...Tony’s Story Tony’s story is a short story written by Leslie Marmon Silko. The story is about Tony and his good friend Leon. In the beginning of the story, Leon had just returned from the army. Leon is a character who according to his friend Tony, has a drinking problem. When Tony first saw Leon at what seems to be a fair, based on the description given from Tony that Leon was standing near a ferris wheel. Leon is drinking a wine bottle out of a paper bag. Leon is a drinker that possibly has PTSD from his stint in serving in the army. The first event to happen in the short story occurs right after Leon gives Tony a dollar to buy cheeseburger. This indicates that the story is taking place in a very old time period. If a hamburger only costs a dollar then the story must have taken place sometime in the early to mid 90’s. When Tony is getting his hamburger, he is alarmed when he sees a cop pushing through crowds of people heading in Leon’s direction. His first thought is about the wine bottle in Leon’s hand. He then sees the cop punch Leon in the face. Leon is laying on the dusty ground in pain, blood bubbling out of his mouth. What did Leon do to deserve a punch in the face from a state trooper? The story reads, “The cop didn’t leave until they laid Leon in the back of the paddy wagon” (Silko 362). Why did the cop have to wait and make sure that Leon was taken away. Would the cop have done more if Leon was able to walk away from this first incident? Why does this cop have it...
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...Dancing to Nat King Cole (B) The short story “Dancing to Nat King Cole” is written by the British writer James Wall, and was first published in the online magazine The Front View in 2013. The short story takes place in UK, and is about a couple named Charles and Katherine, one day when they are sitting down in their kitchen and enjoying a delicious breakfast, their daughter Rebecca calls, and asks if they are free for launch, so she can join them, Katherine says yes and tells Charles about it. When Rebecca arrives Charles welcomes her with a surprised face, and asks her why she did not call before she came over, at that point we have an idea that he might suffer some sort of dementia. Later in the story, when he smokes in the restaurant, even thug he have been told time, after time that it is not allowed, makes us positive that he is seek. But it is first in the ending part of the story, where he forgets his own wife; we get sure that he must have some sort of dementia. The main character in the story is Katherine. Katherine is a caring and faithful wife, with a sick husband. She is an independent woman, who not only takes care of herself but also her husband who have some sort of dementia. She keeps all the suffering for herself and tries to protect her daughter from being a part of the pain. When her daughter Rebecca asks about Charles and how he is, she lies and says: “he is fine” (p. 2, l. 56). Even thug she is a strong women, it seems like she slightly are giving...
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...Contradictions and nuances of belonging are portrayed in Haruki Murakami’s short story, TonyTakitani, (written in ) and A.D Hope’s poem, The Wandering Islands (written in ): namely the notion that there will always remain an impossible distance between everyone, even those who ought to be closest of all. This impossible distance, however, does not prevent anyone from wanting to close it. Both texts imply that every human has an innate, intrinsic desire to belong with others, irrespective of how unsocial or detached they may seem. Humans are inherently social beings, regardless of what individuals may think. This is portrayed through the fact that Tony initially values his work above all human relationships and believes that he does not want to settle down: “he never saw the need for it. It was impossible for him to form relationships which went beyond the level of the sheer every day… But then one day, without the slightest warning, Tony Takitani fell in love.” This follows (?) A.D. Hope’s concept that “The Mind has no neighbours, and the unteachable heart announces its armistice time after time, but spends its love to draw them closer and closer apart.” Hope implies that it is impossible to find someone who one can truly understand. But all humans are the slaves of their most inherent passions; not reason. This is why they will keep searching for an impossible neighbour. We desire deep human contact, whether we think it or not. The “wandering islands” in Hope’s poem represent...
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...too but they still were investing the customer service. The culture-we was unable to rise funding so we weren't able to spend a lot of money on expensive marketing campaigns. As a result, we were forced to focus more on our existing customers. What we found was that the more we invested into customer service and the customer experience, the more loyal they were, and the more we grew from word of mouth. For our own customers, we've noticed many of them migrating to less expensive brands, but they're still purchasing from us, too. On any given day, about 75% of our orders come from repeat customers. “Be real and you have nothing to fear” Your culture is your brand Don’t try to be someone you are not For those new to the Zappos brand and Tony Hsieh, here’s a quick video about what they’re about. Delivering Happiness opens with a quotation from the Matrix: “There’s a difference...
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...Assignment 3 Part 1: Leadership Style: How Are Leaders Leading in the 21st Century BUS520- Leadership and Organizational Behavior December 03, 2014 Introduction Everyone loves a good pair of shoes! Well, Zappos.com has a plethora of shoes. Their CEO had a vision to build a business no one else was doing, which inspired the online shoe store. Millions of customer’s know about Zappos. Zappos provides quick and solid service. Zappos is compliant with current technology and up on to date on current fashion trends. However, Zappos success starts from the top and from within. Element 1: Provide a brief paragraph background of the CEO. The CEO is Tony Hsieh. Zappos (2012) in 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold Link Exchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined us as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped us grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazine’s annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos.com, Inc. was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing. (2014)”. Element 2: Analyze the CEO’s leadership style and philosophy, and how the CEO’s leadership style aligns with the culture. Mr. Hsieh fosters a fun, innovative culture at Zappos. Slogan Zappos first code of conduct is Deliver WOW through service. Simply put “provide customer WOW service”...
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...Atlantic as an auditor, subsequently becoming the financial controller for Richard Branson's Virgin Records in London until 1989. Tony became the youngest managing director of Warner Music (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and in 1992, became the Southeast Asian regional vice-president for Warner Music Group. When Time Warner Inc. announced its merger with America Online Inc. in 2001, Tony left to pursue his dream of starting a budget no-frills airline which AirAsia with the tagline “Now everyone can fly.” He also founded the Tune Group companies Tony Fernandes is a true visionary. For all the business that Tony was involved, he showed a clear picture into the future of these industries. Moreover, he exercised great judgment in decisions that change the situation, usually following at the most appropriate. When he was six years old, he announced that he will start an airline and his father who was a physician quoted to him "if you make past the doorman of Hilton Hotel, I will be happy". He did make past the doorman of Hilton and then did not stop there. Marketing is in his blood as his mother ran a successful direct-selling Tupperware business in Malaysia. Venturing into the AirAsia Business When he was studying in Epsom, a boarding school in southern England, Tony’s family could not afford to pay for his trips back home during the holidays. In response, Tony would resort to “plane-spotting” to assuage his nostalgia of home while waiting longingly for someone to create an enterprise...
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...age of 18. I am an avid collector of my drivers (Jeff Gordon) memorabilia. Ranging from clothing to die cast all the way to unopened cereal boxes. From February to November, I am sitting on my couch on Sundays, unless it’s a Saturday night race, watching faithfully. There has been a lot of controversy swirling around NASCAR since last month. I remember just as if it happened yesterday. On August 10th, my girlfriend and I woke up that Sunday morning just as usual and I came in to my living room to turn on the television to get ready to start the day. We sat here watched our TV shows like always waiting for the pre-race show and when it finally came on the air that’s when we heard the news; “Tony Stewart, 3 Time NASCAR SPRINT CUP CHAMPION kills fellow sprint driver Kevin Ward Jr.” Tony Stewart enjoys racing. It’s in his blood, as for all the other drivers running around the track every Sunday. The night before the Sprint Cup race he was participating in a smaller event at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in the state of New York. During the race, Stewart and Ward Jr. brought out the caution flag due to Stewart pushing Ward Jr.’s car out of the racing groove. Ward Jr.’s car bobbled did a 180 degree turn and came to a halt at the top of the track. As soon as his car began to do this the caution lights began to flash and the other cars slowed to caution speed around the track. But before officials could get to Ward Jr.’s car, he unstrapped his safety belts, climbed from his car, and...
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...nature of morality, the possibility of redemption and the legacy of Freud.” In the context of the overall essay, what does she mean by this statement? It is obvious to a large extent that Tony sees morality as it is shown to him in Carmela. Willis explained at one point that Carmela “feels the full weight of her sins and Tony’s”; she continues that “Carmela is a moral touchstone because of her clear eye” (Willis 572). Having to jump between a husband and father and the life of gangsters generates personal conflicts that Tony has and that he does make an attempt to confront. The leaps of faith Tony does make include his time with Jennifer Melfi and his relationship with Livia Soprano. Stories in the show such as one that Tony deciding not to have a man killed, seeing it as “pointless” (573) are great improvements. It truly was these types of decisions he did make that drove him to places of redemption. Although sad, Tony at one point in show realizes that his mother wished his death. Willis calls this a “turning point in the story”; this was a great thing because the truth has made Tony free (573). Willis was very specific in examples and of times in the show when Tony was changing as a character. Mob mentality was cause for moral dilemmas and searches for forgiveness. All of which, tony Soprano happily arrived at in the end. 2. What observations does Willis make about “self-consciousness” or “self-knowledge” as crucial aspect of our understanding of The Sopranos? It’s...
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...the imagery, just like other artists that use art to communicate. The art of Kennard includes the use of images to represent the different circumstances in the politics of Britain. There is the use of paintings, clippings from newspapers and reports of the UN and testimonies from the victims of such events. In the end, the message of the adverse effects of war is communicated to all who come into contact with the work. The use of clippings is prevalent in the representation of the series called STOP. The combination of the magazine clippings and pictures from magazines and newspapers to show the Prague Spring, the Student Riots in Paris and the War of Vietnam. The work is simultaneously represented onto canvas whereby the work gives the story and sends out the feelings of the artist. The book on the work of “Imperial War Museum,” compiles all the works by Kennard regarding hunger, poverty, suffering, survival and debt whereby all are married at an instant. use of casual connections in the imagery and the facts is fascinating. Some of the representations appear with captions. The work on the Iraq war, for instance, includes rips of ribbons that are arranged to represent the flags of the U.K. and the U. S. Below them are medallions that show wounded civilians or captives. The withered rips of ribbon are a creative representation of the democracy that should be (Wrack, 2015). The work of Kennard resembles that of Warhol, especially in the representation of the grim images of...
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...24 Hour Party People, named after the Happy Mondays song of the same name, tells the story of Manchester’s popular music scene from the late seventies to the early nineties. It begins with the punk rock era and moves on to the “Madchester” scene (a music scene in Manchester out of which emerged a style of music that combined alternative rock, psychedelic rock, and dance music) which started in the eighties and then declined in the early nineties, and lastly the film moves to the birth of rave music in the nineties. The film centers on Tony Wilson(who consistently breaks the fourth wall by narrating the film to the audience), played by Steve Coogan, who gives a great performance, and the real Tony Wilson even has a brief appearance as a TV director. The real life Tony Wilson was a television personality, radio presenter, founder and manager of The Hacienda nightclub, and one of the co-founders of the record label Factory Records. Wilson and his friends attend the first Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, a show that would inspire much of the crowd to become musicians. This included Wilson and his friends, who were inspired to create Factory Records, a record label that would bring Manchester’s music to the world. It became one of the most important labels in Rock music but also one of the least financially successful. Wilson genuinely loved the new style of music and was able to help out doomed bands by signing them to his record label. Interestingly, Wilson gave artists full...
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... 7 3. Work-hard, play-hard culture 8 4. Staff Welfare 8 7. RELATION BETWEEN STRATEGY, STRUCTURE AND CULTURE 8 8. CHALLENGES OF AIRASIA 9 9. CONCLUSION 9 10. REFERENCES 10 11. APPENDIX 10 1. Organizational Structure 10 2. Survey 10 1. INTRODUCTION Our group would like to study about successful organization to enhance our learning experience. We have discussed few topics and finally AirAsia was selected for our group project because AirAsia is one of the role model for Low Cost Carrier industries. We also conducted a survey on low cost airways (Appendix 1). Tony Fernandez is a great leader and he has unique strategy, his courage lead AirAsia as a one of the powerful organization. Tony launched AirAsia just after the 9/11 attacks, possibly one of the worst periods to kick start a...
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...of coaching. Overall I believe my coaching philosophy will be based the morals and values that were taught to me by my parents. I have also played for some great coaches so far in my athletic adventure and I will be sure to take different philosophies and mannerisms from them. Some positive things I have seen firsthand are how to relate to your players, how to adapt, and most importantly how to communicate. On the other hand I have also played for some horrible coaches that I believe have taught me an abundance amount of information on how not to carry yourself, handle certain situations, or treat players. As far as professional coaches that I have been able to read about, admire, and implement ideas from are Phil Jackson, John Wooden, and Tony Dungy. I do believe it is important to establish a unique philosophy that fits my personality and natural coaching style, while also intergrading some ideas from the great coaches mentioned before. So far in my search to create a solid philosophy the constants have been leadership, empowerment, communication, relationships, trust, motivation, and love. Coach Phil Jackson with eleven NBA titles has obviously been able to implement a coaching philosophy that best suites his coaching style and personality. Coach Jackson was the “Joe cool” of the NBA for years and I enjoyed watching him. Phil was always cool, calm and collected, nothing seemed to break him. I think that short of style displays great confidence and composure to your team, making...
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...service and the absolute best shopping experience. The Zappos family currently staffs over 2,050 people. Their fulfillment center stocks more than 3 million shoes from over 1,136 brands, and it is complemented by a 24/7 customer service center located at the headquarters in Henderson, Nevada. Zappos offers free shipping on both orders and returns and a 365-day return policy. Clearly, their customer-first approach is working, since 75% of their customers are repeat buyers. Zappos’s Background In 1999, Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn approached Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin with the idea of selling shoes online. At that time, Tony Hsieh was running an investment company funded from selling his previous company, Link Exchange. Link Exchange was founded by Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan in 1996, one year after both graduated from Harvard. Microsoft acquired Link Exchange for $265 million in November 1998. After Link Exchange was sold to Microsoft, Tony Hsieh and his old friend from Harvard, Alfred Lin, founded the venture capital company Venture Frogs. Through Venture Frogs, located in San Francisco, they started 27 companies, which were offered space in Hsieh and Lin’s 15,000 square feet of rented office space. In 1999, Hsieh received a voice message from Nick Swinmurn who told him that he had just started a web site called shoesite.com. Swinmurn had an idea to build the Amazon of shoes by creating the largest online shoe store. Initially, Hsieh wanted to delete the voice message, but...
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...Integrating Culture and Diversity in Decision Making: The CEO and Organizational Culture Profile Rebecca Y. Kuykendoll Dr. Phyllis Parise BUS520 April 29, 2013 Integrating Culture and Diversity in Decision Making I began my research based on things I love, which are to travel and buy shoes. I finally settled on Zappos. “In The Beginning - Let There Be Shoes” Zappos was created in 1999, by Nick Swinmurn who was walking around a mall in San Francisco looking for a pair of shoes. One store had the right style but not the color and vice versa. Nick, walking from store to store, and finally went home empty-handed and frustrated. Nick also tried looking for his shoes online and was again unsuccessful. Long story short, Nick decided to quit his day job and start an online shoe retailer... and Zappos.com was born! The original idea was to create a web site that offered the absolute best selection in shoes in terms of brands, styles, colors, sizes, and widths. Over the past 9 years, the brand and aspirations have evolved, and in addition to offering the best selection, with the goal to be the company that provides the absolute best service online -- not just in shoes, but in any category. Zappos vision: • One day, 30% of all retail transactions in the US will be online. • People will buy from the company with the best service and the best selection. • Zappos.com will be that online store. Zappos believe that the speed at which a customer receives an online purchase...
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...help as an aide to its country through bad times. If leadership is not effective amongst organizations, then conflict is possible to occur and companies can eventually lose direction of their goals. Companies without proper leadership may not be able to last long ultimately. Leadership in the 21st century has presented many new opportunities and challenges for those who are in leadership positions and employees as well. Leaders need to be up to date with information almost daily, need to be flexible, be tolerant, and also be able to think quickly. It is also important that leaders are able establish long-term relationships, take risks, motivate, and be willing to address global issues that are occurring. Zappos Chief Executive Officer, Tony Hsieh demonstrates amazing leadership qualities that may leaders and upcoming entrepreneurs admire and look up. Hsieh was born on December 12th, 1973, in the state of Illinois and was then raised in the state of California growing up. In 1995, Hsieh received his Bachelors degree from Harvard University, majoring in Computer Science. During his collegiate career at Harvard, Hsieh began his time into focusing on his studies, while also having his own pizzeria, in which he ran out of his dorm room. When he...
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