Richord Cory Essays - Richard Cory, Cory, Nirvana, Kurt Cobain

Richord Cory The lifestyle of fame and fortune is not always what it seems to be. It may seem that the big houses, the fancy cars, or even the men or women that seem unattainable lead to happiness. That is not always true though. In 1994, Kurt Cobain the lead singer of a popular band called Nirvana committed suicide. Kurt was on the top of the world and nothing was going to bring him down. He had money, fame, and even a loving family, but he still found a reason to kill himself. In Edwin Arlington Robinsons poem Richard Cory the some exact thing happened. All the towns people liked Richard Cory, he was well educated, a perfect gentleman when he talked to people, and he was extremely rich. Just because a person has better things than we do does not mean that they are always happier. Money and possessions does not give people happiness in their life, but it does give them misery and sadness. Richard Cory was well liked by the towns people not only because he was rich and smart, but also he was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim (1. 3-4). Whenever Richard Cory went somewhere the people around him felt his presence. He was always nicely English Essays

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essays

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essays The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essay The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations Essay The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations JOHN H HANNAH III UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations This paper will examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment. As the move to outsourcing is part of a wider phenonom for flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organizations. This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization. Many counties within the US, have chosen to outsource the investment and operation of non-competitive public services, such as water and waste management, public transports, mail services, information and communication technology services, facilities management and road infrastructures. Outsourcing today has become an essential revenue and growth strategy for almost every existing corporation. It creates flexibility in the company, ensuring the maximum utilization of available resources within the company. It also offers corporations cost advantages and help free up their management resources. Orange county government-anywhere USA, requested the services of a Home Land Security Specialist to assist in the collaborative, assessment, development and strategic enhancement of it municipality’s Information Technology (IT) and Critical Facilities’ (CF) upgrades and security. Upon the completion of plan, expectations and deliverables, a series of introductions with Directors, Managers and Supervisors, it was apparent the federal dollars associated with the project was indeed the motive for the invitation. In my initial general assessment and development of a strategy, the organization handbook was the first critical reading which uncovered a mission statement, values, ethical guidelines and the organizational cultural premise. â€Å"The Mayor’s outline the vision, values and mission as simple – to serve. You have an important job to do as we work to meet the needs of our citizens. We ensure that roads are built and maintained; we protect environmental resources; we respond to crisis and emergency situations; we staff facilities that care for people; and we ensure that the quality of life of our citizens is protected our challenge is to build on the strengths of our diverse community so that everyone can enjoy the very best Orange County has to offer. We are committed to maintaining an organization where citizens are engaged in civic affairs, take ownership in their government and have input in the decision making process†. The following core values serve as our foundation: 1. FAIRNESS, 2. WORK ETHIC 3. INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER 4. EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION: 5. PROFESSIONALISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY (Orange County Government, 2012) . The role of the Security Specialist in this public sector organization is to examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment and develop a strategy to move this organization toward outsourcing initially in the areas of IT and CF. Provide an assessment and evaluation of the organizational readiness for change in the area of outsourcing. This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization in the form of an assessment. As public sector moves to outsourcing as part of a wider strategy to increase flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organization. Outsourcing helps organizations to be focused. Since the most valuable resource within management is time, once a process is successfully outsourced, the management gets more and effective time to explore new revenue streams, time to accelerate other projects and time to focus on customers. Traditionally executives spend 80 percent of their time managing details, and only 20 percent on planning and customer relations, in other words, a successful outsourcing process can help reverse this ratio. Outsourcing can also help companies to have access to new technologies that might not be used in their company. This is mainly because the outsourcers use the latest state-of-the art technologies to serve their private sector clients. And this might also increase the change paradigm shift and rapid migration of these companies to new technology. Outsourcing also helps multi functional areas and department of a public sector providing the benefit of 24-hour operational cycles and providing necessary services to their customer. The ever- growing pressure for increased productivity and profitability of city, county and state governments thus, the pressures to reduce costs and improve productivity are the main factors that influenced the beginning of offshore outsourcing. For example, the main advantages to move production to private contracting of products and services to reduce in-house human resources management cost. Hence, today outsourcing has become an attractive and powerful strategy for companies to reduce cost and improve performance. These models provide theoretical guidelines upon which valid and reliable organizational assessments should be based. All of these models provide value to management and human resource organizational leaders performing organizational assessments based on a internal aspects or a system theory evaluation approach (Erwin Garman, 2010). The McKinsey 7S Framework model is used as a tool to assess and monitor changes in the internal situation of an organization closed system assessment. The model is based on the theory that, for an organization to perform well, these seven elements need to be aligned and mutually reinforcing. So, the model can be used to help identify what needs to be realigned to improve performance, or to maintain alignment (and performance) during other types of change. The basic premise of the model is that there are seven internal aspects of an organization that need to be aligned if it is to be successful evaluation and assessment tool. The Seven Interdependent Elements of the 7s model are Hard elements (strategy, structure and systems) and the Soft Elements (shared values, skills, style and staff) (Waterman, Peters, Phillips, 1980) Burke Litwin Model (The Casual Model of Organizational Performance Change) – The Burke Litwin Model, suggests linkages that hypothesize how performance is affected by internal and external factors. It provides a framework to assess organizational and environmental dimensions that are keys to successful change and it demonstrates how these dimensions should be linked causally to achieve a change in performance. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes. If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke Litwin, 1992). The Marvin Weisbord-Six-Box Model (Weisbord’s Model) is designed to assess the functioning of organizations based mainly on the techniques and assumptions of the field of organizational development. The model represents a particular way of looking at organizational structure and design. It gives attention to issues such as planning, incentives and rewards, the role of support functions such as personnel, internal competitions among organizational units, standards for remuneration, partnerships, hierarchies and the delegation of authority, organizational control, accountability and performance assessment. The model also follows the basic systems approach to organizational functioning including the well-known inputs and outputs categories. The six-box model is comprised of the following components (boxes): (1). Purposes, (2). Structure, (3) relationships; (4). Rewards, (5). Leadership, (6). Coordinating technologies. The only disadvantage to this model is it s design to only address internal environments (Weisbord, 1978). An open system organizational development theory and (Burke Litwin) model will be utilized to conduct a diagnosis analysis planned change assessment to the organization. These changes are usually designed to address an organization problem or to help an organization prepare for future. It is the one method of quickly bringing change, which focus on human and social aspects of the organization as a way to improve organization’s ability to adapt and solve problems. The best theory is developed from practice; the best practice should be grounded in theory (Seeger, 2006; Brown, 2011). The Burke Litwin Model hypothesizes’ how performance is affected by internal and external factors. Public sector management occurs within a complex, dynamic system involving stakeholders, coupled with informational and resource material flows and behaviour that is characterized by interactions related to internal and external environments. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes. If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke Litwin, 1992). The theory of Organizational readiness for change is considered a multi-level, multi-faceted construct. From and organization-level construct, readiness for change refers to organizational members shared resolve to implement a change (change commitment) and shared belief in their collective capability to do so (change efficacy). Organizational readiness for change varies as a function of how much organizational member’s value the change and how favorably they appraise three key determinants of implementation capability: task demands, resource availability, and situational factors. When organizational readiness for change is high, organizational members are more likely to initiate change, exert greater effort, exhibit greater persistence, and display more cooperative behavior (Weiner, 2009). References Bateman, T. S. , Snell, S. A. (2007). Management: Leading collaboratiing in a competitive world (7th ed. . New York, NY: McGraw Hill Irwin. Boland, T. , Fowler, A. (2000). A systems perspective of performance management in public sector management. The International Journal of Public Sector organizations, 13(5), 417-446. doi:10. 1108/09513550010350832 Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed. ). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall. Burke, W. W. , Litwin, G. H. (1992). Causal model of organization performance and change’. Journal Management, 18(3), 523-545. doi:10. 1177/014920639201800306 Erwin, D. G. , Garman, A. N. (2010). Resistance to organizational change: Linking research and practice,. Leadership Organization Development Journal, 31(1), 39-56. doi:10. 1108/01437731011010371 Harrison, M. I. , Shirom, A. (1999). Organizational diagnosis and assessment: Bridging theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kotter, J. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 59-67. Retrieved from http://89. 248. 0. 102/upload/Topplederprogrammet/Kotter. pdf Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. London, England: Harper Row. Orange County Government. 2012, April). Employee Handbook. Fl. Retrieved from ocfl. net/Portals/0/resourcelibrary/employment-employehandbook. pdf Waterman, R. , Peters, T. J. , Phillips, J. R. (1980). Structure is not organization. Mckinsey Quarterly, 2-20. Retrieved from tompeters. com/docs/Structure_Is_Not_Organization. pdf Weisbord, M. (1978). Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice. Addison-wesley. Wiener, B. J. (2009 ). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4, 67. doi:10. 1186/1748-5908-4-67

Bsa 375 Week 2 Dq Essay Example for Free (#375)

Bsa 375 Week 2 Dq Essay Week 2 DQ DQ1 1.How were the problems with the system missed? Problems were missed by failing to complete the SDLC. The application was developed based on information gathered from agents, but doesn’t seem that it was modified during the system implementation phase. 2.How might these problems have been foreseen and possibly avoided? The problem could have been foreseen and possibly avoided by creating use cases. Use cases will help develop detailed requirements along with expectations, and error handling. 3.In perfect hindsight, the widespread availability of such systems on the internet today, what should the company have done? The company should have taken some time to redesign or retool the application at the first sign of user displeasure. DQ2 1.What is the purpose of developing use cases during systems analysis? How do use cases relate to the requirements stated in the requirements definition? The purpose of developing use cases during system analysis is to help develop the practical requirements, and help understand exceptions, special cases and error handling requirements. Use cases will provide a comprehensive understanding of user interfaces. DQ3 1.A system development project may be approached in one of two ways: as a single, monolithic project in which all requirements are considered at once or as a series of smaller projects focusing on smaller sets of requirements. Which approach seems to be more successful? Why do you suppose that this is true? Be specific. You can answer from your experience or the reading in chapter 3 of this week’s materials. Bsa 375 Week 2 Dq. (2016, Mar 25). We have essays on the following topics that may be of interest to you

Correlation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Correlation - Assignment Example Correlation helps so much and the complex correlational designs that are there recently are of so much help since they allow very little causal inferences (Riccardo, 2005). Some of the variables such as those which are related to malnutrition and other cases like age and birth order since they correlational in nature. They require correlational evidence in order to be proven scientifically. Correlation is also very important in statistics since it helps us so much to make predictions since when one is able to understand the score of something one is able to predict more accurately the next score having basis on correlation. Under controlled experimental conditions the evidence that has been gotten from studies that have used correlation one can be able to test the evidence. Correlation is a very good method and by the use of its designs appropriately causal inferences are limited. It is cheaper when using some of the correlation. Most of the methods used in correlation are not expensive. It is very fast and cheap and also easy to apply. It helps the researchers to collect data in a very short time. Correlation is very effective (Thomas,

Effective Approach to Deal with Unwanted Employee Behavior Term Paper

Effective Approach to Deal with Unwanted Employee Behavior - Term Paper Example According to Javitch (1), the first step involves an intervention; whereby, there is a need to take action in response to the negative behavior portrayed by the employees. In fact, if the problem is not addressed in a timely manner there are high chances of escalation. On the other hand, as a manager, it is wise to understand that an employee may have no idea that their behaviors are causing problems such as a negative reaction from others. In this case, these employees consider the negative reaction to being a form of frustration in their working place. In addition, there is a need to speak up in case there is a problem, and the manager has the responsibility of taking the necessary action to solve the problem. This involves taking responsibility for changing predicament by addressing an issue in the situation when there is no feedback projection. Moreover, this step requires the gathering of information from the employees for the discerning extent of the issue through a personal ev aluation of employee reaction towards different conditions. The next step involves a personal research on the problem, whereby a manager should gather relevant information through an interview in the conference rooms or offices. When information is gathered through a research, a manager can be able to address the issue effectively. At this stage, the manager seeks to understand whether the employees are fully aware of the problems, and through this way, a manager can determine whether the employees are aware of their unwanted behaviors. Moreover, in case the employee is not aware of their unacceptable behaviors, the manager gets the chance to describe the problem caused by the employee behavior to them. However, this step may involve disagreements, interruptions as the employees try to deny the issue; thus, the manager should use good examples to describe the unwanted behavior.

Employee Recruitment and Retention on the Plumbing and Heating Industry Essay Example for Free

Employee Recruitment and Retention on the Plumbing and Heating Industry Essay The way in which companies recruit and retain their employees is considered as a competitive weapon. Not until recently that firms are becoming serious on the act of recruitment as the Bureau of Labor statistics estimates that jobs will grow faster at a rate that is not proportional with the labor force, hence forcing the aforementioned to appeal to various groups such as omen and minorities. As such not only recruitment is very vital but also retaining employees (Denton, 1992, p. 14). According to Frank Doyle, the senior vice president of corporate relations at General Electric: For U.   S. corporations, tomorrow’s competitive battle will be won or lost on the strength of their ability to build and retain a skilled work force (Richman 1990, 76 as cited from Denton, 1992, p. 14). General Electric believes that labor shortage does not significantly matter if companies know which people to hire and to retain. For instance, companies such as Merck Co. often times target certain universities or campuses that give a more detailed specialization on certain knowledge and skills that are very vital to their business. The Plumbing and Heating Industry  The plumbing and heating industry has been experiencing shortages as well on their workforce due to the difficulty of finding skilled plumbers and retaining them. It needs several numbers of years training on order to become a qualified plumber and heater and such also requires a deep dedication for a lifelong learning process. Certain skills are also necessary to be a good plumber such as need a head for heights, the ability to work in cramped conditions and the stamina to complete physically hard work day after day (The Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering, 2007). In addition with this, plumbers also need the intelligence to solve complex equations. More importantly, they must have the expertise and flexibility to install various systems and the capability to comprehend the logic of various systems. They should also have the ability and initiative to solve a problem and a passion to know and apply various technologies on their work. Plumbers and heaters must also have a creative mind and a sound judgment, and finally they should be professional and honest (The Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering, 2007). Employee Recruitment Interviews In order to find the right people, the process of interviewing and getting to know them not only through their answers but also through their eye contacts, body languages and the likes (Dibble, 1999). For instance, some companies like Merck often conduct a 30-minute interview in order to assess the qualifications of prospective employees. Hewlett-Packard did it further by implementing a technique called behavioral interviewing that is developed by organizational psychologist Paul Green that would assess the future behavior of a prospective employee based on his or her past behaviors. In using this technique, interviewers can design employee questions that would allow them to elicit behaviors that are closely related to the job that they are looking for (Denton, 1999, p. 16). The process of behavioral interview often times identifies 21 skills that are very vital for certain jobs such as coping, decisiveness, assertiveness, tolerance of ambiguity, written communication skills, creativity, commitment, team building, versatility, and leadership (Denton, 1999, p. 17). For the aforementioned skills there are still eight job behaviors that are needed to be known such as how prospective employees deal with â€Å"varied duties, deal with diverse groups, respond to others needs, be socially flexible, roll with the punches, understand individual differences, make others comfortable, exhibit wide range of social behaviors ( More 1988, as cited from Denton, 1992, p. 17). Decentralized Hiring Traditional recruitment approaches that focuses on interviewing prospective employees by a single person is no longer deemed as vital nowadays. For instance, the Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) one of Americas most successful small companies still has their hiring process as a group activity. SRC adopts a non-traditional method of recruitment by having all of their applicants have five or six interviews with various individuals that he or she might be working with (Denton, 1992, p. 18). Recruitment through Reputation The reputation of the company is also one of the leading factors in which highly knowledgeable and skilled employees will desire to work for the aforementioned. For instance SRC received more than 2,500 applications for a small company that only employs 300 people. It could also be noted that the company only pays $6 or $7 per hour, yet applicants are still flocking to them. One significant reason for this is its reputation for being one of the best places to work. One of the ways of doing such is the capacity of a company to manage the diversity of their workforce (Denton, 1992, p. 19). The shortages in terms of prospective employees is a growing concern among companies that is why there is a need to focus more on recruiting minorities and women. However, in order for a company to have a wide application pool, such must first establish to have a good reputation of being able to effectively manage organizational diversity (Denton, 1992, p. 20). Aggressive Recruitment for Entry-Level Workers One of the best ways to tap to a good employee resource is through recruiting entry-level workers through implementing various programs such as â€Å"Adopt-a-School† or â€Å"Join-A-School†. These programs allow companies and organizations to establish partnerships between business and schools which may involve elementary school, vocational school or even a university (Denton, 1992, p. 5). The main value of such programs is the establishment of closer relationships between schools and in a macro perspective, creating better understanding businesses and industry. More importantly, partnerships such as like these, would allow companies to easily recruit personnels that can improve the companys image that could help the prospective applicants to view your companys business as a career, hence a better chance of creating a wide labor pool (Denton, 1992, p. 26). Employee Retention If finding good people is hard, so as looking for ways to make them stay. One of the companies that have displayed such an admirable trait is Federal Express, wherein they have emphasized the importance of retention, recruitment and employee relations (Dibble, 1999). If a particular company is very careful in terms of recruiting, there is also a relatively better match of keeping them. One best way of doing such is the company centralizing all of its recruitment centers (Denton, p. 47). After which, they provide immense value on putting their people first on their list. Good employee relations for Federal Express involve deeds that impress employees and improve relations (Denton, p. 48). According to Fred Smith, CEO of Federal Express, I think a lot of companies talk about how their employees are their most important asset, but where you can really tell whether it is very important or not is how much their senior management spends on the issues ( Trunick 1989, 19 as cited from Denton, 1992, p. 48). Through implementing the philosophy of people, service, Profits the company makes their people feel that they are indeed needed in the organization. They let them answer several basic questions such as What is expected of me, and what do you want me to do? (p. 48). These questions are answered by having all of their employees attend extensive orientation programs wherein the Federal Express values are discussed Incentives Career advancement is not the only incentive that will make people stay within the organization. For instance the use of awards program that is designed to reinforce a particular desired behavior such as superior quality of work and customer centricity played a lot in terms of motivating employees to stay (p. 49). One very good example of this is Federal Express Bravo Zulu Voucher Program: wherein employees who displayed admirable work performance such as going beyond what is expected of them are able to receive cash or non cash rewards. Also, their Suggestion Awards Program allow employees to participate in the management process by sharing their ideas that will enable the company to improve its operations. Any idea implemented that will lower costs, increase productivity, revenues or promote safer working conditions will receive recognition and $100 to $25,000 worth of cash (p. 49). Communications Open Communication among employees is also vital to solve a problem. The internal employee response program allows employees to find answers to situations that they perceived as something that is disagreeable, controversial or is contrary to existing policies. If employees express negative concerns about their work or with the management, the latter is expected to respond within 14 days. These concerns are assured to be forwarded to the CEO (p. 50). Appeals Board The Appeals Board is a venue wherein decisions among complaints could be given and also disciplines could be implemented. However, it is very important that when keeping such a type of venue for resolution of organizational conflicts, the organization must have the capability to streamline its process to make the time alloted for every case reasonable enough (Denton, 1999, p. 52). Survey, Feedback, Action (SFA) An annual survey of employee attitudes is also important for the company to measure its employee opinions and to make changes that could hopefully change not so favorable employee attitudes to the company (Dibble, 1999). This assures that the management will see clearly what its team feels about the organization. In addition such allows a fair gauge of attitude and anonymity among employees (Denton, 1999, p. 52). Education and Trainings Continued learning is a venue wherein employees themselves would feel that they are indeed valued by the company. As such it us also very relevant as well that the organization will invest on trainings or even scholarships to employees who wanted to continue their education (Logue, Yates and Greider, 2001, p. 46-47). Conclusion The Plumbing and Heating Industry has been experiencing a significant decline in terms of its workforce. Hence in order to solve this problem the industry must be able to adopt effective recruitment and employee retention practices that were formulated in theory and practice of various management scholars and organizations. For the purpose of this research, in order to have an effective recruitment process, the research has emphasized the importance of: Interviews, Decentralized Hiring, Recruitment through Reputation, and Aggressive Recruitment for Entry-Level Workers. On the other hand, in order to retain employees, companies must be able to focus on: Incentives, Communications, Appeals Board, Survey, Feedback, Action (SFA), and Education and Training.

Cleopatra Essay examples -- essays research papers

Cleopatra Vll was born in 69 BC, in Alexandria, Egypt. Despite what people say today, that she was glamorous and beautiful, she was far from it. She is shown on ancient coins with a long hooked nose and masculine features. Although she was not beautiful she was clearly a very seductive woman, and she used this to further Egypt politically. She had a beautiful musical voice. It is also said that she was highly intelligent. She spoke nine different languages, and she was the first Ptolemy pharaoh who could actually spoke Egyptian.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  She ascended the Egyptian throne after her father, Ptolemy Xll Auletes died in 51 BC. Cleopatra which was seventeen at the time and her brother Ptolemy Xlll, which was twelve, were married because of the terms of her fathers will. They then ruled Egypt together. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy’s advisers told him that he should rule Egypt by himself. So, because of this he drove Cleopatra into exile. Cleopatra then escaped to Syria. She then returned with an army. Ptolemy sent an army to meet with her. At this point, Julius Caesar of Rome arrived in pursuit of an enemy, who was seeking help from Ptolemy. Cleopatra had to roll herself up in a rug so that she wouldn’t get killed while entering Egypt. If she hadn’t hidden herself she would have been killed. When she unrolled herself in front of Caesar he fell in love with her right away.Caesar had to choose which of the Egyptian rulers to help keep the throne. Of course he chose Cleopatr a. He then became Cleopatra’s lover. In 47 BC Ptolemy Xlll drowned in the Nile while trying to escape, and Caesar then restored Cleopatra to her throne.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After her older brother Ptolemy Xlll was died, Cleopatra was then forced by custom to marry her youngest brother Ptolemy XlV, which was about eleven at the time. After Cleopatra and Ptolemy XlV were settled on their joint government basis, she and Caesar went on a two-month cruise on the Nile. It is said that it was then she became pregnant, and she later gave birth to a son. His name was officially Ptolemy XV Caesar, but he was popularly called Caesarion, which means â€Å"Little Caesar†. People say that Caesar was not really the father of Caesarion. Although the child strongly resembled Caesar, and so Caesar acknowledged him as his son. After the cruise Caesar then went back to Rome ... ... Cleopatra to arrange Antony's funeral. After the funeral she took to her bed, sick with grief. She wanted to kill herself, but Octavian kept her under close guard. One day he visited her and she flung herself at his feet, nearly naked, and told him she wanted to live. With Octavian's permission she visited Antony's tomb. Then she returned to her mausoleum, took a bath, and ordered a feast. While the meal was being prepared a man arrived at her monument with a basket of figs. The guards checked the basket and found nothing suspicious, so they allowed the man to give the basket of figs to Cleopatra. After she had eaten, Cleopatra wrote a letter, sealed it, and sent it to Octavian. He opened it and found Cleopatra's plea that he would allow her to be buried in Antony's tomb. Alarmed, Octavian sent messengers to alert her guards that Cleopatra planned to commit suicide. But it was too late. They found the 39-year old queen dead on her golden bed, with her maid Iras dying at her feet. Two pricks were found on Cleopatra's arm, and it was believed that she had allowed herself to be bitten by an asp that was smuggled in with the figs. As she had wished, she was buried beside Antony.