| A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, "This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you." The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, "Which do you want, son?" The boy takes the quarters and leaves. "What did I tell you?" said the barber. "That kid never learns!" Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. "Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?" The boy licked his cone and replied, "Because the day I take the dollar, the game's over !" |
| While walking along the beach in Goa, Banta found a bottle lying in the sand. He picked it up, brushed it off, and out popped a genie. "Since you have freed me from this bottle, I will grant you three wishes." Banta thought for a moment and said, "I'm feeling a might thirsty. I think I'll wish for a pint of chilled Beer." And poof! there was a pint of stout in his hand. He drank it down and started to toss the bottle away, when the genie said, "Look at that bottle before you throw it away." He did and watched as it magically refilled itself with beer. "That's a magic bottle. It will refill itself whenever you empty it. So what are your other wishes?" Excited Banta grinned, "I'll be taking two more of these!" |
| A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can't be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don't get pissed off and buy another product instead. Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering consultant to solve their empty boxes problem, as the in-house engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line. A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. "That's some money well spent!" he says to himself, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report. It turns out the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should've been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good. Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin. "Oh, that," says one of the workers. "One of the guys put it there 'cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang." |
| A helicopter carrying passengers suddenly looses engine power and the aircraft begins to decent. The pilot safely performs an emergency landing in water, and tells the passengers to remain seated and to keep the doors closed, stating that in emergency situations, the aircraft is designed to stay afloat for 30 minutes, giving rescuers time to get to them. Just then a man gets out if his seat and runs over to open the door. The pilots screams at him, "Didn't you hear what I said, the aircraft is designed to stay afloat as long as the doors remain closed?!!!" "Of course I heard you", the man replied, "but it's also designed to fly, and look how good that one worked out!!!" |