Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I was reading your article “Which bosses are best?” the other day in the online edition of the Guardian. The article talks about successful leadership. I am writing this letter because as soon as I have finished my school in May I want to enter the world of work. However I must take issue with your editorial because I cannot agree with the published arguments in some points.

Basically what your article says is that there was a survey of secretaries to find out which bosses are better – male or female. The results are clear, only 7 % say that they would prefer a woman as a boss. However John Nicholson, a business psychologist, is wondering why the results are that clear

 He marks out that qualities valued in a successful boss are feminine. He also says that women are much more effective negotiators, better listeners and more flexible – in fact they are better bosses.

I am absolutely surprised about Nicholson’s opinion. In my point of view men are much better bosses because they are more stress-resistant, braver, as well as confident. Besides men are more directive and empowering. They know better how to teach their employees the ins and outs.

To sum it up, I really can’t understand why talking about this issue still matters.

If women were better bosses why on earth should the numbers of men in top management be that much higher?

Yours sincerely,

Julian Reindl

Perg

Cartoon

Hello everybody!

Since we were talking about funny cartoons in our last English lesson, I decided to present you the above-placed cartoon. I have found this article on the website “imfunny.net”

I thought it would be a great idea to share it with you because it is really funny.

In the picture you can see two people, a father and his son. You can also see the son’s desk, his computer and two chairs.

The fathers is intending on explaining his son the facts of life. He is saying “I think it’s time we had a talk about sex …”. But his son, who is sitting on his chair desk casually and relaxed, casts a very cool glance at his dad. He is asking his dad what he would like to know from him.

You got it?

But this cartoon is not just about fun, it also regards an often discussed issue.

Everyone can find nearly everything on the Internet. Most of the time it can be very useful, convenient and instructive. But it’s important to know the “rules” of the Internet. Be careful and don’t trust everyone and everything.

The young boy stands for the young generation of people who can better deal with computers than most of the adults nowadays.

Regards,
Julian 

Company profile - IBM

Hello everybody!

Due to the fact that our A-level exams are coming closer and closer I have prepared a press review about a potential topic for our exam which is about a company profile.

I was reading an article the other day in the online edition of “The Guardian” and it talks about the company profile of the International Business Machines Corporation, called IBM.

I thought you might be interested because IBM is the worldwide leading technology company for hardware, software and IT services.

First question is, what is a company profile and what does it consist of?

A company profile is a short description of a company which includes the main data on the company, the company’s history, its key figures on past, current and anticipated financial performance, the number of its employees and members of the board of directors.

Now to the overview.

IBM is a computer, technology and IT consulting corporation which was founded in 1911 and is now conducted by CEO Virginia Rometty. The headquarters are located in Armonk, New York. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software and infrastructure services, ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.

Basically, the article says that the revenue of IBM amounts to 81.8 billion US Dollars and that 380,000 people are employed worldwide.

It also says that IBM originally started in the United States but nowadays the corporation is present globally. Even in Austria there are seven subsidiaries, one of them is in Blumau Tower in Linz.

IBM’s company profile also includes „environmental risks and impacts”. IBM mentions that their environmental focus is on:

- energy conservation

- climate protection

- supply chain requirements

- material use

Other aspects which are stated in IBM’s company profile are performance indicators like

-net income

-cash flow

-operating margin (Gewinnspanne)

-equity ratio (Eigenkapitalrate)

Regards,

Julian

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/profile-ibm

Businesses allowing remote work

Hello everybody!

In our last English lesson we talked about a new trend in society – working from home. So everyone of us got the exercise to interpret a chart.

My graph is about „Businesses allowing remote work”. It’s a bar chart, which shows the percentage on its vertical axis. The numbers on the horizontal axis stand for the number of employees in different companies.

On an average 62% of the Austrian companies allow remote work. As you can see in the graph, three out of seven charts are under the average of 62 %. Companies employing 20 to 99 people are right at the average. Among the companies employing 5 to 9 people almost 50 % allow remote work. Nearly three out of four companies employing 500 to 2500 people allow remote work.

I personally think that allowing remote work is a good idea. But I don’t think that this chart represents the situation in Austria. I guess that there is much less remote work in Austria.

It’s a win-win-situation for the company and the employee because the company save labour costs and the employee don’t need to go to work.

Regards, 

Julian

Burning Man Festival

Hi everybody!

Since we were talking about festivals, especially about the Holi festival and about the Burning Man festival, in our last English lesson, I decided to inform you now about the Burning Man festival.

I thought you might be interested because Burning Man is one of the biggest festivals in the world.

Every year the art event takes place in the Black Rock Desert. The week-long event attracts about 50,000 people who live in temporary tent cities. At the festival the people are encouraged to perform and to organise activities.

The highlight of the festival is the burning of a 40-foot-tall wooden man.

What interested me most was that there are a lot of "own rules" for the event. For example the use of money is forbidden, everyone has to bring his own food and automobiles are forbidden. (except they have been transformed into "art cars".

What do you think about the festival? Let me know!

Regards, Julian

Trip to France!

Hi everybody!

My classmates and I made a language trip to France in June. Let me tell you something about it.

We started our trip in Linz where we unfortunately got to know that our teacher and guide for this week became ill. Nevertheless we went to Vienna by train to get our flight to Paris. But our goal was to get to St. Malo. So we went by bus for about 7 hours. We arrived completely exhausted in St. Malo where our host families collected us. Gregor and I got a very nice family. They were very friendly, our rooms were big and the eating was delicious. In the first two days we did some sightseeing with our excellent guide Serge. We went by ship to Dinard, investigated St. Malo, Cancale and "Le Mont Saint Michel". We also went to a tidal power station and to an aquarium. Stefan, Jakob Gregor and I rented a bicycle. So we were very fast and could also visit some other sights. In the evenings we went to bars to watch the matches of the European championship. We had a lot of fun there.

After five days in St. Malo we went back to Paris but not only to visit the city. On Wednesday we watched the football match Austria against Iceland in Saint-Denis. It was an amazing event but unfortunately Austria lost the match. The next two days we did some sightseeing with our guide Jacque. We went to Louvre, Notre-Dame, l'Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysée and so on.

It was a wonderful trip which I will never forget.

Regards,

Julian

The battle of Chernobyl

Hi everybody!

Since the Ukraine is marking the 30^th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster I want to write an article about a video that we watched in our last English lesson. The video is called “The battle of Chernobyl”.

Basically the video says that on 26^th April 1986 the most serious nuclear accident ever in history has taken place.

An explosion and fire occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant which is located only three kilometres away from the city Pripyat. The explosion released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere which spread all over the USSR and Europe. The radioactive fallout was 100 times greater than the combined power of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is also said that two men died in this night and 28 in the following months. This were the first victims of Chernobyl.

The first day the inhabitants only were told that they should close the windows and stay inside. The children got iodine tablets at school.

After 30 hours over 1000 buses came to Pripyat to evacuate all the persons concerned. The 43000 inhabitants only had two hours to get all their belongings.

They were told that they will come back home in some days but in reality they could never go home again.

After some days the responsible still didn’t say a word. At the 28^th April radioactive dust of Chernobyl rained down on Stockholm. That’s how the other countries experienced what has happened.

But the fire still burned. So a lot of helicopter flew to the Nuclear Power Plant to extinguish the flames. They threw tons of sandbags to stop the fire and neutralise radiation.

The radiation victims were sent to Moscow. The initial symptoms of radiation sickness are vomiting, and nausea.

It is unbelievable what has happened on the 26th April in Ukraine. We still see the consequences today. Numerous persons fall ill and die.

What shocked me most was that nothing has happened more than 30 hours. The inhabitants of the obvious cities, especially the inhabitants of Pripyat, neither were warned nor evacuated from the city.

Regards,

Julian