Disability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Disability - Essay Example However, the experiences encountered served to improve the quality of my life. Through medical treatment, I even visited the US a number of times, a luxury several individuals lacked. ‘You are a very lucky child’ my mother kept telling me. I did not know the meaning of that until I could dance and exercise with my friends at 18 years old. Among the triplets, I was the only one born with a disability. My right foot was completely disabled and found it as if all hell was on me when it came to walking. I later came to note that it was ‘club foot’ as referred to by doctors. Initially, it was a nightmare for me to understand because of two reasons: I was a child and was the only one with the disability. ‘Why me’ I wondered most of the times. However, most of the doctors in my city (Maracaibo as one of them) claimed that even with the surgery and therapy that I was to undergo, it was not a guarantee for a normal life like other human beings. My parents’ resilience in searching for a competent doctor resulted in a contact with a Miami based doctor. He was a specialist and dealt with clubfoot in children. His name was Doctor Peter Romano. He was my ‘savior’ as he assured me that I would walk again and continue with my duties just as the other kids would do. As activists claim, the disabled have to go against all social, economic, political, and legal odds to make it in life. Davis identifies the historical struggles that the disabled underwent to secure the same privileges as guaranteed by the law (Davis, 16). However, I was lucky as the people around me supported me in all ways. Following intense research, I found out that clubfoot has no main cause and is caused by many syndromes (Adams 12). ‘Do your job as long as she will walk like me’ I recall my mother saying to the doctor. At the time, stigma in relation to disability study was a major factor affecting the U.S. (Longmore 350). However, the breakthrough

Gym usage in afro Caribbean men and its influence on acquiring the Essay

Gym usage in afro Caribbean men and its influence on acquiring the perfect body - Essay Example The thesis aims to identify some of the main aspects of gym use among Afro Caribbean men. The quest for beauty is not limited to women only. Men and women both have from time immemorial strived for better looking features and physique. While the standards of beauty have continued to evolve, the quest remains the same. The growth of the fashion, beauty and health care industry has been significant in increasing awareness about the physical aspects of the body to a new level that was never before. Previously, only women seemed to be affected by the societal and media demands of having the perfect physique and facial features. Now, even men are not spared with the new wave of fashion industry putting men under as tight scrutiny as women. Therefore, the new beauty trend is not only woman, but also man (Hatoum et al, 2004). This is however, only one aspect of the growing awareness about the physical features and their aesthetic requirements. The effect of these projections on the media and the social adverse reactions to other forms of physique have created effect on almost all, and therefore, the newer generations are becoming increasingly brand and beauty conscious. There is no family and parents spared now, who do not complain about the vanity that has entered their children’s mind, instead of the good moral and personal qualities. The introduction of the thousands of brands for skin, hair, nails, and makeup and others has increased this madcap rush towards beautification. This along with the increase in the number gyms, health spas, beauty salons and various beauty service providers with uncounted names continue to increase this desire for more beautiful bodies. Part of this need for beauty is not entirely false. The social prerequisites became more physical and material with the advent of the industrial age. There is now a certain image and look to be

Price of Glory :: essays papers

Price of Glory A new movie called "The Price of Glory" is opening Friday, March 31,2000 all over. However, this movie will only be out for two weeks, if the community does not support it. This a movie about a Latino boxing family and it is refreshing to see a movie about a Latino family where the roles are actually played by Latino actors. The movie stars Jimmy Smitts, Jon Seda, and Paul Rodriguez in a role you wouldn't expect. We got the chance to preview the movie last night and it is a great movie with a lot of comedy and still very heart-warming. An actor from American Me was there promoting the movie and he said that the African-American community has organized a group called the Weekend group and every time a new movie comes out starring an African-American actor or director over 2 million people go to the opening day and support the movie.They are trying to get a similar group started in the Latino community. Actor or director over 2 million people go to the opening day and support the movie.They are trying to get a similar group started in the Latino community. If you are tired of seeing us in roles of gang-bangers, gardeners, housemaids, here's a chance to do something about it and enjoy an excellent movie. The movie will not be getting a lot of publicity at all so spread the word, and if you see it and like it, go see it again! If it makes a difference, OZOMATLI is on the soundtrack!: Pass the word. The movie stars Jimmy Smits (formerly of N.Y.P.D. Blue): "...The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber or Commerce was responsible for bringing the premier of "The Price of Glory" to Sacramento. It is an excellent movie. You really have to go see it. At the premier they announced that the movie will begin showing on March 31st. They told us *how important it is to go see a movie the first two weekends that it is out.

Resistance to Change in Food and Beverage Department

1 Resistance to Change: A Case Study in the Food and Beverage Department 2 Change is common in an organization and is initiated due to the need to survive and adapt to the changing market. As change is a disruption of routines and what people are used to, resistance to change is a common reaction of the change recipients. People resist changes because changes are uncomfortable and require them to adapt to a new way of thinking and doing things. Also, people have trouble envisioning how life will be like after changed; hence, they tend to stick to the unknown rather than embracing the unknown.This essay is going to demonstrate why employees resist change in the hospitality and gaming organization with around 6000 employees and how the change agent can turn their resistance to advantages. The Food and Beverage department (F&B) is undergoing a change in the food safety management initiated by the new F&B director. The director attempts to introduce a new food safety audit scheme with th e objective to raise the food safety standard of the dining outlets. The change recipients, the F&B Kitchen, Service and Stewarding eams, are resisting the change by ignoring the director’s requests and refusing to cooperate with him. The change of food safety management creates disruption in the daily operations of the change recipients. As a result, rather than providing improved services, the number of guests’ complaints and the turnover rate of F&B staff increase drastically one month after the change has started. The process of change is now stuck at its beginning because of the conflicts between the director and the F&B teams. The employees’ reactions and resistance are so great that the change The proposed change, which is ow appears to be impossible to implement. originally of a good intention to upgrade the F&B outlets, is doomed to failure because the change agent – the F&B director – is so engrossed in his plan that he never tries to und erstand the reasons of resistance to his proposed change. 3 When the change was initiated, the change agent employed a consultant to assist in the process of change. The consultant works out a plan of the new food safety practices on what has to be changed and to what extent these things have to be changed.The use of outsider to teach and give comments to the F&B teams on how things should be done gives them an impression that their experience is not valued and their ways of work are not respected. The assumption in the change recipients’ minds is that their new boss thinks they have not been delivering a satisfactory performance in food safety so the director has employed an outsider to look for their wrongdoings. Other than the daily operation of the outlets, the change affects the social relationship among the three F&B teams and the food safety audit team.The use of a stricter audit system means that they have to work harder to comply with the standards. Moreover, failing the food safety audit will result in disciplinary actions, such as issue of warning letters or temporary suspension of work. Therefore, the social relationship among the three teams changes from cooperating with one another into shuffling the blame of food safety standard non-conformance off to one another. In addition, in the past, the F&B teams worked closely with the food safety audit team in upholding the agreed standard.However, because of the fear for failing the higher food safety standard, the F&B teams have become hostile to the audit team and are always trying to argue with the audit team on the result of audit. Another reason of resistance to change is that the director has put too much pressure on his teams in upholding the high standards and meeting the targets of continuous increase in restaurants’ income and reduction in operating cost. These unrealistic objectives lead to a huge workload and pressure and cause the teams overload. 4 Conflicts among the teams e merge, leading to frustrations and anger of the employees and finally, high turnover rate.The shortage of manpower in the restaurants contributes to the unsatisfying customer service and increase in guests’ complaints. Besides, the pressure of the restaurant managers and chefs to fulfill the objectives creates panic and confusion in the operating level. In order to save cost, chefs tend not to maintain the food safety standards that request them to throw away unused food items. On the contrary, the food audit team and the outlet managers demand the This confusion in employees to comply strictly with the food safety standards. peration and food safety practices leads to employees’ frustration, high turnover rate, and, consequently, shortage of labor in the restaurants, especially when the unemployment rate of the economy is so low that it is very easy for the employees to get another job. In addition, the change agent fails to listen to the employees when he is implemen ting the changes. The outlet managers and chefs have already told him that the high food safety standard is unrealistic and impossible to attain. The neglect of the employees’ frustrations has led to the employees’ chronic resistance and persistent hostility towards the change agent.As a result, that particular change and other beneficial changes introduced by the director do not work as planned and are totally rejected by the change recipients. Without the cooperation of the change recipients, the project is in slow progress because they try to fool around with the consultant and the director and refuse to cooperate. As the resistance of change persists, the change appears to fail sooner or later. The main reason of failure is that the change agent perceives the resistance as the â€Å"enemy 5 of change† because of the belief that a change process with only minimal resistance is a good change (Waddell and Amrik, 1998).In fact, resistance, like pain, reflects th at What something is wrong in the process, but not that the change itself is wrong. causes the resistance is how the change is implemented instead of what has to be changed. change. Resistance, when managed carefully, can be used as an advantage to assist In fact, resistance is an important form of feedback, giving the change agent some valuable inputs on what have gone wrong in the implementation of change. Therefore, the director should look into the resistance, try to understand it and use it to refine the change effort.In order to reduce resistance, it is essential to build a guiding coalition with the restaurant managers and chefs. In order to build the coalition, the director should abandon the idea that he is doing the right and proper thing while the change recipients are throwing up unreasonable obstacles or barriers intent on â€Å"doing in† or â€Å"screwing up† the change (Dent and Goldberg, 1999). Furthermore, the change agent should always communicate wit h the change recipients and try to understand the uncertainties and potential problems, caused by the change, faced by change recipients.He should also present his vision and the company goals clearly so that the change recipients can align their objectives with that of the change agent and the company. Moreover, Spreitzer and Quinn state that change agents contribute to the occurrence of what they call â€Å"resistant behaviors and communications† through their own actions and inactions, owing to their own ignorance, incompetence, or mismanagement (1996). The director, instead of trying to understand the difficulties his employees are facing in their operation, uses fear management and exerts pressure on the outlet 6 anagers and chefs to change because he believes that this particular change is good and necessary for the company. However, as Hultman (1979) comments that it is a fallacy to consider the change itself to be inherently good because change can only be evaluated b y its consequences. This belief cannot be proved with any certainty until the change effort has been completed and sufficient time has passed. The change agent should, rather than getting an outsider – the consultant – to initiate the change, elicit participation from the teams and respected their opinions regarding the routines of the restaurants.Besides, the change agent should create a great sense of urgency in that particular change, for example, whether it is government requirement or market driven (Ford et al. 2008). Without explaining the need and urgency of change, the change recipients In fact, the change are unable to relate the change with the objective reality. proposed by the director is driven by the government food safety policy which will be put into practice next year, the highly competitive market and the increase in customers’ demand of high quality food and services.Therefore, there is an urgent need for the company to continuously improve an d meet the demand of the customers in order to maintain profits and market share. It is fairly easy for the change agent to scapegoat the change recipients for the failure of change because of the uncooperative and hostile attitude of the change recipients. However, the change agent should understand that change is a situation that interrupts the normal patterns of organization and calls for participants to enact new patterns. This process involves the interplay of deliberate and emergent processes that can be highly ambiguous (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985).Change is an interruption of normal operation and implies an increase in workload, at least during the period of 7 change implementation. It is not difficult to imagine that the change recipients are reluctant to accept change right at the beginning, especially when they cannot foresee any immediate or long-term benefits. Therefore, the process of change should be carefully planned and well-communicated in order to get the particip ation and support of the change recipients. On the other hand, participations of the change recipients should be valued respectfully.Participation is a feeling on the part of people to be involved in a process but not just being called in to take part in discussions. People are more likely to respond to the way they are customarily treated and whose opinions are respected rather than being asked some carefully calculated questions about their opinions (Lawrence, 1969). The wrong way to elicit participation by overselling the positive and underselling the negative that the change will bring about will be perceived by the change recipients as intentional misrepresentation, injustice and violation of trust between the recipients and the agent (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985).Consequently, the change recipients will be more defensive to change and may even intentionally deliver bad performance in order to prove that the change is a failure. In fact, resistance is a resource that can be full y utilized when it is acknowledged and understood. Change agents have to be aware of the problems caused by change because these problems are constructed from novel, discrepant, or problematic situations that are puzzling, troubling, or uncertain to the participants of change (Weick, 1995).The emergence of problems demonstrates the potential obstacles that These problems, when will be encountered on the way to a successful change. managed carefully, can become advantages that greatly assist the process of change. Resistance is a form of conflict that strengthens and improves not only the quality of 8 decisions, but also the participants’ commitment to the implementation of those decisions (Amason, 1996). Hence, the F&B director should realize that he has to e-introduce the change as the benefits to the department and the company as a whole, and try to regain the trust of the F&B teams by inducing their participation with respect, taking more responsibilities in the occurrence of resistance and empowering the teams in the process of change. As a result, the process of change will be smoother and will ultimately succeed with the emergence of resistance. 9 Bibliography AMASON, A. C. (1996) Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision making: resolving a paradox for top management teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39, pp. 23-148. BUCHANAN, D. A. and HUCZYNSKI, A. A. (2010) Organizational Behaviour. 7th ed. England: Pearson Education Limited. DENT, E. B. and GOLDBERG, S. G. (1999) Challenging â€Å"resistance to change†. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35, pp. 25-41. FORD, J. D. et al. (2008) Resistance to change: the rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33 (2), pp. 362-377. HULTMAN, K. (1979) The Path of Least Resistance. TX, Denton: Learning Concepts. LAWRENCE, P. R. (1969) How to deal with resistance to change. Harvard Business Review, 1, pp. 49-57. MALTZ, M and BASLER, F. (1997) P ortable Conference on Change Management.Hiam: HRD Press. MINTZBERG, H. and WATERS, J. (1985) Of strategies, deliberate and emergent. Strategic Management Journal, 6, pp. 257-272. PARDO DEL VAL, M. et al. (2003) Resistance to change: a literature review and empirical study. Management Decision, 41 (2), pp. 148-170. SHAPIRO, D. L. , and KIRKMAN, B. L. (1999) Employees’ reaction to the change to work teams: the influence of â€Å"anticipatory† injustice. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12(1), pp. 51-66. SPREITZER, G. M. and QUINN, R. E. (1996) Empowering middle managers to be transformational leaders. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32, pp. 37-261. 10 TORMALA, Z. L. , and PETTY, R. E. (2004) Resisting persuasion and attitude certainty: a meta-cognitive analysis. In KNOWLES, E. S. and LINN, J. A. , (eds. ) Resistance and Persuasion. Mahwah , NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 65-82. TRADER-LEIGH, K. E. (2002) Case study: identifying resistance in mana ging change. Journal of Organization Change Management, 15(2), pp. 138-155. WADDELL, D. and AMRIK, S. S. (1998) Resistance: a constructive tool for change management. Management Decision, 36 (8), pp. 543-548. WEICK, K. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Harriet Martineau Sociology, Politics, Philosophy

Walt Disney s Theory Of Bureaucracy, And Blake And Mouton...

Introduction Walt Disney Company is a mass media and entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California. The Disney brothers Walt and Roy founded Disney in 1923. Originally, Disney was strictly an animation industry before expanding into television, film, and most notably theme parks. Disney’s theme parks have become world renowned for the experiences and memories they give the people that visit the park. Disney’s parks are also respected for their organizational communication in terms of their employees and their interactions with visitors of the theme park. As mentioned earlier, Disney is a company that applies organizational communication to all facets of their operations especially to their theme parks. This is why we decided to study them so closely for this paper. We will apply Deal and Kennedy’s Strong Culture theory, Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy, and Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid to what we have learned about Disney as an organization to an alyze where they fit into each of these theories and critique their organizational practice and identify any ways they can improve as outlined by these theories. Deal and Kennedy s Strong Cultures When defining culture, one can say that culture means: a particular form or stage of civilization as that of a certain nation or period; development or improvement of the mind by education or training; or the behaviors and beliefs characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group (Culture). All ofShow MoreRelatedOrganisational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pages. Organization Theory Challenges and Perspectives John McAuley, Joanne Duberley and Phil Johnson . This book is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive and reliable guide to organisational theory currently available. What is needed is a text that will give a good idea of the breadth and complexity of this important subject, and this is precisely what McAuley, Duberley and Johnson have provided. They have done some sterling service in bringing together the very diverse strands of work

Cognitive Development Skills Of A 9 Year Old Boy Essay

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Attention in a middle childhood becomes more selective, flexible, and planful [berk]. First, in selective and flexibility, children improve as they move into middle childhood. Children can focus on tasks that are more complex, such as, paying attention to a direction and being able to complete it without getting confused with another distractor or objective. Tasks at this age can become more challenging [berk]. Second, planning also becomes a complex objective going into elementary school years. They think about theShow MoreRelatedLifespan Development1516 Words   |  7 PagesLifespan Development and Personality Luis Cervantes PSY/103 January 11, 2016 Susanne Nishino Lifespan Development and Personality Developmental psychology is the study of how human beings age and transform throughout the eight major stages of life. This paper will focus on the physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality development of individuals found in stage two, (early childhood 1-6 year olds). 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