Iggys Bread of the World Essay Example

Iggys Bread of the World Paper April 12, 2010 Iggy’s Bread of the World c/o Igor and Ludmilla Ivanovic 130 Fawcett Street Cambridge, MA 02138-1112 Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ivanovic: I am glad to have the opportunity to work with you both on concerns regarding your company. I have read the background information about that you sent me and in regards to your COO Mr. Matthew McRae, I would like to make a few observations and recommendations. First, I would like to start with a quote from Mrs. Ivanovic from the material you sent me, â€Å"It’s not just about a business where we need to make money. I want our employees to get pleasure out of what they do. I want them involved with the company. I want them to like what they do, to be excited to come in and have initiative and be proud of what they do. † I see this as the foundation of your company and I will reference this quote occasionally. Another reference would be when a venture capitalist wanted to invest in your company, expanded the company, and said, â€Å"If you grow it to a point and go public, sell it, then you will make a lot. † Both of you did not like that idea at all. Mrs. Ivanovic stated, â€Å"I would never accept selling out because it’s everything I don’t believe in and I wouldn’t want any part of it. We will write a custom essay sample on Iggys Bread of the World specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Iggys Bread of the World specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Iggys Bread of the World specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer I would never sell Iggy’s just for money. I make point of these two areas because I want to refresh your memory a little of where you have come from. When you approached Mr. McRae to come work at Iggy’s he had previously run a leasing company, which had gone public several months earlier. Therefore, McRae just did to the leasing company what you didn’t want done with Iggy’s by the venture capitalist. A leasing company is nothing like a bakery; Mr. McRae was used to dealing with companies that were in the business to make money. For Iggy’s it wasn’t all about the money as I stated above it was as Mrs. Ivanovic put it threefold: â€Å"one part is the bread and the quality of the product; two is our work†¦the employees†¦it’s a good bakery, but it is also has to be a healthy business; and three is the community, how we deal with outside customers, how we can make a difference by not treating them like a number. † From what I read Mr. McRae did not follow any of these three parts. For him it was about hiring relatives and friends, to give everyone a fancy title and about making money. I am not sure that anyone that Mr. McRae hired had the experience for the job they had been hired for and none had a background in a bakery or a food type of business. As stated in the material I received your employees are unhappy as well because â€Å"they perceive the management team as too isolated from the operations and culture that were at the heart of the company. † All indicators show that the management team and Mr. McRae did not buy into the unique culture that is Iggy’s and the vision of Mrs. Ivanovic. Finally, I will state that both parties are responsible for the disagreements that they are having. Mr. Ivanovic hired Mr. McRae on a feeling that he would be a good fit and did not set any ground rules when it came to his input into hiring people in certain leadership positions. That being said he did give Mr. McRae warning that he wanted to have input after hiring Diane Coleman for Vice President of Sales and Marketing. So it is understandable that Mr. Ivanovic would be upset when Mr. McRae hired another manager without consulting him. These are a few of my observations, but I feel they make my point when it comes to my recommendation. My recommendation would be to accept Mr. McRae’s letter of resignation and let him go. His proposal states the real reason for the way he has been acting. It is all about making money to him and not about the people or the culture of Iggy’s. His previous actions would only get worse if he was retained. Working through a mediator or consultant is no way to run a business. Let him have his opportunity to be one of the people making millions with a start-up, it just won’t be yours. Once that is accomplished you can move ahead with getting his replacement without the stress of having him around. Mr. Ivanovic’s brother Nikola can help run the business for a short time while you work on getting Mr. McRae’s replacement. Expect some if not all of Mr. McRae’s hires to leave when he leaves. Once the new person is hired he/she can decide whether to keep or let go of the people originally hired by Mr. McRae. Next, I would then sit down with your board of directors and work out exactly what type of manager is required to run the business. It should be someone from the same type of business you are running with management and operating skills. A lot has been learned by your interactions with Mr. McRae, so list the things that he did that you liked and the things you didn’t like. Come up with a vision and mission that everyone can agree to. List the important areas that you do not want to change and what areas that can be changed. Determine how much control of the business you are willing to share or give up entirely. Have specific goals in mind; think about long-term goals and strategies. Identify strengths and weakness, so you can hire someone that complements you. Evaluate personalities to get a sense of their managerial style, interview direct reports at three previous positions to get a feel for the person you are thinking of hiring will fit-in. When it is time to hire include the board of directors in the interviews and let them have a vote in the final hiring. This will help take the emotion out of the decision making process and allow everyone buy-in. Hopefully, I have addressed your concerns and that my recommendations are helpful. I will be happy to answer any questions or elaborate on any of my observations and recommendations. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. Sincerely, Joe Smith

Miss Havisham as a Mysterious and Complex Presence Essay Example

Miss Havisham as a Mysterious and Complex Presence Essay Example Miss Havisham as a Mysterious and Complex Presence Paper Miss Havisham as a Mysterious and Complex Presence Paper Essay Topic: A Woman Killed With Kindness The novel Is written retrospectively using first person narration. This gives the reader the impression that they are part of an intimate and confessional storytelling. Pip first meets Miss Having when he is summoned to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Stats house is set in a very upper class area but is very run down, the windows and doors are barred and locked, to keep people in as well as out. Its gothic architecture adds to the dark and brooding Image of the house and its occupant. The readers first Introduction to Miss Having occurs when Pip enters her room which is gloomy and 11th only by candlelight. She Is dressed In rich materials. Silks, satins and ace, all in white which has now yellowed and shabby with age very similar to her jaundiced attitude towards men. She continued to wear her veil, a pagan representation of virginity and dried and decayed flowers in her hair. In contrast she wears shining jewels around her hands and neck. He observes that the dress that she Is wearing had been put on the figure of a young woman and the carcass on which It now hangs had shrunk to skin and bone. The gloomy and decaying theme continues throughout PIPs encounters with MISS Having. Dickens uses words Like faded, no brightness, like black fungus and the daylight was completely excluded to relate the atmosphere of both the house and its inhabitant. As he walks towards her he notices that all the clocks have stopped at twenty minutes to nine and she says: Look at me, you are not afraid of a woman who has not seen the sun since you were born? again emphasizing the dark aura surrounding her. Dickens uses a great deal of figurative language In the novel relating to death and decay, especially in his description of MISS Having. She openly speaks of having her heart broken. Pip notices that it is as if she has stopped living and that her life as she knew it had need once her engagement was broken. It is as if she is permanently stuck in the past and cannot or will not move forward. She literally did not see the light of day from this point. We learn later that her fiance © Composers abandoned her on her wedding morning at this exact time. Pip describes Miss Hafniums appearance when he first meets her as the strangest lady I have ever seen. He Is anxious, scared and confused and his childlike use of vivid imagery conjures up a vision of a macabre and decrepit old woman. He likens her to a ghastly waxwork he saw at a fair and also to skeleton he once saw in a church. Pips description of her represents two stages where in effect life has stopped. Here Dickens appears to suggest that although Miss Having has succeeded in stopping her own advancement when she received the letter, namely ten malting AT ten clocks, ten continual wearing AT nerd waling clothes and the wedding cake decaying on the table, she is unable to stop the passage of time, and prevent her body deteriorating. Pip notes So she sat corpse like. Another reference to death, not only physical, but that of love dying. Miss Having was bought up by her father with no maternal influence. This may explain her difficulty to bestow love on Pip and Estella and the harsh way in which she treats them. She had been badly treated by men throughout her life, her father who spoiled her and denied her nothing, ensuring that she does not have the usual boundaries of childhood, and her fiance © and half brother, the former who courted and finally Jilted her and who along with the latter swindled her out of a fortune. She is obsessive in her attempt to get revenge on Composers and in all men in general. During the Victorian era there was a great divide between rich and poor and social class was very important. Pip came from the working class and as such was not highly educated. He feels embarrassed about his social status and when Estelle mocks him for being a common labouringly boy with course hands, Miss Having does nothing to chastise her, in fact she seems to revel in his discomfiture. Miss Having taunts Pip with Estella beauty and finds a perverse pleasure in encouraging Estella to break his (and other mens) hearts. This is Just the beginning of her cruelties to Estella and Pip. Throughout the novel she tampers with their lives. She pretends that it was her who was Pips benefactress, and she is controlling from the very start, for instance when Pip comes to play at Stats House; she mutters witch-like incantations at him: Play, play, play And love her, love her, love her Pip falls madly in love with Estella, something that Miss Having in her warped frame of mind, enjoys. She relishes the fact that Pip has fallen for Estella and is enjoying seeing some-one love another person so strongly only to have their heart broken as she had many years before. Dickens makes a very interesting comparison between Miss Having and the convict Magnetic, who it turns out is Estella father, in that they were both cheated by Composers. However, there is a stark contrast in their chose n methods of revenge. She chooses to become manipulative and evil towards Pip and Estella. Whereas Magnetic remembers Pips kindness and chooses to be benevolent towards Pip in order to ease him towards the position of a gentleman. Dickens uses clever reference to color throughout his description of Miss Having. The white of her clothes, which represents purity along with the yellow of decay. When Miss Having is burning from setting her clothes on fire, the red of the flames could be seen as a representation of love. It is interesting that earlier in the text she is referred to as the witch of the place and that the conflagration could be likened to a witch being burned at the stake. The reader can recognize the comparison between her being aflame and the emotion of love which can be said to be a burning desire. This is the last reference to her being a witch-like figure in the story, and in ways can be seen to be her being cleansed by fire, a biblical reference. On Pips last visit to Cats, he is no longer a young boy, he is an adult and has a different perspective of the world. He is older and wiser and the roles of he and Miss Having have reversed. He has come to ask a favor of her, namely to borrow some money, rather than when he was young and she always asked things of him. Interestingly although she asked things of him, it was always in a demanding way and she had to be in control. However now seen Is Digging Nils Eternalness. seen reels Tanat cannot Torture nerd UT t D I Is more important to her that Pip does. Dickens ensures that the reader considers whether Miss Hafniums fate was deserved. She was indeed cruel to both Pip and Estella, however she had led a very sad and unfulfilled life and her life ended in a very cruel ay. She did in the end appear to find a friend in Pip and begs his forgiveness for her maltreatment of him. Pip like a true gentleman does in fact forgive her before she dies. A mind mortally hurt and diseased this is perhaps the most significant quote in the novel. It articulates the vital complexity of her character, describing her as a victim who became an antagonist as a consequence of her maltreatment during childhood by her father, and during womanhood by Composers. Miss Having is presented as a mysterious presence by primarily not being revealed until late in the book. However, her obsession with revenge and her likeness to a witch also are contributory factors, and conjure images and perceptions in the readers head of what Miss Having is really like and her appearance. Once revealed, she is still retains a mysterious presence especially when she is killed by being set alight a witch-like way to die, and in her time of dying she finally apologizes to Pip and Estella for all the wrong she has done to them. Bibliography Dickens, C. (1860) Great Expectations. Hawse, D (2007) Charles Dickens. London: Continuum Davis, P. (1999) Charles Dickens A-Z. Checkmate Books

An Ethically Bad Life Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

An Ethically Bad Life - Research Paper Example Therefore, the focus of whether an ethically bad life is real has more to do with what we do and the decision making process of members of society, on what they ought to engage or what they ought not to engage in. However, ethics does not offer easy answers to these questions, unlike in the case of issues that are patently obvious within the society (Vendemiati, 2004). This paper will explore whether an ethically bad life is real, and how it can be identified. In exploring the ethical nature of a bad life, arguments for whether it is real or not will be explored; support will be offered, that an ethically bad life exists. Identification of the specific issue Ethical theory is a major part of all choices, reasoning and the philosophies that are broadly conceived. The aim of ethics, according to different theorists, including Plato, Hobbes, Aristotle, and Levinas include the discernment of right from wrong choices and acts towards others. Other theorists views that ethics distinguishes what is morally bad or good, and others defines it as an explanation of the principles that guide a life, which is worth living (Singer, 2000). The issue that arises from the conception of ethical actions and whether an ethically bad life exists is the regard of whether ethics is the same as what is commonly accepted, law or religion. Therefore, before exploring whether an ethically bad life exists, it is important to separate ethics from other areas that inform ethics. First, is the fact that ethics is not all about what is commonly accepted among members of a given group, or among members of society (Vendemiati, 2004). For example, among the members of a gang within the society, violence may be gratuitously viewed as fun and acceptable. The mere fact that some action is commonly accepted among a given group does not make it ethical. In support of this distinction David Hume argued that, â€Å"is does not imply or mean ought† (Singer, 2000). Secondly, ethics is not law, bec ause in some cases, laws will incarnate ethical standards. For example, the mistreatment of domesticated animals was viewed as an ethical issue, long before it was considered an area of legal action at different countries. Further, all that falls under the scope of ethical concern may be regarded relevant under law. An example is that it is ethically regarded that people should remain nice to one another, but that principles cannot be subjected to legal practice. Thirdly, ethics is not religion, and the two can be explored differently, irrespective of the fact that religions present ethical principles that are observed. Due to the fact that ethics is different from what is commonly acceptable, law and religion, the question that comes up is whether an ethically bad life can be explained on the basis of the different considerations. Based on this regard, this paper will discuss the coverage of the ethical nature of life, and explain how an ethically bad life can be distinguished from an ethically good one (Singer, 2000). The argument develops on the fact that ethics is related to what is right and wrong, in defining the conduct of humans, demonstrating the areas that distinguish an ethically bad life, using the actions, choices and the dilemmas that present in the lives of members of society. The multiple sides of an ethically bad life As free people, humans are faced by the opportunity of making choices, some related to trivial areas like the outfit to wear on different days. Others are more serious cases, involving those that can result in life or death, therefore, distinguishing between an ethically bad and good life can be very instrumental in shaping