Function Argument Essay Example for Free

Function Argument Essay Aristotle first asserts that happiness is an ultimate good that is both complete and self-sufficient. 2) The ultimate good for a thing is its ability to complete its function. (3) Human being’s must have a function beyond an occupation in society such as a potter or painter because the ultimate human good must be all encompassing. So the function of a human being cannot specifically be being good at any one position or task. The human function cannot involve just growth because that is essentially the function of plants, and a humans function must be unique in itself. 5) Aristotle claims that because animals and plants cannot reason, a human being’s function must have something to do with rationality, the part that involves our soul. (6) Lesser goods like wealth all are meant to lead to happiness, this rises from the first premise that the ultimate good must be self-sufficient. (C) Therefore he concluded that the human function is the completion of a task (the activity) that involves the soul (not the body), and leads to doing what is ultimately the most virtuous or excellent thing to do. The human function is the activity of the soul in accordance with excellence or virtue. I disagree with Aristotle’s conclusion because I believe premise 4 and 5 are false. He asserts that a human being and a plant cannot have the same functions. Here I think there is a flaw in his logic, Aristotle makes an unreasonable jump in what a person should do and what a person has to do. Humans may have simply evolved from a cell like any other animal, which would suggest that completing our base physical goals, surviving and reproducing, is the human function. Yes because we have evolved further and our capacity for reason is greater then say chimps or dogs, we have a deeper understanding of morality and virtues. Yet there is still a distinct difference between what we should do and what we have to do. I also disagree with the 5th premise because I do not believe reason is a virtue only found in human beings. Animals like gorilla’s and elephants have all been shown to show compassion towards other beings, even those not within its species. Aristotle’s conclusion suffers from these false premises. He makes the assumption that doing something good is the same as being good and this is not true. What something has to do, its function, does not necessarily equate to what something should do. Aristotle draws on the premise that animals cannot reason. While I believe there is a valid argument in terms of the distinction on a human’s depth of reason and an animal’s understanding of it. I believe the distinction lies in a more complex understanding rather then a complete lack of reason. I disagree with these two premises.

Organisation Management and Change Management in Virgin Trains

Organisation Management and Change Management in Virgin Trains Background of Virgin Train Virgin was enjoying a bureaucratic structure of management in the early days of its inception being a part of the public sector It has completely revolutionised the way railway system operates Back in the old days the trains system in Britain was controlled by British Railways and whatever the top management decided in those days was the order of the subordinate and they would have to follow it without any objection.. Today it only takes a couple of hours from London to Manchester which was unimaginable some 10-15 years ago. Currently there is no centralised reporting of the regional performance of British Rail. This step was taken particularly to meet the demands and needs of travellers and tourists in different regions of Britain. Each region has its own plan of development and upgrades which allows them to gain competitive advantage over other rail systems. The strategies made to maximise the profit and reducing costs of each regional office is the goal of the British Rail. (A)Relationship between Virgin Trains vision and culture of the company Vision is a long term strategy of a company. A vision does not define the goals that an organisation will be looking to achieve in the near future but there is a mission that is expected to be achieved at some point of time. Vision is usually held by the top management of the company as they are the acting stewards of the company. Vision allows the company to create a business plan which will include formation of small goals and formulating strategies to achieve those goals. It keeps on reminding the company about the direction in which it has to move and allow it to motivate itself. Mission statement is also part of the Companys Vision. A vision goes further. It paints a picture in clear language of where the organisation is going, linked to the behaviours it expects of everyone in the organisation. Vision is a broad perspective of what company wants and their approach to achieving their needs. Culture is defined by the way things are done in an organisation. The guru of a culture in an organisation is the top management they are the ones who govern the culture of an organisation. It is the behaviour and rules set by them which serve as a role model for their subordinates. The culture as explained in the case study of virgin train is Collaborate (Clan) Culture. This culture pertains to the thinking of the management acting as parents to the employees. All the employees irrespective of the level of hierarchy they belong to Has a say in the management decisions and work as a team. The development and training of the staff are also given importance and care of their needs is taken of so that the outcome is always a win-win situation. The CEO says that in order to follow the organisational vision the strategy is to breakdown the company vision into small achievable and measurable targets, so to comply with the performance management aspect of the company. The CEO of virgin train has clearly pointed out to its workers that he wants them to own the virgin railways. He wants employees to account for their own action, asses how effective they are in achieving organisational goals and bring about improvements in their work so to achieve the organisational goal. In practise vision is a way broad term than a mission. The three main elements of the Virgin Trains Visions is their strive to provide safe and reliable travel, to become and maintain a profitable business and last but not the least instigating an environment which allows its employees to share their opinions about the progress of the organisation and that their views are given weightage in the decision making process. [Hofstede, Geert (1977] (B)Influence of culture on the change management of the Virgin Trains What is Change Management? There are three important steps of change management namely planning, implementation and control. These steps are in relation to all those people who are affected by a change in the organisation. Change should always be brought after consultation with the all the major stakeholders as they are the medium through which the change will be brought and their non-involvement can lead to a resistance in change. There are some serious time and money invested in order to bring a change so it is expected that the change can be measurable, achievable and reliable. Infrastructural change does not require as much time and effort as to bringing a change in the mind-set of the people. For people to accept the change they need to be told why the change is brought and what is in benefit for change how it will be implemented and how it is sustainable. Change be implemented and is it sustainable for future developments and research. One of the healthiest exercises for change is to have one on one meeting with the key staff of the organisation who serve as the ingredient of the change and allow them equal participation in the change process so that the task of implementing the change becomes easy. It is interesting to know that different people have different acceptability levels to change for some it is just a matter of time and understanding the new ways of doing things but for some people that change is completely incompatible. Usually all the lower level staffs is communicated indirectly about change with memos and brochures. But there are people in this level of hierarchy as well who thinks that it is a call for them to leave the organisation. For people with such mind-sets there should be workshops and other training sessions being held so that they get the bigger picture behind the change brought. But if still there is resistance to change the organisation will have to consider firing that employee but inly as the last resource, following the philosophy that what does not align with the organisational goals is into an asset of a company but act as a liability. All in all change management is a process in which individual or organisation at large are invited to bring a transition from their current position to a desired position in the future. Example of change management includes change in mission, strategy, technology, operations and in the behaviour and attitude of the personnel. [Robert A. Sevier, July, 2003], [Jayme Alexandre, Jan 2009] Virgin trains have always kept an optimistic and forward looking approach. They make plans as to what they can do in their foreseeable future and try to implement the learning from their past to their future. It is a view prevailing in the business world that there is a strong link between the vision and the culture of an organisation. There is no doubt in the notion that the behaviour of the managers of an organisation set the tone for the subordinate and the approach in which the organisation wants their employees to go about things. Virgin trains value their employee and thinks that customer service is a CSF (Critical success factor).a as responding to the ever changing environment and changing customer needs with it. To bring a change in an organisation a clear vision is required for the change to take place smoothly. The managers of virgin train believe that the way for their organisational success is to listen to their customer feedback and then try to implement what is lacking in the current management structure. They believe that I is the lower level staff i.e. the technical support and logistics which comes in to interactions with the customers and in order to bring change these people those be given the task of implementing the change. It is the culture of virgin train is to delegate authorities to its staff so to allow them the bring change. They believe their lower level staffs are technically and commercially most skilled and competent to bring the change. Managers believe that employee would actively take part in the running of the company. They think that employees should be asking question, bring new ideas, and be ready to disagree and give better options on how to operate the Company and bring change. For Example: The employees of virgin train as their care for the environment and sustainable development urged the management to encourage recycling in offices and trains and Virgin train complied with it. The Change in Virgin train is aided with the help of strategies to support and bring the change. The primary motto of virgin train is to remain a profitable organisation. The key to this I customer retention which can only be done by providing the customers with a top notch and cost effective service. Virgin train realises that to achieve its objective they would have to cater to the needs of their customers. There usually two bands of customers one who value cost for which the cost leadership model is followed and the other ones who value quality of service being provided and there they belong to the niche market and want specialised and unique customer service which is in fact the reason they are paying the premium for. The management has the aim to train their front line employees as individual and independent leaders. They are given the opportunity to learn from their job i.e. given on the job training and development. The new strategy of Virgin Train is to put Customer First. The front line employees are expected to enhance customer experience by responding and catering to their needs and from their interaction with the customers try to devise and recommend new methods of operation to top management so that the customer experience can be further improved. The role of the managers in this scenario is to boost the morale and confidence of tits employee, motivate them with incentives and try to get the best out of them and whatever feedback and new ideas they get from their employees they should try to implement that. [Joanne Martin, 2001] (C)Contribution of the Virgin Trains Organisation Structure in the Change Management The organisational structure of a company plays a vital role in the change management process. Virgin Train has to adopt different strategies that could adapt to their organisational structure which allows flexibility, empowerment, independence, delegation of authorities and participation in decision making to its employees. The hierarchy of management in such organisation is although quite extensive but is immiscible so that the work of a higher level could in some circumstances be done by a lower level depending on the authorities and responsibilities of the person at lower level. Some of the Examples of the way Virgin Trains Operates will be discussed from here on. To discuss the current and future strategy thee are regular meetings held between the employees and the management. In these meetings the priorities for the business is rethought if, important matters needing management attention are discussed and the implementation of any new best practise in to the business model. In the meeting every region brings something new and important to share which allows the management to take decision based on past data for the future so that Virgin Group can gain an advantage over their peers. Each region May have people with different cultures and values so it is important that Virgin train responds to the needs of each region separately and bring such business strategies into play which benefit both the customers and serve the organisational purpose as well. Feedback from customers and mangers in different regions of operation of virgin train are always welcomed by managers as it allows them to know what elements of their service needs improvement and which of their current service is highly rated by its customers so that management know what areas need more time to be spent to improve their overall performance. For Example Feedback from customers on matter such as, what should be the menus of the flight and how much is the current ticket packages are suitable for them. Other than this what new destination should virgin start flights for and how often these flights should take place, this and many other related information helps management to take things head on which is always a factor for a customer when making travelling decisions. All these Ideas are taken in by the manger sand the ones which seems to be the most important and brought to the table with other top management and lowers staff as well to decide which ones will filter through the consensus in the decision making process and then how these can be implemented. This activity instigate a feeling of intrinsic reward in the employees who brought forwards the idea sand the feedback in the first place and it encourages them to do their work efficiently and discuss with the management as they believe their say hold an importance to the company. Besides welcoming change and giving feedback, the management of virgin also encourage constructive criticism i.e. challenging the ideas of other in an appropriate way. Employees are given 3 days workshops to train them how to receive and deliver constructive feedback. They are also taught about the vision of the Virgin Trains and how the leadership style currently undertook by the management of the Virgin Train affects them at workplace. Other than this some of the important outcomes of the workshops are mentioned below. It provides the employees an environment to share their opinions and thoughts about the organisation. Employees at different levels of the hierarchy come across each other, get to know each other and create a social environment which allows them the time to share things since they have been employed, so erasing personal differences if any. Employees get an idea of why the change is brought, how it will affect them and provides an opportunity to share individual concerns about the change if any. The HR Department go Virgin Train actively take part in the development and training of their employees. They consider themselves as the drivers of the change and have always followed the organisational strategy will focus on people. They tend to reward employees where they have performed well and such employees are then presented at various levels as a token of their achievement and an appreciation of the work they have done for Virgin Trains. Various award ceremonies are also held to reward individual and teams where they had performed well. Virgin Train also plays their CSR role (Corporate Social Responsibility) as they believe dignifies behaviour towards their environments and also in a way towards their employees. This approach shows their customers and staff that they care about their environment and does not always act in their personal profits. But in Essence what Virgin Trains is doing here is to earn the respect of the people and therefore it allows them to retain customers. An example of the charitable work done is to make donations to the CLIC Sargent which collects money to be spent on child cancer patients. It is therefore not wrong to say that Virgin Trains flow its organisational with Bottom to top Approach and their workshops helps in in this process. [Cameron, Kim S. Quinn, Robert E. 1999] (D) Strategies Implemented For Change Management Process in the Organisation and its Effectiveness: There few strategies which the management has adopted in order to manage the change process in Virgin Trains. Again any strategy made will be in alignment of the vision. At the recruitment process it is important to take note of that people who share the same vision and promote he same behaviour as encourages at virgin Trains should be selected. The appraisal process is another crucial stage ways of realising the work that an employee has done in a fixed period of time. Usually a 360 degree appraisal is the most popular method of appraisals, as it involves the customer, the employee and the manager, all of whom play a vital role in the business process. In discussion with the employee their contribution and development to the business should be notified and what personal short term and long term goals have the employee set for themselves. A tool made by virgin train to assess the need for promotion for an individual is the Talent Wheel. This is a set combination of behaviour, motivation, passion and knowledge and skills requirement which when fulfilled by an employee suggest that that employee is now worthy of a higher post or designation. There is plenty of learning opportunities for employees at various levels in the organisation. Internal and external courses are regularly held keeping in mind the training and developing needs of individuals and the departments in which the employee is working. In these courses basically the coaching skills are taught and how to take part in discussion and the importance of accepting responsibility. For front line staff and managers leadership programs are held to equip them to handle issues in a better way. The change management program of virgin Train is an on-going process which would have to be reviewed regularly to ensure that the change in the culture is smooth transition and is will be meeting the organisational objective. The motive behind the cultural change is not only to cope with employees in a better way but it is to operate the business in the most efficient way securing the organisational goal of maximising it profits. KPIs or key performance indicator is an effective tool foe measuring the performance of an organisation. Every organisations business is based on some key indicator or elements the fluctuations in which serious affect the business so if virgin train could track such indicators than it would know in what direction it is moving. Some of the KPIs that Virgin uses are: Sickness days/ days off, Staff turnover rates, Customer satisfaction and complaints. There can be many other indicators but these are the most important ones. Due to the strategy and the vision of Virgin Trains there has been cost saving reported in recent years due the discussion of management with the frontline employee and more often the employees challenge the managements decision which are then reviewed and implemented as a result of which company saves some valuable money. A recent example of this kind of work is that done by the Manchester division. What they did was to create a new ticket as a result of a problem face by a customer who was going to and fro from Huddersfield. The customer had to make a new ticket for the second part of the journey and this problem was sorted out by the people working in front line and a new ticket was issued which could work both ways. [David Herold, Donald Fedor,  (2008)] Conclusion: There is no doubt that virgin train continues to provide its customer with high quality serve and leisurely travel. The companys focus on their customers and employees has served as a booster for their performance and this is the reason they are way forward than their competitors. The involvement of employees in the decision making and their ability to bring solution to the business problems which are thought of from the customer point of view is another reason for virgin trains success. The management has fed the employees that they should continue to challenge the current practises and keep trying to come up with new ways of more effective ways of doing things. All in All it is the caring of employee, focus on customer satisfaction and the management leadership skills which have put Virgin Trains on the path of success.

The Constant Status of Beta Essay -- Business, Stock Returns, Investme

Beta being an efficient measure of riskiness of a security is an important financial instrument in investment decisions regarding estimation of market models, development of investment portfolios, estimation of cost of capital and emerging derivative markets. Since 1960s, the practical implication of CAPM has been in vague until recently challenged by some researchers Fama and French, (1992) for beta being insufficient in estimating the future returns of stocks based on historical data. The constant status of beta in estimating stock returns is questionable by the academic researchers for the high-low variation in its parameters. As systematic risk is time variant in nature, thus it is necessary to consider beta as a time series process withholding within it the stochastic behavior. Faff, Hillier and Hillier (2000) have demonstrated three modeling techniques to estimate time-varying beta namely multivariate generalized ARCH model (M-GARCH), another time varying heteroskedastic market models identified as EGARCH, TARCH and Kalman Filter approach. The dataset comprises of daily returns of 32 UK industry portfolios for the time period of January 1969 to April 1998. All the three models explain the time variability in systematic risk in the stocks. Of all the three models, Kalman Filter approach along with random-walk parameterization out-performs in efficiently explaining the stochastic behavior of betas in the daily stock returns of UK. The Kalman filter approach can be summed up as an optimal recursive computation of the least-squares algorithm. It is a subset of a Bayesian filter where the assumptions of a Gaussian distribution and that the current state is linearly dependant on the previous state are imposed. In oth... ...el errors while estimating these models using a Kalman filter algorithm has been considered and taken into account. The magnitude of reduction in the variance of market model errors that can be achieved if betas are allowed to vary is also measured. This gives a useful technique for comparing time-varying beta models with the constant beta model. This work also suggests that time-variation in beta is present in case of developing markets as in case of developed markets. The overall results have important implications for portfolio diversification and hedging strategies. Another implication of this academic research is that a dynamic hedging strategy, in which the hedge ratios are frequently adjusted in the light of the new information, will perform better compared to a static strategy where the hedge ratio is chosen at the beginning of the investment horizon.

Toms Character in the Great Gatsby :: essays research papers

Tom Buchanan’s moral character can be quesitoned due to his dispicable and patheic nature when it comes to his actions throughout the novel. Even though he was born into a wealthy family and thus inherited the wealth he has in the novel, no signs of moral teachings by his family were evident. The actions he took in the book were due to him being a conceited and ignorant man. His ignorance was a result of the easy access he had to power and wealth. He feels that because he has wealth and power in society, he is given the acquiescence to be as arrogant and immoral as he so chooses and society cannot do anything about it. Because of this he looks down upon people that he feels are lower in the social and financial ladder. An example of this is when Nick is talking to tom about his accomplice in adultery and Nick says â€Å"Doesn’t her(Myrtle Wilson) husband object?† and Tom replies with â€Å"Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive† (Gatsby 26). This indicates that Tom is very cocky and ignorant. Tom’s immoral acts in the novel stem from his overconfidence and ignorance due to his wealth and power. This is further proved by the fact that when his first and only child was born, he left Daisy without any support only one hour after the birth of their daughter. This is shown in the novel when Daisy says â€Å"Well she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where† (Gatsby 22). For most, the birth of a child would be a joyous occasion and a reason for celebration but as for Tom’s case, he had no love for Daisy at that time. If he had love for her, he would not commit a sin and perpetrate adultery with Myrtle Wilson. A man with strong morals would never commit the sin of betraying their spouse and then cause the other person to do the same in the process. Moreover, he uses his accomplice in the adultery as an object and has no care or consideration for her whatsoever. An example of this is an altercation between Myrtle and Tom : â€Å"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!† shouted Mrs. Wilson. â€Å"I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy!

AE response to Alcoholism :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This week’s selections of articles from the AE reader were both interesting and thought provoking. The first article â€Å"Drinking to get Drunk,† details the growing concern of binge drinking on college campuses across the country. I thought it was very interesting that 23% of students are â€Å"frequent binge drinkers† whereby frequent binge drinking is operationally defined as those who consumed at least five drinks in a row at one point during any two week period. This is startling number when thinking of my own drinking habits or even the social norms of drinking on this campus. I would be confident in claiming that at Providence College, the percentage of frequent binge drinkers is likely higher than the national percentage. With the social culture of this campus being focused on gatherings that include alcohol, it is hard to remove oneself from a drinking climate. As a student leader on this campus, we are required to program so many a lcohol free activities to promote a â€Å"dry† campus. These efforts go unnoticed and very often are unattended by students because of the competition of the off campus bar scene. Perhaps if the surrounding community (ie: local bar establishments/package stores, law enforcement officials, attorney generals office) becomes more stringent in enforcing underage drinking regulations, it will become more difficult for underage students on this campus to drink. Or on the flipside, the result could be just as devastating with a shift in drinking off campus to on campus, causing more on campus disciplinary actions. This could be worth it however if it means that students will be drinking in their dorms and in a fairly safe environment unlike our neighboring community. Further examination on this campus is necessary and continues through student congress and Fr. McPhail’s office. Personally, I don’t think the drinking climate will change until the allure of drinking and being drunk is discouraged and students develop a mature sense of what is â€Å"cool.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second article â€Å"The Drug that Pretends it Isn’t† is also an article related to alcohol and the nasty consequences of drinking on our society. The article opens with the giggle of Jamaica, the trendy spring break hot spot that many college students flock to. A policy research group called Drug Strategies produced a report that calls alcohol â€Å"America’s most pervasive drug problem,† which is sadly true. What shocked me was the claim that alcohol-related deaths outnumber deaths related to drugs four to one; alcohol is a factor in more than half of all domestic-violence and sexual assault cases.

Industry Analysis on Fast Food Essay

1. A few of the chief economic and business characteristics of the global fast-food industry are as follows: In the market growth rate the expected food sales is predicted to increase by $208 billion by 2020 with us already being at $800 billion by 2001. Under entry barriers for the fast-food industry the main concerns would be the entry costs, location, capital cost, and licensing. For a business to have success they must have the right location. Under exit barriers there are land leasing, building leases, capital cost. 2. Some of the driving forces include the quality of the food, price of the food, and the nutritional value. Some of the consumers that are playing an important role in fast food are women employed outside the home, two-earned households, higher income, and smaller size of the family. Increased food spending driven by population growth is just one way consumers will shape the future of the US food system. 3. Five forces: a. Rivalry among competitors- in the fast-food industry it’s who can get the food out the fastest. b. New entrants- the competition is increasing due to not having many entry barriers. c. Substitute products- there are many choices in the fast food industry leaving consumers with so many different choices. Therefore each individual fast-food restaurants needs to differentiate their product so people will want to come back for their product. For example what is it about Popeye’s chicken vs. KFC’s? d. Suppliers and buyers- in the fast-food industry if the buyers aren’t satisfied with the suppliers than they can easily switch their suppliers leaving the suppliers with a disadvantage. Also if suppliers cannot offer something unique that only restaurants can get form them, then they have no power to keep that restaurant’s business. 4. A few factors that are critical to success in the fast-food industry are timeliness of the food, quality of the food, quantity of the food, and the pricing of the food. 5. It’s attractive in they way that with the fast paced growth of the fast-food industry, there are so many restaurants entering because there are minimal entry barriers. Anyone who wants to open a restaurant can. Also, there are very low switching costs, which make restaurants look very appealing to big corporations. It can be unattractive because more and more consumers are willing to spend more money on better quality food rather than the quantity of food at a fast-food restaurant. Also senior citizens and immigrants are more likely to cook at home and move away from the trend.

Ethical Issues with Termination

At-will employment means that the employee or employer has the right â€Å"to end the employment relationship at any time with or without notice or cause. † (FedEx Office: AllBusiness, 1999-2009) Involuntary termination is a touchy subject for employers and it can happen for numerous reasons: specific cause, such as stealing, poor performance, and layoffs due to lack of work. Even though most companies have an â€Å"at-will† relationship with their employees, it is still arguably illegal to terminate an employee for no reason.When it comes to termination, managers are faced with current moral and ethical issues. In a lot of companies, in addition to professional relationships, managers develop personal relationships with their employees. In most cases, employees spend a majority of their week (40+ hours) with their â€Å"work family. † Co-workers learn about each other's families, extra-curricular activities, and personal problems. Even if managers try to separat e themselves from their employees on a personal level, it is difficult to ignore new school pictures being displayed on their desks or avoid a discussion about a recent weekend vacation.When legitimate problems arise in a company which requires involuntary termination, the manager faces a dilemma. They must fire an employee because it is best for the company and ignore the thoughts of how it will affect their family and personal life. Often times, employees take the involuntary termination harder because they feel betrayed by someone they considered their â€Å"friend†. When an employee is terminated, in more cases than not, they feel blind-sided; most of them â€Å"never saw it coming†.It is essential that employers set and follow standard documentation procedures that will provide a timeline of disciplinary action and performance reviews that will serve as proof of legitimate termination if necessary. A disgruntled employee may question the validity of their terminat ion and in some cases seek legal counsel to help them determine if there was just cause. The current social issues in the United States may make it more difficult for a manager to terminate an employee while at the same time it is more than necessary.The financial state of the country is  causing businesses to struggle which results in less profits; less profits mean that a company's productions will be lowered so they cannot afford and do not need the same number of employees. In this case, an employee may not have given any cause for termination but managers must choose which employee they are willing to lose. They may choose the last hired, the highest paid, or the employee that is least valuable.Knowing that the rate of unemployment is at an all time high and the possibility of finding other employment may take longer than usual, the manager faces a tough a decision when thinking of how their decision will negatively each person they must terminate. Severance packages may be o ffered in exchange for â€Å"a full release of all claims† that may be filed against the company for wrongful termination. Tough economical times may cause disgruntled employees to take whatever measures necessary to generate income for their family. I have been a victim of wrongful termination.In 2002,  I started working as an assistant to the Office Manager  of a small financial company. There were only two other people above the Office Manager and that was a person in sales position and then the President of the company. I quickly caught on and was given more responsibilities as well as a pretty healthy increase in pay. Working in a small office allows for unconventional relationships between managers and employees; we shared the same interests, shared a similar sense of humor which resulted in a workplace friendship between all of us.Lunch trips and shopping breaks turned into personal Christmas party invitations and summer beach house vacations. We were all very clos e and business was increasing so more employees were hired to work under me. My supervisor and I became almost interchangeable. If she was not there, I took over and performed her duties, although she could not perform mine. I sensed animosity building and tension rising, but overall I knew I was there as her assistant and was careful to never overstep my boundaries.Business slowed and our sales structure changed, so cuts were being made. The sales person was let go and I think she felt that one of us would be next; even though she had been there longer I know she felt threatened that I could perform her job as well as mine. She started targeting me; purposefully changing my changing after my school schedule had been approved, moving my desk unnecessarily, and creating an overall hostile work environment by addressing everyone in a room except for me.I knew what she was doing; being a part of the â€Å"inside upper management†, I had witnessed her do it to others before. Her strategy was to make employees quit in order to avoid the expense of paying unemployment wages. One week, she called me into an office to discuss my work performance and stated that she was giving me a warning. I knew that she was now trying to create a paper trail of disciplinary problems, even though nothing had changed in my performance.The following week she requested another meeting and said that she was writing me up for personal internet usage. Previously, it was acceptable for us to check our personal email, and she and I would collectively read news and gossip and exchange stories across the room. I refused to sign the disciplinary notice because I had not been informed of any policy changes, so that was then considered insubordination. I was asked to leave; I immediately went to the Department of Labor to file for unemployment due to wrongful termination.I explained to them that my termination was not legitimate. I waited for them to contact my employer and of course they provided a copy of the form that I refused to sign. The Department of Labor declined my request for unemployment compensation, so I appealed their decision and wrote a very long letter explaining everything I knew about how my supervisor â€Å"set up† previous employees to keep them from receiving unemployment. I also requested a phone interview in which both I and my supervisor would be present with a Department of Labor representative.My supervisor declined the request; I assume because she knew she was wrong and did not want to be faced with questions regarding what I wrote. Nine months later, I was contacted by the President of the company stating that they had tried to hire several people to take my place and he realized that he should have never allowed her to terminate me. He offered me a large salary increase and a promise that my employment status will never be in her hands. She still works with me, and we are â€Å"friends† again, but I have definitely learne d to keep office friendships to a minimum.Today we are able to laugh at the situation; deep down I think she respects me for standing up for myself and she knows that I am a great asset to the company. Termination is not something that anyone ever looks forward to, be it the employee or the employer. Unfortunately it has to be done, and employers must take steps to protect themselves from lawsuits and disgruntled employees. Employees must learn that although there may be a â€Å"relationship† with their manager, the manager must first look out for the business's best interest and it may ot always include them as an employee.References Butler, B. (2009). Right-to-Work and At-Will Employee. Today’s Workplace: A Workplace Fairness Blog. Retrieved on December 7, 2009. Farr, . (2000,  November). Terminations Require Careful Study, Planning. Small Business, (), 15. FedEx Office: AllBusiness. (1999-2009). Decreasing the Legal Risks of Employee Termination.