Monday, June 8, 2009

Agitate or Collaborate? How can you tell?

A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Armani suit, Gucci shoes, Oakley sunglasses and a Polo tie leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd: "If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers "sure!"

The yuppie parks the car, whips out his notebook, connects to the net through a cellular card, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, opens up a database and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas.

Finally, he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turns around to the shepherd and says: "You have here exactly 1,586 sheep!" "That is correct, take one of the sheep" says the shepherd. He watches the young man select an animal and bundle it into his Cherokee.

Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me my sheep back?" "Okay, why not!" answers the young man.

"You are a consultant" says the shepherd.

"That is correct" says the yuppie. "How did you guess that?"

"Easy" answers the shepherd. "You turn up here although nobody called you, you want to be paid for the answer to a question I already knew the solution of, and you don't know anything about my business because you took my dog."

Author unknown...

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