Humor #31
Last Updated Thursday, March 22, 2001
How to Make Sure Change and Innovation Don't Take Root in Your Community
Adapted from The Change Masters: Innovations for Productivity in the American Corporation, by Rosabeth Moss, Sociologist. She points out that many companies have an unspoken policy of stifling change and innovation among employees. Listed below is an adapted list for community leaders and elected officials. From "Squashing Change",
Happenings in the Valley, Vol. 13, No. 3, January 1985, Missouri Valley Adult Education Association, p. 1.
1. Regard any new idea from volunteers or community citizens with suspicion -- because it's new and its from someone who is not an "expert".
2. Insist that people who need your approval to act go through several other levels of management for their approval or signatures before they come to you.
3. Ask community groups or committees to challenge and criticize each other's proposals. (That saves you the job of deciding; you just pick the survivor.)
4. Express your criticisms freely, and withhold your praise. (That keeps people on their toes.) Let them know that their contribution is of marginal value and that they can be replaced at any time.
5. Treat identification of issues that need attention as a sign of failure. This discourages people from letting you know when something isn't working.
6. Control everything carefully. Make sure people count anything that can be counted or survey anything that can be surveyed frequently.
7. Make decisions to reorganize or change policies in secret, and spring these on people unexpectedly. (This also will keep all people involved on their toes.)
8. Make sure that requests for information (or just plain simple questions) are fully justified, and make sure that information and answers are not given out to chairpersons (let alone the public) freely.
9. In the name of delegation of responsibility, assign to committee, organization or task force chairpersons (or to the person on the committee which you least like) all of the tough tasks you don't want to do, especially if they are politically unfavorable. (In the private sector, these tasks include figuring how to cut back, make layoffs, move people around, and implement threatening decisions which have been made at the top.) And get them to do it quickly.
10. And above all, never, never, never forget that you -- the higher ups, the experts,the specialists, the elected officials or the chairpersons -- already know everything important about the community and the business at hand.
Found another TelCo virus:
MCI Virus--Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T Virus
Politically Correct Virus--Never calls itself a "virus", but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism"
Yesterday, use your Virus Detector for the following viruses:
Oprah Winrey Virus--Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MG, then slowly expands to 300MB
AT&T Virus--Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting
The "Its just that simple" Ross Perot Virus--Activates every component in your system, just before the whole darn thing quits.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus--Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.
Government Economist Virus--Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.
Federal Bureaucrat Virus--Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.
ATTENTION: More Government Viruses Discovered
House of Representatives Virus--The Computer locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.
Senate Virus--Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything
Adam & Eve Virus--Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple
TRAVELERS BEWARE!!!!
Airline Virus--You're in Dallas, but your Data is in Singapore.
PBS Virus--Your computer stops twice a year to ask for money
Jimmy Hoffa Virus--Your programs disappear and can never be found.
These viruses originated in California:
LAPD Virus--It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your computer and erases them in "self-defense".
OJ Virus--It claims that it did not, could not, and would not delete two of your files and vows to find the virus that did it.
Top ten things that would be different if the Twelve Apostles had been gay:
1) The 'Sermon on the Mount' would be a musical
2) Jesus would never wear white after Labor Day
3) Priests would get married... welllll ... never mind
4) The Gospels would be Matthew, Mark, Rick and Steve
5) Mary's hair would be FLAWLESS
6) The Temple would not have been cleansed of money changers, just re-decorated
7) The water at the Wedding Feast of Cana would have turned into dry martinis with just a splash of Curacao for color.
8) The Triumphal Entry just screams for a drag number
9) Replace the 'Beatitudes' with "Fabulous are they..."
10) The Last Supper would have been a brunch.
Here’s a thought:Singer-songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer said, "I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up."
Medical "Definitions"
ARTERY - the study of paintings
BARIUM - what you do when CPR fails
CESAREAN SECTION - A district in Rome
COLIC - A sheep dog
COMA - A punctuation mark
CONGENITAL - Friendly
DILATE - To live long
FESTER - Quicker
G.I. SERIES - Baseball games between teams of soldiers
GRIPPE - A suit case
HANGNAIL - A coat hook
MEDICAL STAFF - A doctor's cane
MORBID - A higher offer
NITRATE - Lower than the day rate
NODE - was aware of
OUTPATIENT - a person who has fainted
POST-OPERATIVE - A letter carrier
PROTEIN - In favor of young people
SECRETION - Hiding anything
SEROLOGY - Study of English Knighthood
TABLET - A small table
TUMOR - An extra pair
URINE - Opposite of you're out
Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Council for Rigid Accuracy in Publishing (CRAP) announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes.
"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.
"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous."
Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxees Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.
Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:
* the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking
* the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others
* a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true
D.I. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility Virus, D.I. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected.
Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.
Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many sources, including
* Delphi's {<http://www.delphi.com/navnet/legends.html> Urban Legends Page}
* {<http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ciachoaxes.html> Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability}
* {<http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html> Symantec Anti Virus Research Center}
Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.
This message is so important, you should send it anonymously! Forward it to all your friends right away! Don't think about it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don't check it out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it!
This story is so important, we're using lots of exclamation points!
For every message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself.
(If you wonder how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you're obviously thinking too much.)
Actual English subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong:
1. I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
2. Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
3. Gund wounds again?
4. Same old rules: no eyes, no groin.
5. A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries.
6. Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!
7. Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants.
8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
9. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
10. You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.
11. I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!
12. You daring lousy guy.
13. Beat him out of recognizable shape!
14. I have been cared s***less too much lately.
15. I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
16. Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected.
17. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
18. How can you use my intestines as a gift?
19. This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat.
20. Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination.
21. Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.<
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." - Bertrand Russell
~~~ I'M normal, YOU'RE crazy! ~~~
HOW TO KEEP A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY AT WORK
1. Page yourself over the intercom. (Don't disguise your voice.)
2. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Always wear them one day after your boss does.
3. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point, Sparky." "No I'm sorry I am going to have to disagree with you there, Chiachi."
4. Send email to the rest of the company telling them exactly what you are doing. For example, "If anyone needs me, I will be in the bathroom."
5. "Hi-lite" your shoes. Tell people that you haven't lost your shoes since you did this.
6. While sitting are your desk, soak your fingers in "Palmolive"
7. Put up mosquito netting around your cubicle.
8. Put a chair facing a printer, sit there all day long and tell people you're waiting for your document. Once someone finally asks you to check what could be wrong, suddenly exclaim that you forgot to hit "OK" on the print screen.
9. Arrive at a meeting late, say you're sorry, but you didn't have time for lunch, and you're going to be nibbling during the meeting. During the meeting eat 5 entire raw potatoes.
10. For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
11. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask them if they want fries with that.
12. Send email to yourself engaging yourself in an intelligent debate about the direction of one of your company's products. Forward it to a co-worker and ask her to settle the dispute.
13. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
14. Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it "IN." Label your file cabinet "OUT."
15. Determine how many cups of coffee is "too many".
16. Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
17. Decorate your office with pictures of Cindy Brady and Danny Partridge. Try to pass them off as your children.
19. Put DECAF in the coffeemaker for 3 weeks. Once all the caffeine addicts have stopped with the sweating and shaking, switch it to EXPRESSO!!!!!
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING
By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz
Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate.
He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"
Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.'
I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."
"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.
"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice.
You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."
I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, > shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live. "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man. " I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked.
"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything.> 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply... I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."
Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.
"Hardest Things About Being a Septuplet"
Middle children only get to keep hand-me-down clothes for about six minutes
Being constantly taunted by brothers and sisters who claim, "You were an accident; Mom and Dad only wanted six."
Can't organize a game of three-on-three hoops without one sibling being reduced to tears
Never get more than a tiny taste of birthday cake
The "youngest" child forever frustrated that most family decisions are made according to "birth order"
When two grown septuplets have a fight, they feel an unexplained urge to steal their sibling's oxygen and nutrients
Dealing with lifelong claustrophobia
Emotional block leaves you unable to say the words "fertility drugs"
Headache-inducing confusion caused by trying to figure out which sibling sent the latest telepathic message
Recurring nightmare that you might have ended-up as one of seven "Siamese Septuplets"
IF THE BEATLES USED COMPUTERS
new lyrics to Beatles Song
YESTERDAY
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay. Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be, And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away. I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.
Oxymorons:
Act naturally
Found missing
Resident alien
Advanced BASIC
Genuine imitation
Good grief
Same difference
Almost exactly
Government organization
Sanitary landfill
Alone together
Legally drunk
Silent scream
Living dead
Small crowd
Soft Rock
Butt head
Military intelligence
Plastic glasses
Plastic silverware
Over compensation
Descartes
I am, therefore I think. That's putting Descartes before the horse.
Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Would you like a beer?" Descartes says, "I think not." Descartes disappears.
Descartes described how his father taught him how to swim by throwing him into the Seine: "I sink, therefore I swam."