How many IBM employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?

10,000: one to hold up the light bulb, and 9,999 to turn the building around.

If Oracle made toasters… They’d claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you’d discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away and that, indeed, the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters… They would market the Reverse Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.

If IBM made toasters… They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Xerox made toasters… You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.

If Radio Shack made toasters… The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could buy all the parts to build your own toaster.

If Thinking Machines made toasters… You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Cray made toasters… They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.

If the Rand Corporation made toasters… It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it.

If the NSA made toasters… Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.

If Sony made toasters… The ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

If Timex made toasters… They would be cheap and small quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting.

If Fisher Price made toasters… ‘Baby’s First Toaster’ would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread that pops up like a jack-in-the-box.

If Microsoft made toasters… Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn’t have to take the toaster, but you’d still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster ‘02 would weigh 15,000 pounds (requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

If Apple made toasters… It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but five years earlier.

Two young engineers applied for a single position at a computer company. They both had the same qualifications. In order to determine which individual to hire, the applicants were asked to take a test by the department manager.

Upon completion of the test, both men had each missed only one of the questions. The manager went to the first applicant and said, ”Thank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to give the job to the other applicant.”
“And why would you be doing that? We both got nine questions correct,” asked the rejected applicant.

“We have based our decision not on the correct answers, but on the question you missed,” said the department manager.

“And just how would one incorrect answer be better than the other?” the rejected applicant inquired.

”Simple,” said the department manager, ”Your fellow applicant put down on question #5, ‘I don’t know.’ You put down, ‘Neither do I.”’

A man is working at a pharmaceutical store, and he always gets the orders wrong. His boss tells him if he screws up one more time, he is fired.

An old man walks in and orders cough syrup. He can’t find any so he gives him a laxative instead. The man takes the laxative and leaves the store. The boss comes up and asks why he gave the man a laxative in place of cough syrup. He points towards the old man who is suddenly leaning on a lightpost and says, “Look at him — he’s afraid to cough.”

The manager of a megastore came to check on his new salesman.

“How many customers did you serve today?” the manager asked.

“One,” replied the new guy.

“Only one?” said the boss. “How much was the sale?”

The salesman answered, “$58,334.”

Flabbergasted, the manager asked him to explain.

“First I sold a man a fishhook,” the salesman said. “Then I sold him a rod and a reel. Then I asked where he was planning to fish, and he said down by the coast. So I suggested he’d need a boat - he bought that 20-foot runabout. When he said his Volkswagen might not be able to pull it, I took him to the automotive department and sold him a big SUV.”

The amazed boss asked, “You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fishhook?”

“No,” the new salesman replied. “He actually came in for a bottle of aspirin for his wife’s migraine. I told him, “Your weekend’s shot. You should probably go fishing.”

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 mi/gal." Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?" and also noted the following consequences of GM imitating Microsoft:

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But, then you would have to buy more seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After awhile, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that’s the way it’s always been around here. And that’s how company policy begins…

The preacher was very distraught after the death of the bell ringer the day before and didn’t know what to do. He began the search for another bell ringer. Many people tried, but none could match the talents of the bell ringer he had before.

Finally, when the priest had all but given up hope, an armless man came to apply for the job. The priest was ready to turn him away, how could an armless man do justice to the bells of his church?

The man pleaded with him and told him he was the brother of the man who died the day before. When the priest heard that he decided that out of respect for his brother he must allow him to try.

The man thanked the priest and began to throw his shoulder into the bell. The priest could hardly believe the wonderful tones coming from the bells. As the priest was about to appoint him the bell ringer the man ran once more for the bell. But this time he tripped and fell to his death on the street.

The priest ran out and a large crowd had gathered. Someone shouted ”Does any one know this man? ”

To which the priest replied, ” I don’t know his name but he’s a dead ringer for his brother”

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

Ego Surfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media and so on, looking for references to one’s own name.

Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a big mistake.

Perot: To quit unexpectedly, as in "My cellular phone just perot’ed."

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income,Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

A young businessman had just started his own firm. He had just rented a beautiful office and had it furnished with antiques.

He saw a man come into the outer office. Wishing to appear the hot shot, the businessman picked up the phone and started to pretend he had a big deal working. He threw huge figures around and made giant commitments.

Finally he hung up and asked the visitor, ”Can I help you?”

”Yeah, I’ve come to activate your phone lines.”