Bishoy Fanous Writing 102 Professor Riveland

Bishoy Fanous Writing 102 Professor Riveland 9 February 2013 The Meaning of Work When one thinks of meaningful work, generally they think of labor that accomplishes a certain goal. They think of a prestigious job or occupation that has meaning to it. But meaningful work can mean a lot more than just a prestigious job or having meaning to something you do. Meaningful work can be as simple as feeding the birds in the park on a Saturday morning. It can be helping someone out or looking out for someone in need.Meaningful work can be defined as enjoyment of the worker, dedication of the worker to the job, and involvement that the worker shows toward his job. When students start to think of jobs, they try to think of something that they would love doing for the rest of their lives. But instead they end up running after well-paying jobs and prestigious jobs. They feel that society would judge them in a way that would put them at the bottom of the job spectrum. So they end up going for a top of the line jobs that give good salaries but at the same time are boring or not meaningful to them.Therefore, when it comes to jobs you want something you will enjoy doing for the rest of your life. You want something that you will satisfy you in life rather then depress you. According to Epstein in the section Work and its Contents from his book he says, â€Å"The most fortunate people of all, though, are those for whom the line between work and play gets rubbed out, for whom work is pleasure and pleasure is in work† (Epstein, 31). In other words, Epstein believes that your job should be close if not the same as your play time or the time you spend doing what pleases you.This can conclude my point that work that is not enjoyable to the person who is doing it gives it no meaning. It does not matter how prestigious or high paying the job is, if it’s not enjoyable, then it will not be meaningful to the person doing it. Also we notice in Epstein’s quote the part w here he says that the line between work and play is rubbed out (Epstein). Basically what he means by that is when you go on with your life doing your hobbies they should be similar, if not close to, what you do as a job for a living.If that’s not so, then the work you are doing is not meaningful to you. When it comes to meaningful work, dedication should be at the top of list. Dedication to work is more of a life style, like for example a doctor’s life style is a lot different from an engineer’s life style. A doctor might see something in a medical way while an engineer might see the same thing in a physical or a mechanical way. A doctor see’s things in a certain way because he dedicated most of his time and effort to this form of life style and in the end he uses it to go through everyday life.The same applies to an engineer and every other profession out there. The profession a person chooses is based on the amount of time and dedication they put in to that field. Dedication can be seen through many people in everyday life. We see it in famous football athletes, movie stars, and even teachers. As the prominent philosopher Malcolm Gla dwell’s talks about The Beatles and Bill Gates as a little kid and how they were dedicated to what they did before they even got paid for it or it was even their job yet.He mentions how The Beatles when they first started performing it was in a strip club and they would perform for long hours every night together without complaining (Gladwell). Many might disagree and say that dedication should be put in everything you do even your job. But the truth is that many people do their job and then they go on living a different life from what they do at work. They show no form of dedication to what they do in their job at home or when they go out with friends or family. If they show no form of dedication then how is it meaningful work to them?It’s not, it just another thing they do throughout t he day like brushing their teeth or showering just because they have to do it and because it’s a daily routine. Many people might say that they are dedicated to their job and they enjoy doing what they do for a living, but that does not necessarily mean that their job is meaningful to them. In order for work to be a hundred percent meaningful to the worker he has to be involved in it. Some might ask how can someone enjoy their job and be dedicated to their job but not be involved? The answer is that think of a football player in the National Football League.He might be dedicated to going to every practice and he might enjoy playing football for a living, but when it comes to game time he ends up not playing and sitting on the bench most of the season. In order for a job to be meaningful to the worker he has to get involved in some way shape or form. Likewise, the football player being benched for most of the season has to find a way to get better. But while he is getting bett er, he has to be involved in other things on the bench, like studying different plays in the play book or following different skills or techniques of other players on the team.This way he will be bumped up to playing more games in the season and end up getting involved in his job. In Thomas Sowell’s magazine, Meaningful Work, he talks about acquiring skills, he says that â€Å"Those relatively few statistics that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time show them moving massively from one income bracket to another over time, starting at the bottom and moving up as they acquire skills and experience† (Sowell, 2). In making this comment, Sowell urges us to work our way up.He urges us to get involved in what we do in order for us to get the skills we need and move up in our work field. Further more going back to involvement, Sowell talks about how statistics show that some people start off with no skills or experiences. But over time through involvement in thei r field of work or study, they gain the skills or experiences they need to move up in their job or their income. This shows that without involvement in what you do for a living you can not have meaningful work or work that gives meaning to what you do.After reading this people might say that enjoyment, dedication, and involvement are not the only things that make work meaningful. But that living up to your goals is what defines meaningful work. I would answer and say that even though that could be a way to define meaningful work it has to involve one of these three topics because a person’s goal will never be to live miserable, but it would be to enjoy life. This can show that my definition of meaningful work is valid because whatever other way a person might want to define meaningful work. They will end up having to satisfy one f these three topics in their definition of meaningful work in order for it to be a valid and acceptable definition. In conclusion, meaningful work c an not just be work that you do for a salary or prestigious. But it has to be work that you enjoy doing everyday. It has to be work that you are dedicated to doing even if the job has a risk to it. Last but not least it has to be work that involves you in some way, not just a job that you go to, to get paid from. If the job you do does not involve one of these three things, then it can not be meaningful to you as a worker.It would be better off for you to not go through the struggle of getting that job, then getting to that job and noticing that it gave no meaning to your life in the sense of working. Work Cited Epstein, Joseph. â€Å"Work and It Contents. †Ã‚  Once More Around the Block. New York: Norton, 1987. Print. Meaningful Work Comes from Passion, Not Genius. Perf. Malcolm Gladwell. Meaningful Work Comes from Passion, Not Genius. Bnet. com, 29 Nov. 2008. Web. 18 Feb. 2013. Sowell, Thomas. â€Å"Meaningful Work. †Ã‚  NationalReview. com  29 May 2012: Web.

Advances in technology Essay

This world goes through a lot of changes as time goes on. Changes in technology can make a brighter future for individuals. Because of advances in technology, this world is becoming more efficient and saving us money in the long-run with fuel, electricity, communication, etc. The social lifestyle of an individual involves technology in some way. Technology has become a necessity in these modern days and it is going to become more advanced as time goes on. With these advances in technology, the social lifestyles of individuals can be simpler. Technology moves our world forward into a new and advanced era. Without technology, we would all be stuck in the same time as our ancestors. Technology is a very good thing for people anywhere and everywhere, no matter how old, it helps us in every aspect of our daily lives, and it is a thing that cannot be lived without. Technology has many branches and levels, from cell phones to the internet and even for medical purposes. However, cell phones and the internet have taken the main role in changing our society. I find it truly amazing that a person from China is able to talk to a person from the United States, all through the internet. Programs such as facebook make finding an old childhood friend extremely easy, all that is to be done is type in their name. The advantages of technology include better health facilities due to increased disease diagnosis using technology and faster as well as more accurate business results and solutions through technology. Technology has also enabled the automation of manual work thus saving time and money. It has boosted the entertainment through games and computer programs as well as increase in economy growth due to faster and easier business. Without technology in our lives, our world we be a very different place. Not only does technology provide us with a new and improved way to communicate, is gives us new and exciting ways to research and get ideas out to the world faster. Technology is only going to get better and better as each day progresses and with the appropriate efforts and integrating it into the classroom will enhance education forever. Our advance in technology has and always will be a good thing that will always benefit our world. People’s lives are becoming simpler.

Histroy of English Language Essay

History of English language will explain, why learning English as a second language is difficult without proper instruction, even though basic components are same. Throughout its history English has been influenced by the varieties of language. Living languages never remain static. Every language is the product of change and continues to change as long as it is spoken. Only dead languages like Latin or Sanskrit change no longer, since no one speaks them now. The changes, while they do occur are gradual and slow and hence almost imperceptible. Over a span of centuries, however, their cumulative effect is appreciable. Shakespeare English is difficult for modern readers; Chaucer’s is almost is incomprehensible without formal instruction. The History of the English language: The origin During the Roman invasion, the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. English belongs, in all its stages, to the Indo European family of languages, formerly called Indo-Germanic, and still earlier Aryan. Indo European is the name given to the set of linguistic forms from which nearly all European languages as well as those of Persia and very large part of India can be shewn to descend. The historians have used the word Indo-European because it merely suggests that the languages it comprises cover most of the Europe and India mark the length of its confines. The predominance and pioneering s of the position of the German Philologist English is one of the most important languages in the world today. More the an 350 million people in Great Britain are native speakers. In addition 150 million non-native speakers of English are there. English however is not spoken by large number of people in the world . Chinese, for instance spoken by more than 880 million people in China alone. Among the western languages English has the advantage in numbers. Spanish in spoken by about 210 million people. Russian is spoken about 200 million people Portuguese is spoken about 105 million people etc . Importance of a language is associated with political role played by the nations using it and their influence in the international affairs. Several reasons may be adduced for current importance and popularity of English. Historically the colonial expansion of the British Empire over which the sun never sets, was responsible for the imposition of the English on aspiring natives. Even after achieving independence many countries like Nigeria, India, Ghana continue to use English as official language for several reasons. The nature of the English language and its tolerance to change has made it very popular. One of the major assets of the English language is the mixed character or its vocabulary. English being the Germanic descent has many words from the Germanic languages viz, German Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Scandinavian, Swedish, Norwegian. It also shares a large number of words with the European languages derived from Latin viz,French Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Hence English seems very familiar to anyone who speaks a Germanic and Roman language. Instead of making new words chiefly by the combination of existing elements, English has shown the marked tendency to go outside its own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages. These words have been so well assimilated into English the no one ever remembers or recognizes that they have been borrowed. Any etymological dictionary will show that English has borrowed from almost every language of the world; Hebrew Arabic Hindi Tamil,Malay,WestAfrica,Chinese,Brazil etc. This is the reason why we call English a cosmopolitan vocabulary which is an asset to any language which seeks to attain international use. Modern linguists therefore accept the dynamic nature of language. One of their axioms is that there are no pure forms of language, for language, for languages keep changing all the time. If English had remained pure over the centuries, we should still be speaking the language of Chaucer. Throughout the history, the English language has accepted with comparative equanimity words from other languages with which it has been in contact. There have been periods in which speakers and writers have indulged in large-scale use of foreign words. In general, most people will agree that the foreign contribution to English has been useful. Some languages avoid as far as possible the use of alien terms; instead they substitute new words made up of native elements. English however, has always accepted foreign words. Many hundreds of words of non-English origin are now part and parcel of the English vocabulary, indistinguishable from the native stock except to those with some knowledge of etymology. Of all the world languages, English has probably the vocabulary which is the most copious, heterogeneous and varied, at the same time this also one of the reason that learning English as second language becomes difficult. All the people, with whom its speakers have come in contact during more than thirteen centuries of its growth, have left permanent marks on the language. Some of the contacts have been deep and lasting like Greek, French and Latin. A study of the history of the English language, therefore, unfolds the panorama of English history-both social and political. With an empire over which sun never sets, the English language has been particularly open to foreign influences. The Romans with whom the ancient Germanic tribes had dealings, the Romanized Britons, the Latin fathers of the church who were once eagerly studied the Danish and Norwegian invaders, the Norman French conquerors, the revival of ancient Latin and Greek classics at Renaissance, the Italian artists and men of letters of the 16th century the colonizing nations of the same century—all these have made their contributions to the English language. Arab mathematicians from Spain have enriched the language: so have American Redskins and Indian sepoys. The Italianate Englishman of Queen Elizabeth’s time of whom Shakespeare made fun and famous writers like Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift have left something of value in the English word—hoard. It is no doubt, that such statement might fairly be made about other language and their history; but what stands out so remarkably about English is the abundance, the unparalleled variety and the length of the time during which foreign influences have been effective. Further, no other language has so much copious and heterogeneous material. In historical linguistics the contribution of particular foreign language to another is referred to as borrowing . In common parlance, ‘borrowing’ means getting something form somebody on the understanding that it is to be returned. Luckily, this definition does not apply to words which are borrowed, never to be returned. Linguists wonder whether ‘stealing’ might be a more appropriate term for this phenomenon. As Haugen says† The borrowing takes place without the lender’s consent or even awareness and the borrower is under no obligation to repay the loan. One might as well call it stealing, were it is not the owner is deprived of nothing and feels no urge to recover his goods. The process might be called adoption, for the speaker does adopt element from a second language into its own. Even though English language has adopted variety of languages into it, the basic structure of the English language has not changed. English language’s basic structure is, it has fixed word order. Due to more than two hundred years of English rule, Tamil has borrowed copiously from English. Now these words are not recognized as foreign at all. One hears an uneducated Tamil speaker use words like office school, ticket, gate, bus etc. In fact, practically no one remembers the Tamil equivalent of these words. The problem arises for the second language learners only when they were asked to use the language or reproducing it. Tamil is Dravidian language spoken by more than 65 million people. It is the official language of Tamil nadu state in India and one of the official languages of Srilanka also. Large Tamil-speaking communities also reside in South Africa,Singapore, Malaysia and the other Indian ocean islands. The earliest Tamil inscriptions dates from 200B. C. The literature in the language have a 2,000-year history. There are 247 letters in the Tamil alphabet. The 247 letters in the Tamil alphabet can be divided into 12 vowels 18 consonants, 216 vowel consonants and 1 special letter. The vowel consonants are formed by combining the vowel letters and consonants letters. The vowel-consonants letters also have long and short sounds. The History of English is divided into three ages. Old English, Middle English and Modern English. There are 26 letters and 44 sounds, in that there 6 pure vowels and 18 diphthongs and 20 consonants in English language. Compared to Tamil language English has less number of letters ,but ironically language that has 247 letters(Tamil) has limited in terms of vocabulary, but English language that has 26 letters has million words. According THE HINDU newspaper which published an article duirng 2006, The department of Tamil language in the University of Madras has benn revising, enlarging and updating the Tamil lexicon. During 1924-39, the University of Madras had Published the Tamil Lexicon in seven volumes comprising 124,405 entries. Such a dictionary was pioneering venture in the pre-independence period. Prof. Vaiyapuri Pillai had played a huge role in the complication and publication. There have been persistent demands for updating and expanding the lexicon. The many social, political and technological changes in the six-decade period have direct bearing on the Tamil language. It is in this background that the Department of Tamil language of the Madras University had out forth its plan to revise enlarge and update the lexicon. The present Tamil lexicon, under preparation ,will come out in 10 volumes, comprising atleast 500,000 entries ,will be bilingual in nature and at the same time render the meaning chronologically. On top of the vast difference in the number of letters in their alphabet, the Tamil language also differs in many grammatical items compared to the English language. The earliest period of English was formerly called as ANGLO SAXON. The history of English language is divided into three main periods . They are old English (from earliest writings till 1100) Middle English extends from about 1100A. D- 1450A. D, from 1450A. D till date its Modern English. The English language is spoken or read by the largest number of people in the world, for historical, political and economic reasons. First and foremost feature of English language is its extraordinary receptive and adaptable heterogeneousness-the varied ease and readiness with which it has taken to itself material from almost everywhere in the world and has made the new elements of language its own. Throughout its history English has accepted with equinamity words from other languages with which it has been in contact. Foreign elements with ease and assimilated them all to its character. Though it is copiousness of vocabulary is outstanding. A second outstanding characteristic of English is simplicity of inflexion-the ease with which it indicates the relationship of words in a sentence with only the minimum of change in their shapes or variation of endings. A third quality of English is its relatively fixed-word order. An inflected language like Latin or Russian can afford to be fairly free in the arrangement of its words, since the inflexions show clearly the proper relationship in the sentence and ambiguity is unlikely. Of all world languages, English has probably the vocabulary which is most copious, heterogeneous and varied. All the peoples with whom its speakers have come into contact during more than thirteen centuries of the growth, have left permanent marks on the language. Some of the contacts have been deep and lasting like those of ancient Rome and France. Others have been casual like those of Spain or Czechoslovakia. During the Roman invasion, the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. While the Roman soldiers in town used Latin, the Britons in the countryside spoke Celtic. Later this was replaced by English. The history of the English language in Britain begins with the settlement of the Angels, Saxons and Jutes in Brtian. These three tribes came from the plains near Schelswing Holstein in North Germany. They had to encounter varying degrees of hostility from the Celts. For mutual protection the tribes combined into small kingdoms. The most important among these were: Northumbria, Mercia. East Anglia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex and Kent. Under King Alfred Wessex enjoyed the leadership in learning. The English language of today reflects many centuries of developments. The political and social history of England has exerted a considerable impact on the language. The Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought English into contact with Latin civilization and many Latin words were added to the English vocabulary. Then the Scandinavian invasion resulted in considerable two people and their languages. For two centuries after the Norman Conquest English remained the language of the lower classes. When English once more gained importance, it had been considerably changed from what it was in 1066. In a similar way the Hundred Years’ War, the rise of an important middle class, the Renaissance the development of the British empire, the growth of commerce and industry, science and literature have all contributed to make the English language what it is today. In short the English language reflects in its entire development the political, social and cultural history of the English people.

Business Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Business Research - Essay Example Hence this research might help in putting a full stop to the ongoing debate about the dynamics of customer loyalty and providing analysts and corporate office-holders a clear and utilizable understanding of the aspects of customer loyalty that are relevant to any organization’s fundamental orientation. Relevance of the Research Sustainability is without doubt the most popular buzzword in some of the largest academic and industrial circles of today. These circles include the energy industrial sector, life sciences and social welfare work among others (Wheeler, Colbert, and Freeman, 2003). However, relevant to the field of the researcher is the concept of sustainability of a corporation or an organization in its field or business environment. Quite obviously the medium any for-profit organization has to sustain itself in is most usually its ‘market’. There has been an abundance of research studies into the understanding and achievement of some degrees of market sust ainability. One of the largest factors affecting market sustainability of any business enterprise is said to be the identification of the customers of the enterprise to it. Hence customer loyalty is key in moving closer to the ideal of market sustainability. This research will look into how customers help the organizations by persisting with them, in terms of the different impetuses for persisting and their consequences for the organizations. While because of its scope the research will use for a model the furniture company IKEA, it is to be focused on the various aspects of customer loyalty in general. According to Dick and Basu (1994), customer loyalty is the single most important factor in determining the stability in an unstable market of any business. Because the target of the research unintentionally implies furthering the business fraternity’s efforts of building customer loyalty, it will hopefully be useful for, apart from students and business operators, inquisitive customers as well. Literature Review A review of the formal academic literature regarding the issue of customer loyalty found that while there was a lot of research into the causes and effects of customer loyalty in forms of comparative analyses, quantitative studies and case studies, all the studies seem to be targeting a specific facet of the broad phenomenon of customer loyalty. There is no major research that links holistically the various sources and types of customer loyalty to a corporation’s fortunes or studies the nature of the implications of each of the major forms of customer loyalty. But there are studies like Kuusik’s (2007) that take customer loyalty as a single metric instead of considering the forms and impacts of customer loyalty and investigate the sources of and factors affecting the said metric in good detail. However the most relevant published work with regard to this research proposal is a 2003 article by D. L. Duffy titled â€Å"Internal and e xternal factors which affect customer loyalty†, who realized that the contributing factors of customer loya

Discussion 2 Week 7 New Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion 2 Week 7 New - Assignment Example Even with cooperating firms, game theory helps in safeguarding their prospects from being taken advantage of regarding own prices viz-a-viz â€Å"added value." This is a strategy used by airlines to charge higher prices for seats to travel during peak seasons, during holidays and/or during certain yearly/crucial events to certain parts of the world, for instance, the Muslims’ travel to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage. This pricing strategy often lowers the demand for the airlines tickets by limiting the number of those that can afford such expensive fares (Doganis, 2005). However, the strategy generally increases profits to such firms. In this strategy, customers are charged differently based on their willingness to pay viz-a-viz the extent of service offered. Travelling in First class seats cost usually costs more, double or multiple times the cost of other seats due to the added comfort like superior services and/or added special snacks/features (Belobaba, Odoni, & Barnhart, 2009). It is more a profit maximizing strategy than a demand related

Economic100 Article Analysis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Economic100 Analysis - Article Example The article sheds light on the increasing costs of business, implying that not only the apparent rise in coffee beans but also utilities, rent etc attribute to the hike in the prices. Keeping this in mind, the climate of business is not a favorable one, and this may have short term to middle term implications for other segments in the market as well. The objective of this analysis is to apply relevant economic concepts to this article and understand the fundamentals at work here. Economic Concepts There are a few key economic concepts which can be applied to explain the whole of things. Some of them include demand pull inflation, increase in aggregate demand, porter’s five forces etc. Particular focus will be laid on the implications of the existing context, given it persists and how it will hamper longer terms sales etc. Analysis The first economic concept which the article lays emphasis on is the fact that there has been an overall increase in the demand for coffee around th e world. We’ve seen that over the course of the last 3 decades, a lot of globalization has taken place, and in the process, there has been a lot of transference of good and services across borders. Coffee is one of those items which has found a market for itself wherever it has gone. Growing economies such as China and India have shown great promise in terms of demand for the products and this has only fueled the prices in an upward direction. When aggregate demand increases, it has to be followed by an increase in the aggregate supply in an equal magnitude otherwise the result is inflationary pressures in the economy. In the case of coffee, the demand has increased, but the supply has not been able to cope with the demand. Hence the result is demand pull inflation. As is seen in the diagram, increases in the aggregate demand will cause a movement along the curve, but if there are other variables altering, then this can trigger a shift of the curve all together. The inflation we refer to over here doesn’t imply that the whole economy is heating up, but rather just the coffee segment. However, inflation is something that cannot be sustained in this segment. The reason can be explained by Porter’s Five Force model. One of the key pillars of that model is the threat of a substitute. In the case of coffee, there are many substitutes readily available in the market. They can include tea, lattes, cappuccinos etc. The point is that price fluctuations are not sustainable in an industry such as this one. Moreover, the price sensitivity of this product is extremely high. Therefore, even the slightest fluctuations in price could trigger a decrease in supply for this product. Now the real debate starts here. The problem in prices arose due to an uncoordinated demand. However, what’s the trade-off between increasing prices and increasing consumer base? The answer to this question lies in the fact that no production line would like to see a decli ne in the demand for that particular good, however, it must be able to sustain the demand without increasing prices. If prices are pulled up due to these pressures, it implies that the demand cannot be sustained and eventually, the higher prices will lead to a decline in the demand and equilibrium will once again be attained on the previous level. When that happens, this cycle will repeat

E-Government Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 17000 words

E-Government Literature Review - Essay Example g political combine, but the government has to take care of the interest of its citizens in other countries or regions, undertake infrastructure developmental activities and frame policies for effective control on the affairs. One understanding of government is a notion of public social control, logically related to responsiveness in handling the affairs of the state (McGarrell et al. 1997). Indeed, government exits in different forms depending upon the acceptability within the territory. In establishing a working definition, the research contained herein takes on a pragmatic understanding of government; in the contextual frame of working government definitions, this understanding is a broad reaching approach. Influenced by Drapeau (2009), government is ultimately understood in five different ways: iii. Government as a Partner: Government is supposed to work towards developing the municipality, the state or the country by soliciting active support and cooperation of its citizens, organizations and like-minded political affiliations As government is composed of citizens, it is necessary to consider the nature of citizenship. Someone who is an authorized resident of a territory, state or country is termed as the citizen of that particular region. Respective government makes efforts to ensure distinctive rights and privileges for their citizens in order to make them happy and seek their active cooperation in nation building. For example, the UK government came out with the attempts to propose an â€Å"entitlement card† for its authorized citizens in order to relate the rights and entitlements of their citizenship. This is being done with the help of standard biometric identification cards for British citizens (Beynon-Davies, 2007). This indicates the kind of importance attached with being a citizen of the country. Today, we are living in the era of globalization, which is marked by freer movement of people across boundaries, in different states and countries.