Bill Gates died and went to Heaven.
Saint Peter showed him to his house, a small cottage on a tiny plot in the woods. The closets were full of simple but servicable clothing, and the kitchen was stocked with the basic needs. Bill slowly settled into a modest and quiet life in heaven.
One day, Bill was walking in one of Heaven's many fine parks, when he ran into a man dressed in a fine tailored suit.
"That is a nice suit, my friend," said Gates. "Where did you get it?"
"Actually," the man replied, "I was given a hundred of these when I got here. I've been treated really well. I got a mansion on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake. I have a huge five-hundred acre estate, a golf course, tennis courts and three Rolls Royces."
"Were you the Pope, or a doctor who healed the sick?" asked Gates.
"No," said his new friend, "Actually, I was the captain of the Titanic."
Hearing this made Gates so angry that he immediately stalked off to find St. Peter.
Cornering St. Peter, Bill told him about the man he had just met, saying, "How could you give me a paltry new house, while you're
showering new cars, a mansion, and fine suits on the Captain of the Titanic? I invented the Windows operating system! Why does he deserve better?"
"Yes, we use Windows here in heaven," replied Peter, "and the Titanic only crashed once."
THE CARS BROKE DOWN
One day, a Mechanical Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Chemical Engineer and Computer Engineer were driving down the street in the same car.
The car broke down.
The Mechanical Engineer said, "I think a rod broke."
The Chemical Engineer said, "The way it sputtered at the end, I don't think it's getting gas."
The Electrical Engineer said, "I think there was a spark and something is wrong with the electrical system."
All three turned to the computer engineer and said, "What do you think?"
The Computer Engineer said, "I think we should all get out and get back in."
THE CODE
Young Judy was having trouble with her computer, so she called Tony, the computer guy, over to her desk.
Tony clicked a couple buttons and solved the problem. As he was walking away, Judy called after him, "So, what was wrong?"
He replied, "It was an ID Ten T Error."
A puzzled expression came over Judy's face. "An ID Ten T Error?
What's that? In case I need to fix it again."
Tony gave her a grin. "Haven't you ever heard of an ID Ten T Error before?"
"No," replied Judy.
"Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out."
She wrote... I D 1 0 T
COMPUTER POWER
The businessman dragged himself home and barely made it to his chair before he dropped, exhausted.
His sympathetic wife was right there with a tall cool drink and a comforting word.
"My, you look tired," she said. "You must have had a hard day today. What happened to make you so exhausted?"
"It was terrible," her husband said, "The computer broke down and all of us had to do our own thinking."
A MICROSOFT RESTARAUT
Patron: Waiter!
Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support. What seems to be the problem?
Patron: There's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time.
Patron: No, it's still there.
Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup. Try eating it with a fork instead.
Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there.
Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl. What kind of bowl are you using?
Patron: A SOUP bowl!
Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration problem. How was the bowl set up?
Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer. What has that to do with the fly in my soup?!
Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the fly in your soup?
Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day!
Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the Day?
Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day??
Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour.
Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now?
Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato.
Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. I'm running late now.
[waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check]
Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check.
Patron: This is potato soup.
Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet.
Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything.
[waiter leaves.]
Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup!
The check:
Soup of the Day . . . . . . . $5.00
Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . $2.50
Access to support . . . . . . $1.00
WHAT NO E-MAIL
An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (Section: Floors, sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.25 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day. Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed."
Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit.
Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night.
And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly. After a short time he acquires a cart to
transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pick-up truck to support his expanding business.
By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance
adviser, he picks an insurance plan. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.
When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the internet from the very start!" After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire
replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"
Moral of this story:
1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.
3. Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.
4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.