The Inmate - Original Writing :: Papers

The Inmate - Original Writing The sounds of the keys echoed across the hallway. Past each set of bars the keys rang a wanted freedom. As the keys and the guard strolled past, almost motionless bodies turned, all drawing closer to the keys. Closer, closer à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ stop. The cold bars formed the wall that could not be broken. The freedom. All hands were on this wall except one. One set of hands lay quiet, still and with no movement. These hands belonged to a tall, dark-haired person, a man, and a ghost? ===================================================================== As the guard reached the end of the hallway this sly-looking being whispered, "It's mineà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦" Laughter spread across the cages as usual. " You on the high again, Mark?" sniggered Jon. " Wait and see, wait and see." The evil laugh that sounded after seemed to be from the movies. The voice trembled. Everyone just lay quiet. The next morning appeared as quickly as the routine it was accustomed to. The inmates were gathered for breakfast, given time outside for some exercise and then brought back to their cages. Same routine, same times, same people-but today something was different. Something was just not right. " What is it 'bout today?" questioned Henry, " It's just so strange. I can't put my finger on it". The other men nodded in agreement " Yeah, it feels like some one jus' died," replied Mark The hall filled with an uneasy silence. Mark got up and looked outside the small window, in the back of is cell he stood there gazing. He said to himself, "I've spent too long in here, 20 years of my life, 20 years for something I didn't even do." A strange voice then called, " Mark! Mark! I will set u free" he turned but nothing again the voice " Mark, Mark" still nothing. Mark turned to his fellow inmates and shouted, " Who is that? " they all looked at him blankly. He ran to the cold

Office Depot

â€Å"Office Depot† The First Office Depot opened in 1986 in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. The Office Depot is a global supplier of office products and services and has experienced a dramatic growth process over the past twenty-five years. In 1990 the Office Depot Companies bought â€Å"The Office Club Inc. †, and immediately became the largest office retailer in North America. Having built its business within the United States and having secured a firm business foundation, Office Depot expanded internationally in 1992. In 1996, Office Depot took its’ catalog and delivery service(s) online.Office Depot opened about 125 stores between the years 2000-2004. With the economic downturn of 2007, new strategies had to be put in place, and by 2009, 125 stores in international markets were closed. Office Depot exited the Japanese market entirely. Today, Office Depot provides office supplies and services through 1,678 retail stores worldwide, a dedicated sales force, top-rate d catalogs, and global e-commerce operations. Office Depot has annual sales of $11. 5 billion, employs roughly 39,000 employees, and serves customers in 61 countries.Their distribution channels include stores, direct mail, contract delivery, the internet, and B2B e-commerce. Viking Office Products, their wholly owned subsidiary, currently operates one of the industry’s leading direct mail marketers of office products worldwide. The competitive strategy that the Office Depot will approach is a â€Å" best-cost provider strategy† to become #1 in the office supply business. For online purchases, customers will be offered free shipping on any purchase over $25. 00. A promotional discount will be applied for 20% off, on the next purchase for every $100. 00 spent by the customer.There will be a rewards program for customers and businesses that continue to shop with Office Depot. Based on the number of office supply items purchased, the next item will be free and additional d iscounts will be applied to future purchases. After the retail store(s), prices will be lowered on items bought primarily by back-to-school customers and also year-round casual shoppers items. The retail stores will monitor active inventory for excess quantities and slow moving items and record adjustments as necessary to lower the price(s) if the anticipated realizable amount is below cost.Also, estimate and determine what items to stock and at what level, and what items to discontinue and how to value them prior to sale. The large-format retail stores will be reduced to half of the current square-footage, and staff will focus only on supplying consistently purchased merchandise. Items that tend to sit dormant at retail will be provided online only. If a retail store cannot maintain projected sales quotas, the store will be closed in that market area. New government contracts will be provided at 20% discount based on the number of office supplies purchased.Office Depot will retain business with local, state, and federal governments’ and non-profit organizations contracts by offering a lower cost than other competitors. Office Depots long term strategic direction is to be consumer focused in terms of product assortment, store layouts, new service offerings, and compelling pricing that sends a positive value message to its’ customers. This falls in line with the â€Å"best cost provider strategy† giving customers more value for the money while satisfying buyers’ expectations on key quality/features/performance/service attributes beating their price expectations.One of the main ways that Office Depot has responded was with its’ Magellan innovation, a three-year program which significantly enhanced IT capabilities. The new system will provide such benefits as improved forecasting, better support for planning, and improved profitability. This can be achieved through better utilization of store space, better pricing and data integ rity, better stocking, and reduced inventory with the end results benefiting the customer.In 2011 Office Depot announced that it is boosting their capital expenditure budget for 2012 to approximately $160 million, with a heavy emphasis on e-commerce and other IT investments. The retailers’ digital investments will be particularly important given its plans to shrink both the average size of its brick-and-mortar stores and its product assortments. Office Depots’ e-commerce sales have become an integral part of the company. Office Depot is the number (2) U. S. e-commerce retailer, second only to Amazon. com Inc.Office Depots’ aggressive Internet strategy has also generated twice the e-commerce sales of its’ rival Staples Inc. Office Depot SWOT Analysis Strengths: * Strong private label product line increases sales nationally and internationally. * Large, diverse customer base (individuals, small business, and large businesses) both nationally and overseas. * Company transitioning to smaller store format will increase presence in high growth markets. * As a direct result of negative economy, company has shuttered underperforming stores. * Cash liquid business with total assets of over four- billion dollars U.S. Weaknesses: * Little opportunity for real growth in U. S. market due to over-saturation. * Increases in competition in U. S. products market, combined with a reliance on low profit- margin electronics. * Due to the downturn of the economy coupled with continued nationally high unemployment rates†¦ sales, profits, and some business markets have diminished. * Accusations of overcharging Government Contract customers have been made public. Opportunities: * Money spent on office equipment and related items increasing among small and medium businesses. Increased ability to enter into more densely populated areas, while also reducing costs. * Increased opportunities of acquisitions due to strong cash reserves. * Increasing line of private label products geared towards â€Å"green† technology. Threats: * The global financial downturn. * High unemployment, coupled with an increase in office vacancies, compounded by low consumer confidence results in decreased spending. * Low cost/low quality imported equipment and products can lead to quality related issues. * Low switching costs increases competition and can lead to â€Å"price wars†.

In his poetry Hardy shows more sympathy for the natural world than he does for people Essay

In his poetry Hardy shows more sympathy for the natural world than he does for people. How far do you agree with this view? You may wish to use ‘The Blinded Bird’ as a starting point for your answers. In your answer you should either refer to 2 or 3 poems or range more widely though the selection. Throughout Hardy’s poetry it is clear that he tends to show a lot more sympathy for the natural world than he does for people shown through key poems such as ‘The Blinded Bird’ , ‘The Darkling Thrush’ and ‘The Puzzled Game-Birds’. These three poems all use nature and animals to explore feelings and Hardy tends to be more sympathetic towards the natural surroundings, in these poems he specifically references birds. He also shows his sympathy for the natural world by showing the animals in a more positive light than he does people; as shown through the poem ‘The Puzzled Game-Birds’. When looking at Hardy’s poem ‘The Puzzled Game-Birds’ I can make the judgement that I do agree fully with the view that Hardy does show more sympathy through his poems, especially this one, for the natural world than he does for people. Through this poem Hardy uses nature to portray his thoughts on cruelty since he shows how the birds are puzzled and confused ‘They are not those who used to feed us’ and the repetition of this line shows the birds denial of not wanting to believe that the people could perform such evil actions. The line ‘If hearts can house such treachery’ is an example of human betrayal from the bird’s perspective because the humans were benevolent, they provided and cared for the birds, then they contradicted themselves and betrayed the birds trust by depriving them. Hardy dehumanises the people through the line ‘They are not those who used to feed us’ because he takes away the individuality of the person by grouping all humans together. By taking away the individuality of the human, Hardy forces us to sympathise with the birds since the poem focuses more on the hardships and cruelty that they are suffering. The poem ‘The Blinded Bird’ again supports a view that I agree with that Hardy expresses more sympathy for the natural world than he does for people. He does this throughout this poem by conveying the opinion of how humanity is evil and a cruel, the rhetorical questions and strong caesura placement at the end of the poem ‘Who is divine? This bird. ’ affirms this. Hardy shows sympathy with the bird in this poem by showing the birds passion through the repetition of the line ‘So zestfully canst thou sing? ’ and his own confusion of how the bird can be so happy when the bird is blind through the line ‘I stand and wonder how’. The poem references God in the second stanza by the repetition of the line ‘Resenting not such wrong, thy grievous pain forgot’ which insinuates that the bird is not resentful towards God for the fact that he is blind; he just loves his life and carries on with it as normal, ignoring the fact that he is blind. This poem clearly shows a lot of sympathy since it demonstrates how a bird that has one of its main senses taken away from him can still lead a happy life and sing so passionately ‘Who suffereth long and is kind†¦who thinketh no evil, but sings?†¦ This bird. ’ Very similar to ‘The Blinded Bird’ the poem the ‘The Darkling Thrush’ again shows Hardy’s more sympathetic approach to the natural world than his approach to humans. The first stanza opens with a description of the dreary, bleak winter landscape, but the downhearted tone is transformed by the bright, optimistic singing, ‘full-hearted evensong’, of an ‘aged thrush’ who was ‘frail, gaunt, and small’. In the first stanza the phrase ‘broken lyres’ is used, which could be seen as a simile which expresses broken faith showing a negative outlook on the century. In the last stanza Hardy includes a description of a ‘caroling’ bird which Hardy could have used to suggest hope and the continuity of life. The speaker concludes in the last stanza that the small bird possesses ‘some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware’. I believe Hardy to use this bird to portray the view that nature holds a secret and the potential for happiness that man cannot always intellectually grasp, but perhaps can emotionally appreciate. The rhyme scheme is broken when the thrush enters singing melodically in the penultimate stanza. However, the scheme seems to return in the final stanza which illustrates Hardy’s pessimistic nature returning. For example he refers to hope as ‘blessed’ which shows he does value it, but simply cannot channel it like the thrush is able to. Alliteration is used in the lines ‘Century’s corpse’ and ‘growing gloom’ to demonstrate the inescapability of time and these phrases demonstrate Hardy’s pessimistic thoughts and mind-set. ‘The Darkling Thrush’ portrays a parallel between Hardy’s feelings and emotions with nature by how the thrush emits ‘joy illimited’ which is a profound contrast to Hardy’s pessimism. From the poem we can draw the conclusion that as shown in stanza 3, Hardy’s tone seems in awe of the thrush and is impressed by the bird’s unexpected happiness. This can be linked to ‘The Blinded Bird’, where again in the poem the bird possesses an unexplainable happiness and was not discouraged in the slightest to live life to the max even though it had lost its sight. In all I entirely agree with the view that Hardy does tend to sympathise more with the natural world than he does with humans. I agree with the view due to the fact that the poems that I have looked at all seem to favour nature and portray the animals as being overlooked and disregarded by the humans who were portrayed as immoral and inferior and in the case of ‘The Puzzled Game-Birds’ malicious and violent. I also think he is inclined to sympathise with the natural world more because he views his surroundings as a natural beauty that is not noticed and appreciated enough by the human race.