nathan Quinn is a legend in his field, and every t ime there's a documentary on whales on the Discovery Channel, or National Geographic, or Animal Planet, or PBS, or the fucking Cartoon Channel, I'll see to it that your name is mentioned right after Nate's as the man who left him out there. You'll be the official Coast Guard pariah for the next hundred years. This will be the Coast Guard's My Lai. Every time a kid drowns, your name will be mentioned – nay, every time someone gets a soaker, the name of Commodore Whateveryournameis shall be brought forth and your effigy burned in the streets and your head stuck on a pole, lipsticked, and marched around school yards, forever. And all because you're too goddamned lamebrained to put a couple of helicopters into the air to find my friend. Is that what you want?† Clay had strong views on loyalty. The commodore had been in the Coast Guard for most of his adult life, spending the majority of his time and energy either rescuing people or training others to do so, and as a result he was taken aback more than somewhat by Clay's tirade. He looked across his office to where Kona and Amy stood by the door, looking nearly as haggard as he felt. The surfer looked at him and shook his head sadly. â€Å"It's been three days, Mr. Demodocus. In open water with no life preserver? You're not a tourist – you know the odds. If he were alive, he'd have drifted far out of where we're able to patrol by now anyway. We're doing no fewer than ten rescues a day on Maui. I can't have our helicopters out to sea when there's just no chance.† â€Å"What about tide maps, currents?† Clay pleaded. â€Å"Can't we try to predict which way he might have drifted? Narrow the search area.† The commodore had to look away from Clay when he answered. The first thing the surfer kid with the uneven dreadlocks had said when they'd come into his office was â€Å"Sucks to be you.† And right now the commodore couldn't have agreed more. He'd lost friends at sea; he understood. â€Å"I'm sorry,† he said. Clay sighed heavily, and his shoulders sagged. Amy came forward and took him by the arm. â€Å"Let's go home, Clay.† Clay nodded and allowed himself to be led out of the commodore's office. As they made their way across the parking lot to Clay's truck Kona said, â€Å"That was amazing, Clay.† â€Å"Throwing a fit? Yeah, I'm proud of that, especially since it worked so well.† â€Å"Why didn't you say anything about the whale eating Nate?† In the three days since Quinn had disappeared, Kona had forgotten to speak brophonics and Rasta talk almost completely, and now he just sounded like a kid from New Jersey with a â€Å"whoa, dude† surfer accent. â€Å"Whales don't eat people, Kona,† Clay said. â€Å"You know better.† â€Å"I know what I saw,† Amy said. Clay stopped and stepped away from both of them. â€Å"Look, if you're going to do this stuff, you have to be practical. I believe that you saw what you say you saw, but nothing about it helps. First, a humpback's throat is only about a foot in diameter. They couldn't swallow a human if they wanted to. So if the whale did scoop up Nate, then there's a good chance he was spit out very quickly. Second, if I told that story to everyone else, either they'd think you were being hysterical or, if they believed you, they'd assume that Nate had been drowned immediately, and there wouldn't have been a search. I believe you, kid, but don't think anyone else will.† â€Å"So what now?† Kona asked. Clay looked at the two of them, standing there like abandoned puppies, and he pushed aside his own grief. â€Å"We finish Nate's work. We do this work, we carry on. Right now I've got to go up the mountain and see the Old Broad. Nate was like a son to her.† â€Å"You haven't told her?† Amy asked. Clay shook his head. â€Å"Why would I? I haven't given up on Nate. I've seen too much. Last year they thought they'd lost one of the black-coral divers. The boat came back to where they'd sent him down, and he was gone. A week later he called from Molokai for them to come get him. He'd swum over and had been so busy partying he'd forgotten to call. â€Å"Doesn't sound like Nate,† Kona said. â€Å"He told me that he hated fun.† â€Å"Still, it would be wrong not to let the Old Broad know what's happened,† Amy said. Clay patted them each on the back. â€Å"Intrepid,† he said. As he drove up the volcano, Clay tried to formulate some gentle way of breaking the news to the Old Broad. Since his mother had passed away, Clay had taken the bearing of bad news very seriously – so seriously, in fact, that he usually let someone else do the bearing. He'd been in Antarctica on assignment for National Science, snowed in at the naval weather station for six months when his mother, still in Greece, had gone missing. She was seventy-five, and the villagers knew she couldn't have gone far, yet, search as they might, they did not find her for three days. Finally her location was revealed by her ripening odor. They found her dead in an olive tree, where she had climbed to do some pruning. Clay's older brothers, Hektor and Sidor, would not hold the funeral without Clay, the baby, yet they knew their brother would be completely out of touch for months. â€Å"He is the rich American,† came the ouzo-besotted lament. â€Å"He should take care of Mama. Perhaps h e will even fly us to America for the funeral.† And so the two brothers, having inherited their mother's weakness for alcohol and their father's bad judgment, packed the remains of Mother Demodocus in an olive barrel, filled the barrel with the preserving brine, and shipped it off to their rich younger brother's house in San Diego. The problem was, in their grief (or perhaps it was their stupor) they forgot to send a letter, leave a message, or, for that matter, put a packing label on the barrel, so months later, when Clay returned to find the barrel on his porch, he broke into it thinking he was about to enjoy a delicious snack of kala-mata olives from home. It was not the way to find out about his mother's death, and it engendered in Clay very strong views about loyalty and the bearing of bad news. I will do this right, he thought as he pulled into the Old Broad's driveway. There's no reason for this to be a shock. There were cats and crystals everywhere. The Old Broad led him through the house and had him sit in a wicker emperor's chair that looked out over the channel while she fetched some mango iced tea for them. The house could have been designed by Gauguin and landscaped by Rousseau. It was small, just five rooms and a carport, but it sat on twenty acres of fruit-salad jungle: banana trees, mango, lemon, tangerine, orange, papaya, and coconut palm, as well as a florist's dream of orchids and other tropical flowers. The Old Broad had cultivated a low, soft grass under all the trees that was like a golf-course green over sponge cake. The house was made almost entirely of dark koa wood, nut brown and with black grain running through it, polished to a smooth satin and as hard as ebony. There was a high-peaked galvanized-tin roof with a vented tower in the center to draw heat out the top and cool air in from under the wide eaves that surrounded the whole house. There were no windows, just open sliding walls. You could look through any part of the house to the other and see the tropical garden. The Old Broad's telescope and  «big-eye » binoculars stood on steel and concrete mountings in front of where Clay sat, looking very much out of place: the artillery of science planted in paradise. At Clay's feet a skinny cat happily crunched the legs off a scorpion. The Old Broad handed Clay a tall, icy glass and sat in another emperor's chair beside him. She was barefoot and wore a flowered caftan and a yellow-and-red hibiscus blossom in her hair that was half the size of her face. She had probably been a dish back around the time of Lincoln, Clay thought. â€Å"It's so nice to see you, Clay. I don't get many visitors. Not that I'm lonely, you know. I have the cats and the whales to talk to. But that's not like having one of my boys to visit with.† Oh, jeez, Clay thought. One of her boys. Oh, jeez. He had to tell her. He knew he had to tell her. He had come up here to tell her, and he was going to tell her, and that was that. â€Å"This is excellent tea, Elizabeth. Mango, you say?† â€Å"That's right. Just a little bit of mint. Now, what is it you needed to talk to me about?† â€Å"And ice? I think the coldness makes it, gives it a fantastic, uh†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Temperature? Yes, ice is an essential ingredient in iced tea, Clay. Thus the name.† Sarcasm is so ugly on the aged, thought Clay. No one likes a sarcastic oldster. He said, â€Å"Iced tea, you mean?† Oh, this is just going to kill her, he thought. â€Å"If this is about a new boat, Clay, don't be shy. I know how you loved that boat, and we'll get you another one. I'm just not sure we can go for one quite that nice. My investments haven't been doing well the last couple of years.† â€Å"No, no, it's not the boat. The boat was insured. It's Nate.† â€Å"And how is Nathan? I hope he's handling his little infatuation with your new researcher with a bit of dignity. He was wearing it on his sleeve that night at the sanctuary. You'd think a man as smart as Nathan would have better control over his impulses.† â€Å"Nate had a thing for Amy?† Clay was going to tell her, really. He was just working up to it. â€Å"You said ‘had, † said the Old Broad. â€Å"You said Nate ‘had' a thing for Amy.† â€Å"Elizabeth, there's been an accident. Three days ago Nate went into the water to get a better look at a singer, and†¦ well, we haven't been able to find him.† Clay put down his tea so he could catch the old woman should she faint. â€Å"I'm very sorry.† â€Å"Oh, that. Yes, I heard about that. Nate's fine, Clay. The whale told me.† And here Clay found himself balancing on another dilemma. Should he let her have her belief, no matter how crazy it might be, or should he dash her spirits to earth with the truth? Although Nate had found Elizabeth's eccentricities irritating, Clay had always liked her insistence that the whales spoke to her. He wished it were true. He scooted to the edge of his chair and took her hand in his. â€Å"Elizabeth, I don't think you understand what I'm saying – ; â€Å"He took the pastrami and rye, right? He said he would.† â€Å"Um, that's not exactly pertinent. He's been gone for three days, and they were right at the wind line toward Molokai when he was lost. Rough sea. He's probably gone, Elizabeth.† â€Å"Well, of course he's gone, Clay. You'll just have to carry on until he gets back.† Now she patted his hand. â€Å"He did take the sandwich, right? The whale was very specific.† â€Å"Elizabeth! You're not listening to me. This is not about the whales singing to you through the trees. Nate is gone!† â€Å"Don't you shout at me, Clay Demodocus. I'm trying to comfort you. And it wasn't a song through the trees. What do you think? I'm some crazy old woman? The whale called on the phone.† â€Å"Oh, Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, I don't know how to do this » â€Å"More tea?† asked the Old Broad. As Clay made the long drive down the volcano and back to Papa Lani, he tried to fight letting his spirits rise. The Old Broad was completely convinced that Nathan Quinn was just fine and dandy, although she could give no reason other than to say that the whale, after ordering a pastrami on rye, had told her that everything would be all right. â€Å"And how did you know it was the whale on the phone?† asked Clay. â€Å"Well, he told me that's who he was.† â€Å"And it was a male voice?† â€Å"Well, it would be. He's a singer, isn't he?† She'd gone on like that, reassuring him, encouraging him to go back to work, dismissing any guilt or grief, until he was almost to the gates of the compound before he remembered. â€Å"She's a total loony!† he said to himself, as if he just needed to hear the words, to feel their truth. Nothing is all right. Nate's dead. Clair would be sleeping at her house tonight, and although it was late, Clay could not make himself go to sleep. Instead he went to the office, knowing that nothing in the world could eat up time like editing video. He attached a digital video camera to his computer and turned on the recently replaced giant monitor. Blue filled the screen, and then he could sense the motion of descent, but there was only a faint hiss of his breathing, not the usual fusillade of bubbles from a regulator. This was the rebreather footage, from the day he had almost drowned. He'd completely forgotten about it. The breath-holder's tail came into frame. Clay's first instincts had been right. This was great footage of a breath-holder – the best they'd ever recorded. As he passed the tail, the genital slit came into view, and he could tell that they were dealing with a male. There were black marks on the underside of the tail, but the view was still edge on, and he couldn't make out their shape. He heard a faint kazoo sound in the background and ran back the tape, with the sound turned up. This time his breath sounded like a bull snorting before a charge, the kazoo sound, louder now, like a voice through wax paper. He ran back the tape again and cranked the sound all the way up, bringing down the high frequency to kill some of the hiss. Definitely voices. â€Å"There's someone outside, Captain.† â€Å"Does he have my sandwich with him?† â€Å"He's close, Captain, really close. Too close.† Then the tail came down, and there was a deafening thud. The picture jerked in a half dozen directions, then settled as tiny bubbles passed by the lens in a field of blue. The lens caught a shot of Clay's fin as he sank, and then it was just blue and the occasional shot of the lanyard that secured the camera to his wrist. Clay ran the tape back again, confirmed the voices, then set it to dub onto the computer hard drive so he could manipulate the audio in a waveform, the way they did with sound recordings. Even though he was sure what was on the tape, he couldn't figure out how it could possibly have gotten there. Only five minutes of watching little progress bars move across the monitor, and he could stand the suspense no longer. He smiled to himself, because now was the time he would have gone to Nate, as he had so many times before, to help him figure out exactly what it was they were hearing or looking at, but Nate was gone. He checked his watch, and, deciding that it wasn't too insanely late, he headed across the compound to get Amy.

Customer Service Coordination

Customer Service Coordination Employability Skills Marketing Executive The employer is looking for a Marketing Executive and the focus is on a marketing function. The remuneration package is in the range of  £18,000 to 24,000 per annum plus excellent benefits. The job role is described as follows:Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Customer Service Coordination specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The Marketing Executive must prepare and deliver the marketing plan, on time and on budget on an annual basis using liaison with other departments where necessary. The marketing plan includes all the traditional element of the marketing mix, including advertising, tradeshows and exhibitions, public relations, direct mail, search engine optimization, literature and promotional items. Some of the items will be external and require management of third parties (Turner, 2011, p.1). Assessment There is no need to be a mathematical genius to take on this job. But t he application of numeracy for this job is in professional level. Team work is very crucial for this job. I need to establish a professional relationship with the people I am working with. At the same time I need to master self-management because part of the job requires the preparation and delivery of a marketing plan. Business and customer awareness is necessary in order to create an appropriate marketing plan. It also requires a high level of computer literacy in order to use the computer not only to develop the plan but also to deal with search engine optimization needs. Problem solving skills are required because there is a need to interact with heads of various departments. Thus, communication and literacy must be at a professional level. My main problem here is the lack of experience when it comes to the advertising aspect of the job.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Management Information Analyst – Banking Complaints The job is on a contractual basis for six months. The salary is  £18,000 to 23,000 thousand per annum. The job role is described as follows: It requires the design, testing and implementation of operational processes and data systems. Also requires the provision of accurate, high quality reporting enabling the business to make timely and appropriate decisions, resulting in increased business effectiveness and reduced costs. Finally, the job requires effective interrogation and monitoring of management information related complaints, the identification of emerging trends and delivery of root cause analysis of complaints (FPSG Connect, 2011, p.1). Assessment The application of numeracy is in the professional level. Team work is also an important concept to master because this job requires interaction with other people working on the same problem. Self-management is needed in order to pace oneself when it comes to pr oviding time and accurate reports. It also important to have business and customer awareness in order to develop an effective root causes analysis of problems. Communication and literacy skills are dependent on the software used by the company. This also affects the other factors such as problem solving skills and application of IT. The only hurdle in this job is to become familiar with the software and that can be accomplished with a few weeks of training after hiring. Customer Service Coordinator The customer service coordinator is the first person seen by the customers entering the office. The salary for this job is  £13,500 to 18,000. The job role is described as follows: The Customer Service Coordinators is the first face-to-face point of contact for customers entering an A4e Office. Working on the new Work Programme contract, the coordinator will offer a warm and professional welcome, and direct customers to the most appropriate location or to an A4e staff.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Customer Service Coordination specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The coordinator will effectively control customer flows within the office, maintaining a personal and courteous atmosphere (A43 Limited, 2011, p.1). Assessment The application of numeracy is in the practical level – meaning there is no need to perform calculations using a calculator or computer. Team work is needed but it only requires minimal effort because the work load is not that difficult. Self-management on the other hand is the key factor because the coordinator must be self-aware all the time in relation to the environment and the needs of the customers. Business and customer awareness is also an important factor as this is the area that the employer would measure when it comes to being effective as coordinator. Application of IT, problem solving and communication and literacy only requires the minimum application. This mean s that the job does not require technical and specialised skills in these areas. I have the skills set to accomplish all of the above. Lending Assistant – Banking This job requires the applicant to work closely with the Business Manager of the said bank. The salary is  £18,500 per annum. The job role is described as follows: Assist Business Manager to prepare credit proposals for new and existing borrowing customers. Prepare credit reviews on customer’s standing, business performance and relationship with the bank. Carry out the pre-call and follow-up marketing works. Follow up on account opening for new and existing customers. And to prepare instructions and follow-up letters to surveyors (Wilde Associates, 2011, p.1). Assessment The application of numeracy is at a professional level. This is related to the application of IT because the job requires mastery of the use of software applications such as spreadsheets etc. Team work is not a primary concern because the j ob basically centres on the need to assist the Business Manager. However, business and customer awareness is an important part of the job requirement because it is impossible to prepare credit reviews without this skills set. Problem solving, communication and literacy is a skill that is developed after a few weeks of spending time with the Business Manager as I try to master a system unique to the organisation.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Self-management is important in order to meet deadlines and submit accurate reports. There is a need to learn the intricacies of a new system; this would require a few weeks of on the job training but I have the skills set to accomplish all of the above. Business Banking Relationship Officer The job requires a close working relationship with the Senior Business Banking Manager. The basic salary is  £25,000 plus bonus. The job role is described as follows: The applicant must assist the Senior Business Banking Manager in the running of a portfolio of local business customers, helping to build strong relationships and assisting in the acquisition of new customers. The applicant must possess a good understanding of company financials such as balance sheets, profit and loss accounts and cash flow statements. The job requires the applicant to develop excellent communication skills with the ability to focus customer needs (The Oakland Partnership Limited, 2011, p.1). Assessment The appli cation of numeracy is in the professional level. This requires understanding of mathematical formulas that would result in generating data used in balance sheets and profit and loss accounts. At the same time the IT application factor is related to the use of software such as spreadsheets and whatever system the bank is using to integrate all pertinent information into one report. Team work is an important concept to master but there is no need to learn how to manage a group because the position requires an assistant role to the Senior Business Banking Manager. Business and customer awareness is needed to address customer needs. The same is true when it comes to problem solving and communication and literacy. These are needed to provide excellent service. I have the skills set to accomplish all of the above. Communication Skills Customer Service Coordinator The customer service coordinator is the first person seen by the customers entering the office. The salary for this job is  £ 13,500 to 18,000. The job role is described as follows: The Customer Service Coordinators is the first face-to-face point of contact for customers entering an A4e Office. Working on the new Work Programme contract, the coordinator will offer a warm and professional welcome, and direct customers to the most appropriate location or to an A4e staff. The coordinator will effectively control customer flows within the office, maintaining a personal and courteous atmosphere (A4e Limited, 2011, p.1). Name Address City, Postal Code August 12, 2011 Harvey Turner HR Department Head A4e Limited Bootle, Sefton UK Dear Mr. Turner: With reference to your advertisement on Jobsite.com looking for a Customer Service Coordinator, I submit my candidacy today with the attached curriculum vitae. I have been working as a customer service representative for a reputable bank in London for three years now. Ideally, this position will enable me to use my experience in the banking industry and use it to serve customers at A4e Limited. I also started my professional life working as an executive assistant. The skills that I acquired from these two jobs would give me enough confidence and knowledge to tackle the problems as a Customer Service Coordinator. But at the same time I look forward to learning the unique way that your company deals with customers. I realise that there are limitations to written communication of this type. Therefore, I look forward to participate in a personal interview. I would then be able to answer your questions. It would also be the best time for me to better present my qualifications. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I look forward to speaking with you Mr. Turner. Sincerely, Name Name Address City, Postal Code Phone Email Address Career Objective: A highly-trained customer service representative with several years experience working in a London bank. Seeking a position, that will leverage working experience in the field of customer care. E ducation: 2005-2008 Bachelor’s degree in Accounts and Business Administration from the Manchester Business College 2002-2004 Diploma in Business Administration from the Manchester Business College Work Experience: 2003-2004 Executive Assistant Responsibilities: Record and transcribe the minutes of executive meetings; Travel arrangements for CEO; Prepare expense reports; and Responsible for providing back-up data. 2008-2010 Customer Service Representative Responsibilities: Receiving and processing new client accounts; Implement requested changes to existing accounts; and Performing other clerical duties as requested. Management Information Analyst – Banking Complaints The job is on a contractual basis for six months. The salary is  £18,000 to 23,000 thousand per annum. The job role is described as follows: It requires the design, testing and implementation of operational processes and data systems. Also requires the provision of accurate, high quality reporting e nabling the business to make timely and appropriate decisions, resulting in increased business effectiveness and reduced costs. Finally, the job requires effective interrogation and monitoring of management information related complaints, the identification of emerging trends and delivery of root cause analysis of complaints (FPSG Connect, 2011, p.1). Name Address City, Postal Code August 12, 2011 Michael Chesterton HR Department Head FPSG Connect Glasgow, UK Dear Mr. Chesterton: With reference to your advertisement on Jobsite.com looking for a Management Information Analyst, I submit my candidacy today with the attached curriculum vitae. I have been working as a customer service representative for a reputable bank in London for three years now. Ideally, this position will enable me to use my experience in the banking industry and use it to serve customers at your bank. My three-year work experience in the bank exposed me to the different aspects of the banking industry, especially when it comes to dealing with customer complaints. The skills that I acquired from my past employment would give me enough confidence and knowledge to tackle the problems as a Management Information Analyst with specific application on banking complaints. But at the same time I look forward to learning a new system especially if your bank uses particular software that integrates all pertinent information regarding customer information and feedback. I realise that there are limitations to written communication of this type. Therefore, I look forward to participate in a personal interview. I would then be able to answer your questions. It would also be the best time for me to better present my qualifications. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I look forward to speaking with you Mr. Chesterton. Sincerely, Name Name Address City, Postal Code Phone Email Address Career Objective: A highly-trained customer service representative with several years experience working in a London bank. Seeking a position, that will leverage working experience in the field of customer care. Education: 2005-2008 Bachelor’s degree in Accounts and Business Administration from the Manchester Business College 2002-2004 Diploma in Business Administration from the Manchester Business College Work Experience: 2003-2004 Executive Assistant Responsibilities: Record and transcribe the minutes of executive meetings; Travel arrangements for CEO; Prepare expense reports; and Responsible for providing back-up data. 2008-2010 Customer Service Representative Responsibilities: Receiving and processing new client accounts; Implement requested changes to existing accounts; and Performing other clerical duties as requested. Lending Assistant – Banking This job requires the applicant to work closely with the Business Manager of the said bank. The salary is  £18,500 per annum. The job role is described as follows: Assist Business Manager to prepare credit proposals fo r new and existing borrowing customers. Prepare credit reviews on customer’s standing, business performance and relationship with the bank. Carry out the pre-call and follow-up marketing works. Follow up on account opening for new and existing customers. And to prepare instructions and follow-up letters to surveyors (Wilde Associates, 2011, p.1). Name Address City, Postal Code August 12, 2011 James Blair HR Department Head Wilde Associates London, UK Dear Mr. Blair: With reference to your advertisement on Jobsite.com looking for a Lending Assistant, I submit my candidacy today with the attached curriculum vitae. I have been working as a customer service representative for a reputable bank in London for three years now. Ideally, this position will enable me to use my experience in the banking industry and use it to serve customers at your bank. My three-year work experience in the bank exposed me to the different aspects of the banking industry. I am very interested to serve a s an assistant to the Business Manager. My first experience as a professional was working as an executive assistant to a CEO. This means that I can handle the requirements of the job especially when it comes to creating reports and writing letters to prospective clients. The skills that I acquired from my past employment would give me enough confidence and knowledge to tackle the problems as a Lending Assistant. But at the same time I look forward to learning a new system especially if your bank uses particular software that integrates all pertinent information regarding customer information and feedback. I realise that there are limitations to written communication of this type. Therefore, I look forward to participate in a personal interview. I would then be able to answer your questions. It would also be the best time for me to better present my qualifications. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I look forward to speaking with you Mr. Blair. Sincerely, Name Name Address City, Postal Code Phone Email Address Career Objective: A highly-trained customer service representative with several years experience working in a London bank. Seeking a position, that will leverage working experience in the field of customer care. Education: 2005-2008 Bachelor’s degree in Accounts and Business Administration from the Manchester Business College 2002-2004 Diploma in Business Administration from the Manchester Business College Work Experience: 2003-2004 Executive Assistant Responsibilities: Record and transcribe the minutes of executive meetings; Travel arrangements for CEO; Prepare expense reports; and Responsible for providing back-up data. 2008-2010 Customer Service Representative Responsibilities: Receiving and processing new client accounts; Implement requested changes to existing accounts; and Performing other clerical duties as requested. Reflective Assessment In any struggle, the battle is half won by those who come prepared (Dikel Roeh m, 2006). Job hunting and applying for a certain position can be compared to a battle, an intense mental and emotional struggle (Gordon, 2009). It is therefore important that the applicant is armed with a well written curriculum vitae (Knaus, 2010). But a curriculum vitae cannot be assembled correctly if the applicant is unable to determine employability skills (Woodward, 2004). It is imperative to undergo a self-assessment exercise in order to determine suitability for a particular job. It is even helpful to know not only the capability of the individual but also the things that interest him or her (Turner, 2006). It would be difficult to thrive and succeed in a job that creates so much unhappiness for the worker. These things have to be internalised before going on a job hunt. If all these things are in order then it is easier to look for a job that can be satisfying and fulfilling for the job seeker. References A4e Limited. (2011). Customer Service Coordinator. Jobsite.com Retrie ved from jobsite.co.uk/job/customer-service-coordinator-939643923?src=search Dikel, M. Roehm, F. (2006). Guide to Internet Job Searching. New York: McGraw-Hill. FPSG Connect. (2011). MI-Analyst-Banking Complaints. Jobsite.com Retrieved from jobsite.co.uk/job/mi-analyst-banking-complaints-939693801?src=search Gordon, M. (2009). Job Hunting 101. MN: Two Harbor Press. Knaus, B. (2010). Fearless Job Hunting. CA: New Harbinger Publications. The Oakland Partnership Limited. (2011). Business Banking Relationship Officer. Jobsite.com Retrieved from jobsite.co.uk/job/business-banking-relationship-officer-interesting-opportunity-939675691?src=search_channel_CJBA Turner, H. (2011). Marketing Executive. Jobsite.com Retrieved from jobsite.co.uk/job/marketing-executive-939702137?src=search_channel_MARK Turner, J. (2006). Job Search Secrets Unlocked. UK: Swenson Publications. Wilde Associates. (2011). Lending Assistant – Banking. Jobsite.com Retrieved from jobsite.co.uk/job/lending-assista nt-banking-939554059?src=search_channel_CJBA Woodward, G. (2004). Winning Job-Hunting Strategies. UK: Trotman and Company Limited.

Definition and Examples of Orientational Metaphors

Definition and Examples of Orientational Metaphors An orientational metaphor is a  metaphor (or figurative comparison) that involves spatial relationships (such as UP-DOWN, IN-OUT, ON-OFF, and FRONT-BACK). Orientational metaphor (a figure that organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another) is one of the three overlapping categories of conceptual metaphors identified by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980). The other two categories are structural metaphor and ontological metaphor. Examples [A]ll the following concepts are characterized by an upward orientation, while their opposites receive a downward orientation. MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN: Speak up, please. Keep your voice down, please.HEALTHY IS UP; SICK IS DOWN: Lazarus rose from the dead. He fell ill.CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN: Wake up. He sank into a coma.CONTROL IS UP; LACK OF CONTROL IS DOWN: Im on top of the situation. He is under my control.HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN: Im feeling up today. Hes really low these days.VIRTUE IS UP; LACK OF VIRTUE IS DOWN: Shes an upstanding citizen. That was a low-down thing to do.RATIONAL IS UP; NONRATIONAL IS DOWN: The discussion fell to an emotional level. He couldnt rise above his emotions. Upward orientation tends to go together with positive evaluation, while downward orientation with a negative one. (Zoltn Kà ¶vecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2010) Physical and Cultural Elements in Orientational Metaphors Orientational metaphors that are strongly cultural in content form an internally consistent set with those that emerge most directly from our physical experience. The up-down orientational metaphor can apply to situations that contain both physical and cultural elements, such as Hes at the peak of health. She came down with pneumonia. Here good health is associated with up, in part because of the general metaphor that Better is up and perhaps also because when we are well we are on our feet, and when we are ill we are more likely to be lying down. Other orientational metaphors are obviously cultural in origin: Hes one of the higher-ranking officials in the agency. These people have very high standards. I tried to raise the level of the discussion. Whether the experience on which an orientational metaphor is based is directly emergent physical experience or one drawn from the social domain, the core metaphorical framework is the same in all of them. There is only one verticality concept up. We apply it differently, depending on the kind of experience on which we base the metaphor. (Theodore L. Brown, Making Truth: Metaphor in Science. University of Illinois Press, 2003) Lakoff and Johnson on the Experiential Basis of Metaphors In actuality we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis. For example, MORE IS UP has a very different kind of experiential basis than HAPPY IS UP or RATIONAL IS UP. Though the concept UP is the same in all these metaphors, the experiences on which these UP metaphors are based are very different. It is not that there are many different UPS; rather, verticality enters our experience in many different ways and so gives rise to many different metaphors. (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press, 1980)

Regional human rights instruments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Regional human rights instruments - Essay Example They can, however, have an ethical consequence and offer guidance to States about their responsibilities2. In Asia, the association of the 10 states of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) has acknowledged a regional human rights system for South-East Asia. In 2007, State leaders signed an ASEAN agreement, come into power in 2008 following endorsement by all 10 member states. The Charter offers ASEAN a bureaucratic basis that ascertains an institutional arrangement and forbids policy of course. In 2009, the ASEAN inter legislative Commission on Human Rights occurred in the 15th ASEAN meeting. The ASEAN Commission in 2010 for the protection and Promotion of the Rights of Women as well as Children (ACWC) was also acknowledged3. In Europe, the local preparations for protecting human rights are extensive. They involve the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Cooperation and security in Europe4. All these intergovernmental organizations have their own regional human rights instruments and mechanisms. ... all over the world have built up domestic law and constitutions that mirror elementary human rights values though there is major discrepancy among States in their advances6. The federal government in Peru goes into international treaties devoid of parliamentary consent. While it cannot necessitate the provinces to apply international human rights agreements in region falling in /territorial control, provincial, federal, and territorial governments usually share their human rights schedules and the federal government gets into treaties with provincial approval1. In Peru, a dualist approach is followed. This means that global human rights treaties must be included into local legislation to have impact in domestic courts. In general, global human rights agreements are not included into local legislation, posing a challenge to their implementation within the territories and provinces. Assessing Peru’s conformity with its treaty requirements and associated jurisprudence can be hard as there are two parts to consider: jurisprudence for normal legislation and jurisprudence for the constitution of Peru and the Peru Charter of Rights and basic Freedoms7. In the ordinary legislation, the courts have argued that judges should endeavor to interpret such laws according to relevant international requirements. If the express requirements of a domestic decree are dissimilar to or conflicting with Peru’s international requirements, the former overcomes. The judiciary is therefore not bound to apply the international human rights treaty requirements of Peru, even though they will be a pertinent and important factor in the courts' explanation of the Charter8. There can be vagueness among lawyers and judges about the connection between the international human rights treaties and the