The Fish

A fisherman from the city was out fishing on a lake in a small boat. He noticed another man in a small boat open his fishing tackle box and take out a mirror. Being curious, the man rowed over and asked, 

"What is the mirror for?"
 

"That's my secret way to catch fish," said the other man. "Shine the mirror on the top of the water. The fish notice the spot of sun on the water above and they swim to the surface. Then I just reach down and net them and pull them into the boat."
 

"Wow! Does that really work?"
 

"You bet it does."
 

"Would you be interested in selling that mirror? I'll give you Rs. 250/- for it."
 

"Well, okay."
 

After the money was transferred, the city fisherman asked, "By the way, how many fish have you caught this week...?"
 

"You're the sixth," he said.

So, how many fish did your organization catch?

So long, until the next post...

The Cannibals

A big corporation recently hired several cannibals. The HR said during the briefing,"You are all part of our team now. You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria to eat, but don't eat any of the other employees". The cannibals promised they would not.

Four weeks later their 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 indicating no.

After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?"

A hand raised hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals shouted, "You fool! For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed, but see what happened now, when you had to go and eat someone important!"

So long, until the next post...

The Burglar

A burglar decided to rob the safe in a store.

On the safe door he was very pleased to find a note reading: "Please don't use dynamite and blow it. The safe is not locked. Just turn the knob."

He did so. Instantly a heavy sandbag fell on him, the entire premises were floodlighted, and alarms started clanging.

Soon the police arrived at the spot. As the police carried him out on a stretcher, he was moaning: "My confidence in human nature has been rudely shaken."

The same is the experience of customers dealing with service companies, they are enticed with so many attractive jargon mesmerizing them, they don't wake up until a huge sandbag falls on them… :)

Moral: Never trust anybody!

So long, until the next post…

The Mathematician

Once there was a competition held between an engineer, a physicist and mathematician. The competition is that each of them will be placed in a wooden enclosure covered on all sides and the one who gets out quickly is the winner. All of them were put inside the wooden box at the same time and the competition started. The engineer came out in 2 minutes destroying the wooden box. When asked how he came out so quickly, he replied that he kept tapping all along the wooden box to find out where it sounded the weakest and then broke open kicking at that area.

Ten minutes later, the physicist came out opening the box. When asked, he said that he tried shaking the box and he found the spot where the equilibrium was less and he decided that he could break open the box at that spot easily and came out.

Only the mathematician was left and people waited. It was 4 hours; 6 hours and then 8 hours but no sign of the mathematician ever trying to come out. Finally, the judges decided on opening the doors themselves. And when they went in, the mathematician was still pondering on something, having written something on the paper. The paper read, "Assume, I am out of the box..."

Now the IT version, there was this challenge between a developer, a lead and a project manager and as usual the one who solves it quickly is the winner.

The developer solved it quickly, but taking a look at the code and isolating what the problem was. The lead was also on the same line, but he compared different versions of the code to isolate the problem and fix the issue.

And now the manager's turn, he had written... "Assume the problem is fixed, now what do I do...?" :)

So long. until the next post...

The Truck Driver

Once upon a time, a truck driver was doing his usual load delivery at a mental hospital, by parking his vehicle beside an open drain. He discovered a flat tyre when he was about to return from the mental hospital. He jacked up the truck and removed the flat tyre to fix the spare tyre. When he was about to fix the spare tyre, he accidentally dropped all the four bolts in the open drain. As he cannot fish the bolts in the open drain, he started to panic as to what should be done?
      
Just then, one patient happened to walk past him and asked the driver as to why he was looking troubled. The driver thought to himself, since there is nothing much he can do or this mental joker can. Just to keep the bugging away, the truck driver informed the whole episode to the mental patient and gave a helpless look.

The patient just laughed at the truck driver and said you just cannot even fix such a simple problem? No wonder you are destined to remain a truck driver for life. The truck driver was astonished to hear such a compliment from a mental guy.
      
Here is what you can do said the mental guy. Take one bolt from each of the remaining three tyres/wheels and fix it on to this tyre. Then drive down to the nearest workshop and replace the missing ones. Simple, isn't it! - the mental guy exclaimed

The truck driver was so impressed with this quick fix answer and asked the patient, how come you are so smart and intelligent and you are here at the mental hospital?

The patient replied... "My dear friend! I stay here because I am crazy but not stupid."

There are lot of Truck drivers in the corporate world, who just think the other people below in their hierarchy are crazy... :)

So long, until the next post...

The Donkey and The Dog

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog.One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep but the donkey and the dog were awake.The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn’t bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.

Moral of the story: ”One must not engage in duties other than his own”....

Here comes the corporate version…

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute.He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it.Looking at the donkey’s extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.The dog’s life didn’t change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dogs duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed a ”meets requirement”. Soon. the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.The donkey was rated as “star performer”. The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. Soon, he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a job rotation…

That - is the corporate environment, with such great characters as the farmer, the donkey and the dog.

So long, until the next post...

The King Cobra hunt

Harry - a farmer - found a small snake, that was about a foot in length, roaming near his house. He immediately killed the snake and threw it away. That day He told his wife that he killed a snake about a foot in length near his home and asked her to be careful about that. As soon as his wife came to know that, the news started spreading. She told her neighbour that he husband killed a snake that was two feet in length. In a few hours, the news spread like Harry killed a cobra that was 10 feet in length and finally the people of the village came to Harry's home to congratulate him on killing a King Cobra that was 15 feet in length. After the villagers left, he sat puzzled. His wife asked why he was puzzled. Harry replied, "Do snakes grow after they die?"

The IT situation is no different, here is why.

The Unit Head says - "We are enterprise ready, we have the expertise to build Enterprise grade software", but this is what he hears from his subordinate, say a Senior Manager
The Senior Manager says - "Our team has demonstrated the capability to develop and deploy J2EE applications", again what he heard from his subordinate is
The Manager says - "Our team has developed a Java Module" which again is heard from the Team lead as follows
The Team Lead says - "The developer has successfully executed a Java Application"
But actually what the developer did was compile and execute a Java program that prints



"Hello World!"

So, how many King Cobras did your team hunt?.... :)

So long until the next post...

The Snake

There was once a group of frogs in a well that lived together harmoniously. One fine day, there was a small quarrel among two frogs, Arrowhead and Bob, for some small issue. Over a point in time, the quarrel grew into animosity.

As the animosity grew, Arrowhead, the dominant of the frogs decided that he should venge against Bob. He thought that hurting Bob directly or chasing him out of the well, would bring a bad name and so he came up with this idea.

Arrowhead ventured out of the well and searched out for a friend who will execute his plans. He found a snake that passed by. He had a small chat with the snake and told his vengeance against Bob and asked for the snake's help. The snake readily agreed. Arrowhead took the snake to the well

All the frogs panicked on the first sight of the snake. Bob knew its intentions and prepared to flee the well that night with his friends. And Bob flee that well.

Days went by, Arrowhead was happy as Bob had fled away from the well and thanked the snake for the help. Slowly, frog population in the well started to dwindle. Either the frogs fled or the snake was eating them one by one without the knowledge of Arrowhead.

One fine day, the only thing that remained in the well, was the snake alone after finishing off the last frog, Arrowhead.

The situation is no different from an IT organization. Employees have some disagreements, simmering etc that could be handled deftly. However, in most cases, the management decides to bring in some consultancy, survey, poll or policy to set the situation right. As a result, people start to flee or be eaten.

At last, you know what remains ;)

So long, until the next post...

The Lion

There was this poor king of the jungle - Lion - in an Indian Zoo that was even poorer than the lion. The lion had very meagre food allowances that did not fetch it beyond a chicken. The lion thought if it went some zoo in the US, it will be fit and well fed and started to pray daily.

One fine day a zoo manager from US came for visit to the Indian Zoo. The Zoo manager was interested in shifting the lion to the US zoo. The lion's joy knew no bounds and it thought it's prayers got answered. The lion started thinking about the luxurious life, posh meal with one or two goats daily, hygienic and well maintained environment and later the US green card too!

When it reached the US zoo, food was offered in a nicely sealed bag. When the lion opened it was puzzled to see that it contained bananas. The lion thought that there might have been some mistake.

The next day, the same thing; a bag full of bananas. And again on the third the same bag was delivered. The lion not able to take it anymore, grew furious. It stopped the zoo keeper who delivered the bags, smashed him like anything and asked "Are you kidding me? Don't you know that I am a lion - The king of the jungle? What's wrong with you guys and your management? Why the nonsense that I am fed with bananas?"

The zoo keeper politely said, "Mr. Lion, I know that you are the king of the jungle, but... Are you aware that you have been brought here on a monkey's visa?..."

No more explanations... :)

So long until the next post...

The Demon

Once upon a time, a man ventured into the icy mountains and got caught up in the freezing snow in the mountains. Not knowing where to go, he finally found a cavern like place where he could sit and rest for a while. While resting, to he closed his arms tight together kept near his  mouth and blew air in his inside his closed arms to keep himself warm. By then, a demon was passing by this man. It felt strange about the man blowing air in his hands. It went near him asked, what he was doing. The man replied, as he was caught in the freeze cold, he did that act to keep himself warm.

The demon did not understand and it asked how. The man explained that he blew warm air out of his mouth and that eventually keeps him somewhat warm. The demon took pity on him and thought it could provide some shelter and when the weather gets better, the man can go. So it brought the man to its home and made him feel comfortable.

Then it started preparing some hot soup for him to drink. Once the soup was done, it served it to the man. On receiving the soup, the man again started to blow it. The demon got confused, because why the man should blow the already hot soup to make it warm. It inquired, why he did that.

The man replied, the soup was too hot and he blew some cold air to make it a bit cooler. The demon got angry and shouted at the man. "I don't believe people having two mouths in one! Drink the soup and vanish away otherwise I will eat you!"

The picture in the organisations is no different, especially IT, you can see a lot of people with two or more mouths talking all the self-contradictory statements and more, that even the demons fear to be in touch with.

So how many demon fearing people you have met!!! :)

So long until the next post...
 

The Frog

There was our great researcher (Mad Scientist?) who did some intriguing and curious research on various things. One day he caught a frog and started training it to jump on command. The frog did well in training and learned quickly with zeal and effort. The frog could easily jump 10 feet on hearing the command "JUMP". At last, the day arrived, when the frog was to be put into real research work. So our great researcher took it to the lab and started his experiment.

He put the frog on the floor and shouted "JUMP". The frog jumped 10 feet. He noted it down. Now, he cut the left hind leg of the frog. Now, he shouted "JUMP", the frog jumped 20 centimetres. The distance was noted down. Then the researcher cut the other hind leg too, now the frog had just the 2 legs in the front. Our researcher again shouted "JUMP", the frog moved 2 centimetres. Again distance noted down.

Now, the mad scientist, sorry researcher, cut one of the legs forelegs that made the frog to have only one leg. Now, the command was given "Jump", the frog managed to move 1/2 centimetre. Again stats noted down. At last the final leg too was removed and when he said "JUMP", the frog never moved.

The researcher concluded the experiment with the report saying "When you cut all the four legs of the frog, the frog becomes DEAF".

This is what is happening to some good performers in the organisation. First their freedom and power is being slowly removed and at last they are tied altogether with no freedom or thought of their own, but has to act mechanical. But later when it comes to performance review or appraisal, the report comes something like "You have an attitude problem, maybe you should correct it :)"

The Mad Scientists keep on doing this to many frogs, that there are only crippled frogs out there. :)

So long until the next post...