Are you ready

If my 21 year old child or my 18 year old best friend were to ask me how they know they are married for marriage, I would not know what to say. I would probably talk about having the â€Å"right age† which to some can be early, but to others it can be a long time. I would explain the consequences of marrying early such as divorce. I would explain that marriage is not a game and that it should be taken seriously as it is a lifelong commitment, sure there are times where people go through divorce but you eve to live with that person every day.That gets me into my next point: the right spouse. If you are to marry, it should be with the person you are most comfortable with. This person should make you feel good when you are together. They should entertain you and put a smile on your face when you most need it. The person should make you feel like you are around your best friend whom you can confess your secrets and lend you a helping. The other person should help build you up and help you reach your personal goals.You should not feel like you are tied down to someone and that they are baggage. Another thing you should consider is If you want to settle down. To my child I would agree with their decision on getting married because they are older and have somewhat of a plan for their future, and are wiser in making their decision. As for my 18 year old friend, I would give her the advice to maybe wait a little longer. They are young and should go out into the world and explore all the different things you can do as a single person.I would also tell my best friend that they are younger and so their decisions are not set In stone. I would give them both this statement: â€Å"Are you ready to settle down†. Marriage will become your priority and you will not have time for many things Like going out with friends especially if you plan to bring children Into your home. My last advice for them would be to sit down and think If they see themselves settles with a family and giving up their life of leisure that they have now.

Differences between Chinese and American culture essays

Differences between Chinese and American culture essays We might think that Chinese and Americans are totally different people. Not only the way they look different, but also the different cultures. So, what are the differences between Chinese and American culture? Most Chinese families like to cook the meals at home. The family members sit around the table and share the dishes on the table together. Even when they are having their meals in restaurants, they eat in the same way too. But in America, just part of the Americans have their meal at home with their family members. That's common for them to take fast food as their meals, especially teenagers. They love to hang out and have meals with their friends, instead of their families. These actually shows that Chinese care about family union much more than Americans do. In China, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are three ideologies which have greatly influenced the Chinese, such as the importance of education, respecting the elderly and parents, respecting the ghost and the gods in order to be well-being and the wheel of life. On the other hand, most of the Americans believe in Christianity and Catholic. The Christians and Catholics often pray to God. They believe that God blesses them and they will be sent to heaven after they died. We can see that the ideologies that people believe are quite different between Chinese and Americans. Due to the great influence of Confucianism, the Chinese always treat the elderly and their parents with respect. Unlike the Americans, the Chinese will not call the names of their parents. That is kind of impolite behavior for the Chinese. As the Americans like to treat their parents as friends, they often show their emotion and tell their opinions quite straight-out while the Chinese prefer not to say but just hide in heart. In comparison, the Americans are more open-minded while the Chinese are quite conservative. In the end, I would say that both cultures have their beauty and s...

Enders Shadow

Enders Shadow This is a book that follows a series of other books starting with Enders Game. This book takes a different look at the same character ender. In the first book the main character was ender. In this book the main character is bean. Bean is a mutant but not physically. He is just abnormally intelligent. In fact he is maybe the smartest kid in the world. Except for the fact that he is only 6. Bean grew up in the streets. He was near death when he devised a plan that would start a gang. He told all the little kids to pick a bully and to beat him up into making him protect them. They Chose a boy named Achillies. But Achillies was bitter about bean choosing to beat him up and while the other children learned to love Achillies for the food that was given to them because of there newly formed gang Bean was outcast.Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (winged bean)While all this is going on the world is in dire need of a savior to protect the world from a species of alien that are threatning to destroy the world. So achielies tries to kill bean but b4 he can bean is taken into training to protect the world. Anyway it is a really good book. I suggest you read it.

Teresa of Avila Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Teresa of Avila - Essay Example She was born on 28th March 1515. Early in her young age Theresa was caught between the strict but honest father and romantic mother. She was caught between detached discipline and over attachment to worldiness. Though she lead an ordinary life , the sense of sin never left her, as she was drawn more and more into the worldly things like flirting and rebelling. At the age of 16, just to discipline her, her father had to send her to the Augustinian nun’s convent for education. Though she hated it first, she found the place less strict than her father; but due to illness she had to leave the place after 18 months. When the time came to choose between marriage and religious life, she chose the later because that was the only safe place for a person tempted by sin. She left for the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation at Avila were she was almost a loner. She started to learn and practice mental prayer to keep Jesus Christ always with her. But there were enough distractions in the convent. Nuns from the rich families were more attentive to their physical appearance than to their inner spiritual life. The prestige of a nun was measured not by piety but by money.

IT Decision Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

IT Decision Paper - Essay Example The project is in line with WW’s goals of achieving growth of up to 5 per cent per year and minimizing costs to free up funds for other key projects. The IT project enables WW to excel in a competitive environment. The IT project allows the Management Team to execute its tasks with ease as they check and rectify stagnant departments (ZarateÃŒ  2012). The staff also finds an easy time with keeping the company’s data and assigning duties. In addition, the IT project enables the staff to respond to concerns by customers thus improving customer care and service delivery (Davenport and Morison 2010).3. IT Portfolio Alignment The IT project is urgent and needs the immediate implementation to realize both the short and long-term targets of the company. Therefore, the project should be implemented ahead of any other project in the IT Portfolio. The project supports the management and transport sectors of the company. The IT project enables quick decision making by the company' s management team and staff.4. IT Architecture The IT project represents an overhaul of the IT infrastructure at WW. The project supports and augments the pre-existing IT infrastructure at WW. The IT project is in a way an upgrade of the IT infrastructure at WW. The project should interface with other systems in place and those in development. The system shall use the pre-existing GPS devices on trucks to send data of the location of the trucks and their loading status to the control room run by the Management Team.

Flexibility and the Contract of Employment Essay

Flexibility and the Contract of Employment - Essay Example 74). Most of the institution traditionally hire workers and require them to perform their duties during fixed time which are normally eight continuous working hours a day and in a specific places. In the modern society most of the employees and employers are shifting away from this tradition and are focusing on a variable working agreements to enable workers perform their duties according to their wishes. This has enabled workers to have time with their families and also be able to utilize their working time effectively since they only work when they are ready to work (Berndt & Hartmut 2005, p.191). This has result to gains from both parties in terms of productivity and convenience of discharge of the obligations. 1. Different Recruitment Techniques Every organization aims at acquiring the most efficient and effective workforce who are capable of improving organization’s performance and make it competent (Berndt & Hartmut 2005, p.198). Though there are many qualified job seeke rs who are ready and willing to work for such organizations, sometimes it is not easy for organizations to hire the most qualified workforce as they would wish (Lipsey & Mucchielli 2002, P.76). The approach taken by the human resource managers during recruitment and hiring of workers will determine the quality of their workforce hence the overall performance of the organization. Approaches for recruiting qualified workers Through recruiting agencies: there are numerous agencies who hire workers on behalf of the organizations (Lipsey & Mucchielli 2002, P.83). Those agencies are ran by qualified hiring personnel who have potential to establish what the organization requires in terms of manpower and look for job applicants with those particular requirements. The advantage of using agency is that agencies normally have time to scrutinize the potential workers unlike organizations which may rely on experience of busy managers with limited resources for recruiting workers. Also, agencies rarely engage in canvassing with job applicants hence there is possibility for getting the best candidates (Berndt & Hartmut 2005, p. 202). Agencies also maintain records of all job applicants hence they can easily trace the most qualified workers whenever they are required to do so hence providing a quick solution to the organizations’ needs of personnel. Also some trade associations encourage their member organizations to advertise their jobs through their websites. Therefore, job seekers can easily access the vacancies in various organizations and apply for them hence giving organizations an opportunity to select the best candidates from the list of applicants (Berndt & Hartmut 2005, p.217). The advantage of this approach is that it offers cheap method for the organization to acquire workforce since most of those association do not charge their members anything. Internal recruitment where organization selects existing workers to fill higher positions left vacant in the org anization (Lipsey & Mucchielli 2002, P.90). This approach is efficient because it enables organization to maintain its loyal workers. This instils trust and loyalty among workers because they have confidence that once chance occurs within the organization the existing employees have equal opportunity of being upgraded. This method further enables organization to save its expense they would otherwise incur in hiring workers from outside the organization. Another approach is use of eternal recruitment of employees approach to acquire workers for their organizations. This approach involves inviting job applicants from outside the

Benihana Company Essay Example for Free

Benihana Company Essay Helping our guests feel welcome is as important as our cooking. And it is just as great a skill. Ever striving for excellence in hospitality, it is truly our restaurant family who has built Benihanas success. Company History: Benihana, Inc. owns and licenses restaurants in the Benihana and Benihana Grill chain of Japanese dinnerhouses. The restaurants specialize in an exhibition-style of Japanese cooking called teppanyaki. Customers sit around a communal table at which a Benihana chef slices their seafood, steak, chicken, and vegetables with lightning speed, grills their meal right in front of them, and then tosses it accurately onto their plates. The restaurants are decorated with Samurai armor and valuable art, and Shoji rice paper screens partition the dining areas. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1996, the company had sales of over $81 million, an all-time high. By December 1996, Benihana operated a total of 49 licensed and wholly owned restaurants in 20 states as well as in Bogota, Columbia, and Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. Early History, from Tokyo to New York The founder of Benihana, Inc. was a 25-year-old Olympic wrestler from Japan named Hiroaki Rocky Aoki. He got his start in the restaurant business by working after school in his familys coffee shop in downtown Tokyo. His mother named the family business Benihana after a red flower that survived the bombing of Tokyo during World War II. Rocky was a scrapper, defending himself in the streets and schoolyards against bigger boys. He got hooked on wrestling, became a national university champion, and earned a place on the 1960 Olympic team. Although he didnt compete because he was over his weight limit, he did fall in love with New York when the plane stopped there on the way to the Games in Rome. That fall he left Japan for the United States. In 1964, Aoki graduated from New York Community Colleges School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. During the summer he earned money driving the only ice cream truck in Harlem. The job was not easy, as he explained in an article in Management Review. Every time I robbed, I get up earlier the next day and work later to make up. Every time I lose money, I get more challenge. With that philosophy, he managed to save $10,000 during the summer, which, along with a loan, was enough to start his first restaurant, Benihana of Tokyo. Aokis concept for his new restaurant, derived from specialty restaurants he knew of in Japan, was part entertainment and part food service. He wanted to offer Americans food they were familiar with, such as chicken, steak, and shrimp, prepared in a novel setting. He chose the teppanyaki tablea stainless steel grill surrounded by a wooden eating surfacewhere customers could watch a knife-wielding, joke-telling chef prepare and serve their food. His parents and brothers came from Japan to help him get started. Unfortunately, New Yorkers equated Japanese food with raw fish and werent comfortable sitting at a table with strangers. They ignored the midtown Manhattan eatery until the restaurant critic of the New York Herald Tribune gave it a glowing review. Suddenly, everyone in New York, including the Beatles and Muhammad Ali, wanted to sit around one of Benihana of Tokyos four teppanyaki tables. Within six months after the review the restaurant had paid for itself, and Aoki quickly opened another restaurant in a larger, fancier building. The new location provided the same teppanyaki-style cooking but was decorated with valuable art, Samurai armor, heavy wooden ceiling beams brought from Japan by Aokis father, and sliding Shoji screens to provide some privacy. 1965-80: Building a Company The Benihana concept combined reasonable prices with good food, and, by preparing what was eaten right at the table, held waste to a minimum. Profits were good, and, in 1968, Aoki opened his first Benihana of Tokyo outside New York Cityin downtown Chicago. That location made $700,000 in its first year and continued to be one of the companys top earning outlets. Between 1969 and 1972, the company opened six more of its own restaurants and licensed franchisees to open another ten. In a joint venture with the Las Vegas Hilton, the company developed Benihana Village, a 38,000-square-foot complex of restaurants, bars, and other entertainment venues. In 1972, the company grossed $12 million and the Harvard Business School selected Benihana of Tokyo as a case study of an entrepreneurial success story. With business going so well, Rocky Aoki could devote time to his other interests which included racing balloons and powerboats, collecting items ranging from vintage cars to slot machines and learning backgammon. Rocky wanted to play, Joel Schwartz, the companys president, explained in a 1989 Forbes article. To help oversee the chains operations and expansion, Aoki brought in a management company, Hardwicke Cos., as a partner in 1976. The relationship lasted only four years and, in 1980, Aoki ended the partnership, paying $3.7 million to break the contract. As Rod Willis of Management Review explained in a 1986 article, He [Aoki] felt the companys management style clashed with his predominately Oriental workforce, and he wanted to maintain control over each restaurants quality. The following year Aoki settled, without admitting any guilt, a Securities and Exchange Commission charge that he had improperly traded in Hardwicke stock while serving as vice-president of Hardwicke. The 1980s: Ups and Downs To help pay off the debt incurred in the split with Hardwicke, Aoki decided to take part of the company public. He accomplished this by having Benihana of Tokyo (BOT) form Benihana National Corporation (BNC) in 1982 and then taking the latter company public the following year. Investors paid the Miami-based BNC $11 for a unit consisting of two common shares and a warrant to buy another at $6. With the $5.5 million raised by selling half a million of these units, BNC bought 11 restaurants from Aoki in exchange for 60 percent of the BNC common stock and $2.5 million to pay BOTs debt. Later in the year, BNC bought another three restaurants from BOT for $7 million. In spite of the new corporate structure, Benihana of Tokyo and Benihana National Corporation remained under the management of the same group of executives. As corporate president, Joel Schwartz continued to oversee the day to day operation of both companies. Aoki, who served as chairman of both entities, retained 51 percent of the common stock in BNC and kept about 30 restaurants in the privately held BOT. Aoki developed new concepts for the Benihana food chain but he also continued to play hard, becoming a championship-level backgammon player and setting a world record in off-shore powerboat racing. The Double Eagle V, a 400,000 cubic-foot gas balloon, displayed the Benihana logo as it became the first crewed balloon to successfully cross the Pacific Ocean, with Aoki as one of the crew members. One of Aokis new concepts was Benihana National Classics, a line of Chinese gourmet frozen foods, introduced in 1984 and sold in supermarkets. Chinese cuisine was chosen when the company found that Japanese food didnt freeze well. Within a year the Classics were the best-selling Oriental frozen foods in the United States, with sales in one quarter alone reaching more than $40 million and profits climbing to over $4 million. The companys stock took off, going as high as $21.50 in 1985. In December of that year, Restaurant and Institution magazine named Benihana of Tokyo the most popular family-style restaurant in America. At that time, Benihana of Tokyo and Benihana National together operated or franchised restaurants in 60 locations, from Seattle to New Jersey, serving a total of 25,000 customers a day. Benihana Nationals frozen food success quickly attracted the attention of major food companies. When Campbell Soup and Stouffers began offering their own lines of Oriental frozen foods, however, Benihana couldnt compete. The company lost $11 million on frozen foods between 1985 and 1987 and finally sold the business, for $4.5 million, to the small company that had been producing the dinners for them. Frozen food, however, was not Aokis only new idea. In 1985, Benihana National opened its first seafood restaurant, The Big Splash, just north of Miami. Aoki believed the sea would be the primary supplier of food in the future, and, borrowing an idea from a Malaysian fish market, came up with the concept of a seafood marketplace/restaurant. Customers could choose from hundreds of varieties of fresh seafood, decide how they wanted it cooked, and watch it being prepared. The idea was so popular initially that a second Big Splash was opened. The seafood restaurants soon experienced difficulty, however, registering losses of $2.7 million during 1987. The wide variety of options ran completely counter to the tight focus and minimal waste of the Benihana steakhouses. At the Miami location, the majority of customers were retirees who resented the high prices and preferred to eat fish they were familiar with. All we sold was salmon and red snapper, Aoki told Eric Schmukler in a March 1989 Forbes article. The company closed its Big Splash outlets in March 1988. The 1988 fiscal year was a hard one for Benihana, as the company recorded a loss of nearly $7 million. Despite the companys financial problems with Classics and Big Splash, the Benihana restaurants themselves were still popular. By the end of fiscal 1989, the publicly owned Benihana National Corp. reported profits of some $1.8 million on sales of $34 million at its 20 restaurants, with Aokis privately-held Benihana of Tokyo taking in similar revenues. 1990-94: Making a Turnaround Rocky Aoki kicked off the new decade by opening a gallery in one of the Miami Benihana restaurants to display a portion of what was becoming known in the art world as the Rocky Aoki Collection. Having spent more than a year consolidating his diverse collections, Aoki told Antiques Collecting, I think its a natural to have a gallery here. More than 90,000 people eat in this restaurant every year; why not provide them with something beautiful to look at, not to mention buy, if they so desire. In a 300-square-foot space that had been the restaurants gift shop, diners could view etchings by Icarts, lamps by Tiffany and Handel, and bronzes by Remington. The publicity about Aokis collection helped generate business for the restaurant, and overall company revenues continued to grow. Profits, however, were less than a million dollars a year, and BNC stock fell below $1 a share. Angry at the situation, some shareholders sued. As Marilyn Alva reported in a 1992 Restaurant Business article, the shareholders claimed Aoki and his management team were in a conflict of interest by managing the two companies. The complainants further maintained that Benihana management had misappropriated the assets of Benihana National Corporation, passing them through Benihana of Tokyo for their personal benefit. The shareholders, however, were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to take control of the company away from Aoki. Meanwhile, Benihana management took advantage of a health-conscious American publics growing interest in Japanese food and entertainment. With the tag line, We have been the restaurant of the 90s since the 60s, Aoki and Schwartz instituted a major advertising campaign stressing the fact that Benihana had always offered healthful food. Soon afterwards, in 1993, the Atlanta Benihana of Tokyo restaurant added an 18-seat sushi bar and 35-seat Karaoke dining room to draw more customers on weekday nights. Despite the higher labor and food costs associated with sushi, the company reported an increase in beverage sales, and a lot of sampling of the $.99 sushi pieces by people waiting to eat at the traditional teppanyaki tables. Learning from its experience a decade earlier, in 1994 Benihana National Corp. decided to get into the frozen food business again. This time, however, by entering into a licensing agreement with Campbell Soup Co., the company hooked up with a major marketer rather than trying to compete with the big names. The new product was a line of frozen stir-fry kits featuring the Benihana trademark. The dinners served six people and sold for about $8.00. As Peter McMullin, an analyst with Southeast Research Partners, told Florida Review.Net, This time the strategy makes sense because it is linking with a high profile food company to help strengthen the distribution side and offsetting the razor-thin margins of retail by manufacturing with a low cost producer like Campbell. By the end of the fiscal year, revenues were over $70 million, with profits up 41 percent to $2.4 million. 1995 and Beyond: A New Company At the beginning of 1995, Benihana National announced it would buy Aokis 21 Benihana of Tokyo restaurants on the U.S. mainland, along with the U.S. rights to the Benihana trademark, for about $6.15 million. On May 16, a newly created subsidiary, Benihana Inc., acquired the BOT restaurants and, through a merger, simultaneously acquired Benihana National. BNC shareholders received one share in the new holding company for each of their shares of Benihana National. Aoki continued to serve as chairman of the new company and Schwartz as president. Benihana Inc. now owned or licensed the 43 Benihana restaurants in the continental United States along with a franchise in Honolulu. It also had the rights to develop or license Benihana restaurants in Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Aoki kept private his Benihana of Tokyo restaurants in Hawaii, Britain, and Thailand. During 1995, the new company took several steps to attract more customers. Benihana introduced weekend luncheon service and, following the success in Atlanta, opened sushi bars in seven locations. The company also instituted a national Karaoke contest for its patrons. In the fall, the company opened its first smaller format unit, called the Benihana Grill, in Sacramento. At 3,800 square feet, the Grill format was less than half the size of the traditional Benihana, and enabled the company to open units in smaller locations, particularly in urban areas. Schwartz had been refining this format since 1989 as an alternative to the companys more common free-standing, special use restaurant buildings. The Benihana Grill was designed to accommodate 10 to 12 teppanyaki tables, compared to the 18 tables in the typical Benihana. Analyst Peter McMullin remarked, Initial indications are encouraging even before the grand opening. With the lower capital costs of approximately $500,000 versus a stan d-alone restaurant cost of $2 million, this could become an enormous growth vehicle for Benihana. The new hours and offerings helped increase guest counts in existing restaurants by 8.7 percent and same store sales by an average of 7.7 percent for fiscal 1996. This rise, plus the addition of the Benihana of Tokyo restaurants and the new Benihana Grill, resulted in annual revenues of over $81 million. Benihanas growth came primarily from increased traffic in its existing restaurants, and the company continued to support that strategy. Early in 1996, in an effort to gain a larger share of the ethnic market, the company launched Spanish-language television advertisements in Miami and Los Angeles. In May, Benihana kicked off a two-year, $5 million ad campaign, focusing on the entertainment value of teppanyaki cooking. We want to bring the Benihana name to a different audience, company president Joel Schwartz told Nations Restaurant News in a May 6, 1996 article. The ads show that Benihana is a place the entire family can come to and have a good timea place they will see the chef perform and flip shrimp. Individual restaurants also developed innovative marketing techniques. A visit and meal at the Benihana in Bethesda, Maryland, for example, is one of the activities in the countys social studies curriculum for third graders learning about Japan. The company did not depend entirely on its existing restaurants for growth. During 1996, it also signed leases for several more Benihana Grills and expanded its franchise operations, including restaurants in Bogota, Columbia, and Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. Benihanas track record of steady growth in same store sales, rising customer count, and profitability appeared to be continuing into the late 1990s as revenues for the first half of fiscal 1997 were up over eight percent from the year before. Further Reading: Alva, Marilyn, Very Rocky Business: Aoki Besieged by Shareholder Suits, Restaurant Business, February 10, 1992. Benihana Buying Founder Aokis Units, Nations Restaurant News, January 16, 1995, p. 14. Benihana Profits Rise 67% for First Nine Months of Fiscal 95, Nations Restaurant News, February 12, 1996, p. 12. Benihana Testing Stir-Fry Kits, Supermarket News, October 17, 1994, p. 28.