Being on time Essay Example for Free

Being on time Essay One of my pet peeves is people who aren’t on time for things. Just how much this upsets me was brought home to me twice today, and I decided it was time to rant about it. The first was a meeting I was supposed to have with the director of a local non-profit organization. The plan was that he would give me a call â€Å"before noon†, to arrange a meeting shortly after noon. I was offering to put some scripts together on their website so they could post news more easily so people would know what’s up with this organization. Off the top of my head, I’d guess it was an offer of about a thousand dollar donation of services. He finally called at 12:30, calling my cell-phone (after I’d given him my home number, saying that was the best way to reach me), leaving a message saying we’d have to reschedule. I left for lunch and a walk to clear my head at 12:45, and finally got the message at 2:45 when I got home and wondered if maybe he’d called the cell-phone. At this point, I don’t know if I’m even going to bother trying again. Apparently my offer of services isn’t worth enough for him to call me when he said he was going to, which makes me wonder why I should bother helping out. The second was the president of a company for which we did some web design work. He was impressed with our work, and asked if we might want to put in a bid for some future work. The problem is that the person we had to work with at that company, â€Å"marketing guy†, had blown off every single in-person meeting we’d scheduled during the previous project, and had been late for numerous phone calls we’d also scheduled (about a quarter of the final cost to the client was time we spent waiting for marketing guy, rather than doing productive work). I replied that we’d be interested in looking at the work, as long as marketing guy wasn’t involved. And I’ll stick by that. I don’t think there’s enough money to convince me to work with marketing guy again. The third event (a couple days ago) is a company I’m contracting at. At this company, there’s a regularly scheduled weekly meeting. It happens every week unless people decide there isn’t enough to talk about and we cancel the meeting. One of the team members has not been on time for the meeting that I can remember. It bugs me enough that even though this is the client providing most of my income at the moment, I think about simply walking away from the contract almost every day. So why do I feel this strongly about being on time? Well, most of it has to do with the saying â€Å"A Man’s Word is His Bond.† If you tell someone you’re going to do something, then you do it. If you don’t, you’d better give notice ahead of time, and have a pretty good reason. But another part of it is respect. When schedule a meeting, I’m making a commitment to be there on time. When someone else is late to the meeting, I get the feeling that they figure they’ve got something more important than my time. â€Å"Sorry I’m late, but traffic was brutal† is an excuse I hear all the time. Well, I had to get to the meeting through the same traffic, and I was on-time. If I’ve got a meeting in the morning, I’ll check the traffic reports or look out the window and make sure I leave early enough to get to the meeting. I respect the other people at the meeting enough that I’m not going to waste their time by being late. I just realized that this also applies to monetary issues. I’ve had clients who never pay on time. They agree in a contract to pay my invoices net-30 and then checks arrive like clockwork 45-60 days after the invoice. I won’t work with that sort of client anymore. I’ve got yet another job that I put in a bid on yesterday, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that this client habitually pays late. When we meet to discuss terms, I’m going to make it very clear that late payment on their part will be considered breach of contract. Fuck it. It’s not worth my time to try and wheedle payment out of them, so if they don’t pay, work is stopping, and I’ll hand the collections over to the lawyer. It may cost me the job, but at least it’ll keep me from getting upset with the client. And I think that’s got to be my long-term approach. If a client’s not willing to honor their commitments, whether it’s showing up on time for a meeting, or getting a check in the mail, I’m not sure why I would want to work for them. I don’t need the headaches. Now I just have to figure out how to deal with the current client. Maybe changing the meeting to the afternoon will be the answer.

The Presentation of Education in Hard Times by Charles Dickens Essay ex

Examine the presentation of Education, chapters 1 to 4 in Hard Times by Charles Dickens Charles Dickens wanted to attack the failings of education and the wrong-headedness of the prevailing philosophy in education. He believed that many schools discouraged the development of the children’s imaginations, training them as â€Å"little parrots and small calculating machines† (Dickens used this phrase in a lecture he gave in 1857). Nor did Dickens approve of the recently instituted teacher training colleges. These had been set up in the 1840s, after the British government acknowledged the need to raise the standard of education in schools. The first graduates of these training colleges began teaching in 1853, a year before the publication of Hard Times. M’Choakumchild, the teacher in Gradgrind’s school (which was a non fee-paying school that catered to the lower classes), is Dickens’s portrait of one of these newly trained teachers. Many educators agreed through time-sharing Dickens’s view of what were wrong with the schools. They believed there was too much emphasis on cramming the children full of facts and figures, and not enough attention given to other aspects of their development, for example â€Å"'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'† Dickens chooses to begin the novel in the classroom, which he depicts as a microcosm of the inhuman world ou... ...e in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.† This shows a bit more about Gradgrind's views on education and the way he raises his children.

Value Pricing at Procter & Gamble

Specific assumptions about the relationship between price changes and market share changes Table. 2 Suggested Budget Requirements Fig. 1 Value Price Result Value  Pricing  At  Procter  &  Gamble  (A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  3 Objective 1: Prisoner’s Dilemma The P&G pricing system in the 70s and 80s was oriented towards market share.Please describe the prisoner’s dilemma in which those companies in the P&G’s markets got rewarded that maintained or increased their price promotions. For sake of discussion, let us use a single company (Unilever) as an example to illustrate how all the companies in P&G’s markets experience prisoner’s dilemma. Since Unilever and P&G operate in the same market, a lot of their actions are interdependent on one another. Initially, the two firms were engaged in a prisoner's dilemma. Major moves in product, pricing or policy without providing their intentions to the other would result in losses for both companies.Thus, a surprise move by any firm would yield lead to inefficiency. Ideally, both parties would prefer to escape the dilemma. This desire would give birth to a cooperative set of behaviour between the two players. This cooperation however would cease if Unilever (or P;G) decides to change its behaviour by increasing or maintaining its price promotions when P;G (or Unilever) chooses to cut back on promotions. Such a move by Unilever would lead to the adoption of a sequential games situation by both firms as the traditional cooperation would no longer exist.By looking ahead to the future response of P;G and reasoning back to the present, Unilever decides that this approach would be best for the firm. By increasing promotions without notifying P;G (which is planning to cut back on promotions), Unilever may see an advantage to the firm. This is referred to as opportunistic behaviour. Unilever may have the perception of P;G as being a bullying firm, and Unilever did not want to be left coopera ting only to have P;G cheat. Since the two firms were cooperating, both firms would be expecting the other to react to such a move.P;G now faces a dilemma whether to increase its price promotions, or to devote funds to increase advertising on products, or to go ahead and cut back on promotions (original plan and the riskiest). Although it is uncertain how they respond, there is no doubt that Unilever would have analysed the probabilities of P;G's potential reactions. Since consumers had become increasingly price sensitive, P&G would lose out in market share if they did not react. It is likely that they would choose to respond with a tit-for-tat move through mimicking Unilever in order to penalize them for cheating.This would result in Unilever hitting back, thus causing P&G to deliver a second punishment. There is no doubt that Unilever analysed this position of P&G and decided on the probability of P&G's response. Since P;G has value in other markets, it is likely that they would r espond and react. Though a reaction is likely, Unilever knew that its consumers are risk-averse. Thus by surprising P;G with higher price promotions, consumers would attach loyalty to Unilever products before P;G could come up with a strategy.If P;G reacted by offering similar promotions, consumers would continue to purchase Unilever products till the prices offered by P;G are low enough (resulting in lower profits) to make consumers shift their loyalties. Value  Pricing  At  Procter  ;  Gamble  (A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  4 P;G could; however, do a number of things to overcome the risk aversion involved in Unilever's move. First, they could rely on their reputation to launch similar or better promotions, since risk aversion would be minimal as both firms are well-known national chains.They could advertise against Unilever, or launch ads which compare the prices; something that had not previously been done when the two firms were cooperating. Since this reaction is probable, Unilever has established that this reaction by P&G will result in an economic advantage in at least one of its markets. Perhaps P&G's reaction would allow Unilever to go ahead and capture new markets while P;G counters this initial move. Unilever decided to cease the cooperative strategy and made an opportunistic move by offering higher price promotions without notifying P;G.Before doing so, it was imperative that Unilever analysed the probable reactions; as well as, the results of these actions. Though it would likely illicit a tit-for-tat response, Unilever felt that the probable outcome would be advantageous enough to cease the cooperative strategy. Unilever's approach demonstrates an ability to look ahead and reason backward to select a move that will help them to gain market share at the cost of P&G (or basically any company which chooses to cut back). Objective 2: Organizational ProblemWhich was P&G’s organizational problem that enforced these strong promotional activit ies? Each business category which consisted of a collection of up to 3 brands was headed by a General Manager. The General Manager of each category had ownership of his/her own Profit and Loss statement. Within the category each brand was managed by Brand Managers. Each brand group was responsible for the success of the brand they managed. Hence there was competition within brands for the promotional budgets as well as manufacturing capacity.Promotion up the ranks within P&G was dependent on the sales and profits of each brand in the case of brand managers and for each category in the case of category General Managers. Even though a criteria like the ability to develop the skills and talent pool of the people lower in the hierarchy was present, it was still the sales and market share parameters that dominated the promotion decision within the firm. Amidst the fight for market share among FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies, promotional spending increased and soon became a no rm.Brand Mangers in P&G had short stints on a given brand (maybe a year or two) before they moved either horizontally, vertically or out of the organization. Since compensation and evaluation of performance was dependent on growth over previous year’s sales, managers pushed for relatively more promotional spending, in-order to increase market-share and sales irrespective of the cost. The short-stint of managers did not give them any incentive to think about the long term profitability of the brand, since they were not the ones who would beValue  Pricing  At  Procter  &  Gamble  (A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  5 held accountable in the long term. This led to a short-term focus by the manager for their own gain/incentive rather than looking at the broader picture and profits of the company as a whole. Hence strong promotional activities were enforced due this particular organization and incentive structure. Objective 3: Risks of implementing Value Pricing The category manage r for dish care, John Bess, was considering the introduction of value based pricing (= fair price; lower list pricing than before, but less promotions).Please describe the major risks for P&G in 1991 in case of implementing value pricing in the market for light-duty liquid detergents. Following are the main challenges and risks that P & G could face on implementation of value pricing 1. Operational Challenges: Applying and implementing the value pricing across the company shall certainly have the operational difficulties. This shall be complicated considering the large company and category size, various brands in the LDL Detergent Category, 8000-person sales force and thousands of customers. 2.Difficult to maintain Price Stability: Price Stability is critical to build and maintain a strong brand franchise and value pricing aims for the same. The category saw four price changes per year, on average, and there are 64 different price zones across the U. S. making it more challenging to implement the value pricing. Even if executed, it will be really difficult to create and maintain a significant price impression in the consumer’s mind. 3. No cushion for absorbing abrupt changes in raw material prices- These price changes shall have to be passed on to customers thus defeating the purpose of providing value pricing to the customers.This may also lead to fluctuations in prices. 4. Opposition by Distribution Channel Members: Margins and benefits to distribution channel members – retailers, distributors and wholesalers shall be squeezed under value pricing. There are fears that wholesalers and retailers may oppose the move and can either punish P & G in some way so as to deter competition from taking any such moves or can altogether deny passing the lower prices to the customers or at the worse, delist P & G products. 5.Uncertainty about volume and revenue forecast: Value Pricing is very new to P & G and thus there is an uncertainty about the profit of t he company and different members in the distribution channel in case value pricing is adopted by P & G. Besides this is an untested experiment. And the risks are huge (P & G market share for the category is too low (10%), and it will be difficult to lead the remaining 90% market. 6. Promotion and Price Pressure from the Competition: LDL has become a promotion-intensive category and is one of the most heavily promoted categories in the grocery store.P & G’s own research showed that the Value  Pricing  At  Procter  &  Gamble  (A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  6 market share was highly correlated with leadership in major media and feature advertising. Competitors like General Foods and Nestle have been fighting hard on price. So reduction of spending on promotion (as for value pricing) may hit back P & G in future. 7. Impact on customers: Value pricing shall make P & G move away from discounting. Thus, it may lead to the loss of discount-searching customers to the competitors w ho rely heavily on providing discounts and coupons to customers.Value pricing may lead to almost 10-20% price reduction and can altogether reposition the P & G products in the market. Value-based pricing may increase the loyal customers but the impact shall be much slower whereas the loss of the discount-searching customers shall be immediate. Long-Term gains with the increase in loyal customers may probably be well off-set by the loss of discount-searching customers. 8. Loss of Shelf Space: Prominent visibility and placement of a product is an important factor for the customer in order to make a purchase decision.Move to value pricing shall lead to the loss of fair share of shelf space and display allocation as no emphasis on the same is being laid in value pricing. 9. Fall out impact: Introduction of value pricing is a significant decision for P & G and shall require radical changes at the organizational level. P & G had not done anything this radical on such a scale earlier. In c ase of the Value-based pricing not working for P & G, the fall-out effects can put the business at high risk thereby impacting brand and category profitability and customer loyalty at risk.Objective 4: Short Proposal for Value Pricing In the coffee market, P&G’s own research showed that market share was highly correlated with leadership in major media and feature advertising. The responsible managers had many arguments not to introduce value pricing. However, assume you really want to implement value pricing. Please write a short proposal including recommendations for new list prices and budget requirements across the various marketing vehicles. Effects on sales and profits should be included.Please use case exhibit 13 as a basis for your pricing proposal (current, old plan) and calculate changes in the plan due to the implementation of value pricing (new plan). Even though our own research showed that market share was highly correlated with leadership in major media and feat ure advertising, which does not suggest Value Pricing strategy for coffee category, we still think this method can help us to achieve higher profit, based on reasonable assumptions and planning.Therefore, we work out a Value Pricing protocol for the coffee product, which is as follows: Value  Pricing  At  Procter r  &  Gamble  (A A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  7 Part I Basic Assumptions about the ma I: arket reacti towards price changes ion 1. Fr rom the artic we know that the consumers in the coffee segment is highly sens cle, w n sitive to pric Therefore the ce. e, ma arket reactio to price ch on hanges should be remark kable. As price goes down, the market share should incr s m e rease.When the price d n decreased to a certain am mount, which can h att tract the mos sensitive consumers to change, th market sha should in st c o he are ncreased by the largest p percentage. T Then, the increasing rate should be down. e He are the sp ere pecific assum mptions abou the relatio ut o nship betwe price cha een anges and m market share changes Ite ems Unit Price Changes e Market Sha Changes M are s Senario 1 -10% +7% Senar 2 rio -15% % +15% % Sena 3 ario -2 20% +1 18% Se enario 4 -25% +21% + Senario 5 S -30% +23% Senario 6 -35% +24%Table Assumpt e. 1 tions about th relationsh between price changes and mark share cha he hip ket anges 2. As A in value pr ricing strateg the prom gy, motion should be decreas along with the price adjustment, to find the d sed op ptimal list price of coffee we set up a 10% decre e; ease in mark keting expend diture in all scenarios, w which is att tainable base on our co ed ompany’s con nditions. 3. W simply ass We sume the ma arket size, de livered cost are not chan t nging. Part I Value Pr II: ricing Proce Please re the attac ess: efer ched Excel f file. Part I Value P III: Price result: Please refer the attached Excel file. r d Fig. 1 V Value Price R Result Here b Value Pri by icing, we fin the best list price for o coffee, w nd our which is 47. 8 And the d 81. derived prof based on o fit our assum mptions will b 71. 71, wh improve by 28. 75% be hich ed %. Value  Pricing  At  Procter  &  Gamble  (A)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  8Part IV: Budget requirements From the article, we already knew that feature advertising is important to market share, so we will not cut the Feature display part in total marketing expenditures. We try to control the un-critical part to realize the deduction in marketing. Here are the suggested budget requirements: Total Budget for marketing expenditures Advertising Coupons Off Invoice/Feature display 38. 55 35. 15 265. 67 339. 37 Table. 2 Suggested Budget Requirements

Personality Test The Emotional Intelligence Test

Personalities help define a person as to who they are. After taking four personality tests, it is easy to understand how a person views themselves may not always be accurate. Some questions were very difficult to answer and required a bit of thinking. The test that I felt best described myself was the Big Five Personality Test. Almost everything that it listed, I felt like describes me to an extent. The test I feel that was least like me was the Emotional Intelligence Test. I received a poor score in self- awareness and I do not see myself as not being self-aware. The experience I had when taking these four tests were mixed. Concerning the Big Five Personality Test, I thought it was straightforward and easy. I agree that I am high in agreeableness and am more of an introvert than an extrovert. I found it weird however at the end when it asked who I voted for in the last election, as well if I am liberal or conservative. It was intriguing to find out that some people are doing studies on whether political preference has a correlation with personalities. Then the DiSC Personality Profile came up and that really challenged my thinking. To me, it is hard to know exactly what would happen in certain situations and the line of questioning it presented was difficult to answer. This was the test that was the most thought provoking to me and I feel like I may have overthought several questions. I also found myself changing several answers for this test. The Emotional IntelligenceShow MoreRelatedThe Protection Of Title Vii Of The Civil Rights Act Of 19641135 Words   |  5 Pagestesting, however certain legal scholars have advanced the idea that personality tests should be considered under the Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure Clause. 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