A big corporation hired several cannibals. “You are all part of our team now,” said the HR manager during the welcome briefing. “You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don’t eat any of the other employees.” The cannibals promised they would not.
A few weeks later the cannibals’ boss remarked, “You’re all working very hard, and I’m satisfied with you. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?” The cannibals all shook their heads, “No,” they said.
After the boss left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others angrily, “Right, which one of you idiots ate the secretary?”
A hand rose hesitantly in admission. “You fool!” said the leader, “For weeks we’ve been eating managers and no one noticed anything, but nooo, you had to go and eat someone important!…”
Being an “average” doesn’t mean that you are unworthy… A very impressive knock by an undergraduate Anthony Corvino delivering the undergraduate student commencement remarks at Binghamton University. Check out the video below:
This is a true story. Some years ago a client engaged a consultant to help with a small postal mailing to the purchasing departments of blue chip corporations. The consultant sourced the list (which was provided on MSExcel) and drafted the letter. Thereafter the client was keen to take control of the project, ie., to run the mail-merge and the fulfilment (basically printing, envelope-stuffing and mailing).
The consultant discovered some weeks later that a junior member of the client’s marketing department had sorted the list (changed the order of the listed organisations in the spreadsheet), but had sorted the company name column only, instead of all columns, with the result that every letter (about 500) was addressed and sent to a blue chip corporation at another entirely different corporation’s address.
Interestingly the mailing produced a particularly high response, which when investigated seemed to stem from the fact that an unusually high percentage of letters were opened and read, due apparently to the irresistible temptation of reading another corporation’s mail..
- Specially for Hassan Raza (although no Electrical Engineer in the story)
A mechanical engineer, a systems engineer, and a software engineer are in a car driving down a steep mountain road when the brakes fail. The driver desperately pumps the brake pedal, trying to control the speeding vehicle around cliff-edge bends, while the passengers do their best not to panic. As the car hurtles towards an impossible corner the driver spots an escape route into a hedge and a haystack beyond, where the car eventually grinds to a surprisingly safe stop. The three engineers all get out, shaken, relieved, and take turns to assess the situation.
‘Hmm,’ says the mechanical engineer, ‘It looks like a brake line was leaking – let’s repair the split, bleed the brakes, and we should be able to get on our way…”
The systems engineer thinks for a while and says, ‘Maybe we need to contact the manufacturer and the dealer to confirm exactly what the problem is…”
The software engineer slowly climbs into the driver’s seat and, gesturing for the others to join him, says, ‘How about we get back on the road and see if it happens again?..
(although no Electrical Engineer in the story)
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