A Semester of Work :: What I Learned From Work

The fall of my nineteenth year promised to be a long one. For the first time in thirteen years I found myself out of school. I was employed at the same mind numbing job that I had held for the last three years. While most of my friends were back in school after their summer break, I was back at home after a year of living in a college dorm. The transition was not an easy one for me, and I looked upon my semester off with little optimism. The previous fall was one of much more hope and excitement. At the age of eighteen, I was ready for college. I chose to attend State University, not far from my home, but still far removed from my former life, as I was moving away from my parents and into a dorm. I was to attend State with two of my closest friends from high school, and live with one of them. My major was undecided, so I planned on taking the general education requirements. I was quite unsure of what college held for me, but was eager to find out. It was not long before I discovered that, for me, college held boredom and feelings of uselessness. While I enjoyed some of my professors and courses, I treated college just as I had treated high school. The game plan was to show up, do just enough work to "earn" an A, and leave without gaining any pesky knowledge. Just like in high school, I executed this plan brilliantly, and found myself with a high grade point average and an even higher level of ignorance. Eventually, this method began to wear on me. As I was accomplishing nothing, feelings of guilt began to arise for the amount of money my parents were pumping into my education. Damned by a sense of self awareness, I realized that I was little more than a spoiled brat with time to waste. I finally began to look to the future and question where my life should lead. However, as I remained unsure of what direction I wanted to take, I became more frustrated than ever before. My solution? Run away from my problems. This brilliant idea initially manifested itself in a plan to travel the country for a semester. A Semester of Work :: What I Learned From Work The fall of my nineteenth year promised to be a long one. For the first time in thirteen years I found myself out of school. I was employed at the same mind numbing job that I had held for the last three years. While most of my friends were back in school after their summer break, I was back at home after a year of living in a college dorm. The transition was not an easy one for me, and I looked upon my semester off with little optimism. The previous fall was one of much more hope and excitement. At the age of eighteen, I was ready for college. I chose to attend State University, not far from my home, but still far removed from my former life, as I was moving away from my parents and into a dorm. I was to attend State with two of my closest friends from high school, and live with one of them. My major was undecided, so I planned on taking the general education requirements. I was quite unsure of what college held for me, but was eager to find out. It was not long before I discovered that, for me, college held boredom and feelings of uselessness. While I enjoyed some of my professors and courses, I treated college just as I had treated high school. The game plan was to show up, do just enough work to "earn" an A, and leave without gaining any pesky knowledge. Just like in high school, I executed this plan brilliantly, and found myself with a high grade point average and an even higher level of ignorance. Eventually, this method began to wear on me. As I was accomplishing nothing, feelings of guilt began to arise for the amount of money my parents were pumping into my education. Damned by a sense of self awareness, I realized that I was little more than a spoiled brat with time to waste. I finally began to look to the future and question where my life should lead. However, as I remained unsure of what direction I wanted to take, I became more frustrated than ever before. My solution? Run away from my problems. This brilliant idea initially manifested itself in a plan to travel the country for a semester.

Stadium Contracts

Need to talk about criteria/ funding where the money came from The Wembley stadium was built using a Design and build Procurement strategy. A Design and build strategy is where a single contractor is responsible for both the design and construction of the stadium. The client must specify the type of building they require and the contractor proposes the best design to meet this, this information was found at the web address Building. co. uk. A design and build project allows the low risk factor as for the client has the contractor takes on the risk by offering a fixed cost contract.The web address designbuild-network. com states the original provision for a building cost was around ? 352m, with total project costs of ? 757m. A fixed price contract protects the client from any expiring costs, for example if the construction of the stadium was to have any over runs or delays. The main contractor building Wembley stadium was Multiplex (UK) Ltd and Cyril Sweett acted as independent consul tants to Wembley National Stadium Limited (WNSL). In April 2002 the client was advised by Cyril Sweet the Multiplex contract was representing value for money this was stated on web address designbuild-network. om. Although Multiplex was the main contractor the project was project managed by Symonds. From the outset of this project was focused on risk transfer, the WNSL passed on all the risk to Multiplex and Multiplex passed on the risk to Symonds. Although the procurement method between the WNSL and Multiplex was Design and build, the procurement strategy for Multiplex and their sub-contractors was solely focused on risk transfer and not the needs of the project. a discussion on the criteria which would have been used to select the procurement strategy / building contract.The project priorities was The management capability The extent of risk that WNSL were prepared to accept was http://www. building. co. uk/data/procurement-construction-management/3072705. article the http://www. designbuild-network. com/projects/wembley/ Terminal 5 The terminal 5 project procurement route was a single contract called the T5 agreement. The decision was made by BAA that rather than passing the risk on to the vast amount of contractors involved in the project, BAA would take on all the risk. The webs address christianwolmar. o. uk states Mathew Riley, the company’s commercial director for Terminal 5, realised the financial consequences of risk being passed to contractors was the reason many recent construction projects had failed. BAA realised that projects such as the Jubilee Line Extension, the Scottish Parliament and the Millennium Dome had not really worked because ultimately the risk would always fall back on itself. Also many recent projects where the risk was attempted to be passed resulted in massive legal claims and counterclaims.Terminal 5 was a large infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a 260ha site. With such a project BAA realised that if the projects were to be built on time and within budget that a unique approach would be required. This information was found at web address www. airport-technology. com As a result of not wanting to pass on the risk, the sheer size of the project and the amount of contactors needed to be involved. The T5 agreement was a legally binding contract between BAA and its contractors. This agreement llowed the contractors to concentrate on the project and solving problems rather than worrying about time delays and risk. Web address the times online explains the new Terminal Five at Heathrow is the current benchmark for construction best practice. The recipe is simple. A client that takes a level of ownership of project (in this case he created a challenging vision for how it wanted the project delivered); a procurement approach that offers incentives to all, for improvements in cost, or time or quality and; and a proven construction and design team w ho work in a collaborative and innovative way. ttp://www. christianwolmar. co. uk/2005/04/project-management-at-heathrow-terminal-5/ http://www. airport-technology. com/projects/heathrow5/ http://www. timesonline. co. uk/tol/comment/article700388. ece http://www. christianwolmar. co. uk/2005/04/project-management-at-heathrow-terminal-5/ Scottish Parliament Provide general background information on each project. cover the roles and responsibilities of the Client, Design Team and Contractor involved. The first Scottish parliament building was created in September 1997 after a referendum in which people of Scotland voted by almost three to one.The client, the Scottish government decided on building a complex building from a mixture of steel, oak, and granite. The procurement route chosen by the Scottish government was construction management. The web address www. parliament. uk explains the procurement route chosen was to turn out to be the most significant decisions during the project , and also states Construction management offers the advantage of speed but with the disadvantage of price uncertainty until the last has been leased.Construction management was chosen not only for allowing the project to be started quickly and the reduction in overall construction. But the procurement route allows for change in design during the project and problems are generally solved rather than passed around the separate contractors. Choosing construction management as a procurement strategy means the client is responsible for leading the project and must take liability for any risks or mistakes.The Scottish government would have to hire designers to design the building, then the design could have been put out to tender. The advantage of construction management is that all tenders are based on the same design and can be compared easily. The web address www. ehow. com explains the client then has a trade contractor then adds details to this plan and finalizes it with the client. After this, the client typically hires a construction manager to oversee the process and manage workers.Though the construction manager takes a strong, second-hand position the client is the person that is ultimately in charge. This allows a less experienced client to have control of the build with construction advise from the construction manager. a discussion on the criteria which would have been used to select the procurement strategy / building contract.http://www. ehow. com/about_6635095_construction-management-procurement_. html

Social Problems With Age And Inequality - 1993 Words

There are many different Social Problem issues that we have covered so far in class. However, there is one that has stuck out to me the most. Many people tend to not think about Age and Inequality as an issue when it comes to older people. Yet, the truth is, this is a major social problem in our society. There is not straight cut answer to what this discrimination and abuse looks like, because it takes on so many different forms. Older People are often discriminated against in the work place, in their families and at their own care facilities. The damages, emotionally and physically, are more often than not irreversible. In the text book, Social Problems by John J. Macionis, the reader learns what exactly Age and Inequality is. Growing older is hard for some people to handle. Older people are more likely to experience social isolations because of the loss of people who are passing away around them. These people also start being victimized because many of the younger people believe th ey are out of touch with what is changing in society around them. As said before, not many people understand what this problem all entitles, because there are many different types of ageism’s, inequalities, discriminations and abuse that could happen. Other ways of being discriminated against would be being encouraged or forced to retire at a certain age. Another type of discrimination would be an older person having finical fraud committed against them. Furthermore, one of the most common waysShow MoreRelatedCumulative Inequality Theory And Social Science1166 Words   |  5 PagesFerraro et al. (2009) developed cumulative inequality theory by integrating various theories in a systematic way incorporating elements of both macro and micro sociological content. 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