After many unhappy replies from our current vending service we decided that what they really needed was a different form letter that was more closely tied to their true feeling:

ABC Vending Service

Thank you for your (inquiry / comments / complaints) about our vending service.

___ We are aware that _____________ machine
has not been stocked in _____ days.
__ We are waiting for the weekend.
__ We are out of items that have expired.
__ We’re busy, don’t bother us about this.
__ We don’t care.

___ We are aware that the price for _______
seems high at $_______ but,
__ we have to make a living.
__ we use an algorithm 3*retail+your_age.
__ we charge others more.
__ we adjust it to allow for spoilage.

___ We are aware that
__ the sodas are warm
__ the milk is curdled
__ sandwiches are stale
__ gum is hard
__ candy bars are petrified
and assure you that that is
the way it is supposed to be, really.

___ We understand that
__ the bill changer can’t,
__ coin return won’t,
__ product selection doesn’t,
and believe that
__ you should relax, it all evens out.
__ learn to live with it.
__ bring in your own change next time.
__ be happy it gave you anything.
__ quit eating so much junk food.

Thank you and Happy Eating.

Administratrium, The New Element

AMES, IA–The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by materials researchers at IPRT/ISU. The new element, tentatively named Administratium, has no protons or electrons, and thus has an atomic weight of 0. However, it does have one neuron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, Administratium is totally inert. However, it can be detected chemically, since it impedes every reaction it comes into contact with. According to its discovers, a tiny amount of Administratium caused on reaction to take over four days to complete; the normal reaction time is less than one second.

Administratium has a normal half life of approximately three years, at which time it does not actually decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Studies have shown that the atomic mass usually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that Administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at points, such as governmental agencies, large corporations, and universities. It is always found in the newest, best appointed and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, butresults to date are not promising.

TO ALL EMPLOYEES
Due to increased competition and a keen desire to remain in business, we find it necessary to institute a new policy:

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
We are asking that somewhere between starting and quitting time and without infringing too much on the time usually devoted to lunch period, coffee breaks, rest periods, story telling, ticket selling, vacation planning, and the rehashing of yesterdays TV programs, that each employee endeavor to find some time that can be set aside and known as the WORK BREAK.

To some, this may seem a radical innovation, but we honestly believe the idea has great possibilities. It can conceivably be an aid to steady employment and it might also be a means of assuring regular pay checks.

While the adoption of the Work Break Plan is not compulsory, it is hoped that each employee will find enough time to give the plan a fair trial.

The Management

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don’t succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan-start-finish, but is wait-plan-plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator’s Society) if they ever get it organized.

A motorist, driving by a Texas ranch, hit and killed a calf that was crossing the road. The driver went to the owner of the calf and explained what had happened. He then asked what the animal was worth.

“Oh, about $200 today,” said the rancher. “But in six years it would have been worth $900. So $900 is what I’m out.”

The motorist sat down and wrote out a check and handed it to the farmer.

“Here,” he said, “is the check for $900. It’s postdated six years from now.”

The owner of a small deli was being questioned by an IRS agent about his tax return. He had reported a net profit of $80,000 for the year.

“Why don’t you people leave me alone?” the deli owner said. “I work like a dog, everyone in my family helps out, the place is only closed three days a year…and you want to know how I made $80,000?”

“It’s not your income that bothers us,” the agent said. “It’s these deductions. You listed six trips to Bermuda for you and your wife.”

“Oh, that,” the owner said smiling. “Didn’t I mention? We deliver anywhere…”

The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody, but one girl laughed uproariously.

“What’s the matter?” grumbled the boss. “Haven’t you got a sense of humor?”

“I don’t have to laugh,” she replied. “I’m leaving Friday.”

Exceptionally well qualified: Has committed no major blunders to date.

Expresses self well: Can string two sentences together.

Gets along extremely well with superiors and subordinates alike: A coward.

Happy: Paid too much.

Hard worker: Usually does it the hard way.

Identifies major management problems: Complains a lot.

Indifferent to instruction: Knows more than superiors.

Internationally know: Likes to go to conferences and trade shows in Las Vegas.

Is well informed: Knows all office gossip and where all the skeletons are kept.

Inspires the cooperation of others: Gets everyone else to do the work.

Is unusually loyal: Wanted by no-one else.

Judgement is usually sound: Lucky.

Keen sense of humor: Knows lots of dirty jokes.

Keeps informed on business issues: Subscribes to Playboy and National Enquirer.

Listens well: Has no ideas of his own.

Maintains a high degree of participation: Comes to work on time.

Maintains professional attitude: A snob.

Meticulous in attention to detail: A nitpicker.

A keen analyst: Thoroughly confused.

Accepts new job assignments willingly: Never finishes a job.

Active socially: Drinks heavily.

Alert to company developments: An office gossip.

Approaches difficult problems with logic: Finds someone else to do the job.

Average: Not too bright.

Bridge builder: Likes to compromise.

Character above reproach: Still one step ahead of the law.

Charismatic: No interest in any opinion but his own.

Competent: Is still able to get work done if supervisor helps.

Conscientious and careful: Scared.

Consults with co-workers often: Indecisive, confused, and clueless.

Consults with supervisor often: Very annoying.

Delegates responsibility effectively: Passes the buck well.

Demonstrates qualities of leadership: Has a loud voice.

Displays excellent intuitive judgement: Knows when to disappear.

Displays great dexterity and agility: Dodges and evades superiors well.

Enjoys job: Needs more to do.

Excels in sustaining concentration but avoids confrontations: Ignores everyone.

Excels in the effective application of skills: Makes a good cup of coffee.

Mover and shaker: Favors steamroller tactics without regard for other opinions.

Not a desk person: Did not go to college.

Of great value to the organization: Turns in work on time.

Use all available resources: Takes office supplies home for personal use.

Quick thinking: Offers plausible excuses for errors.

Requires work-value attitudinal readjustment: Lazy and hard-headed.

Should go far: Please.

Slightly below average: Stupid.

Spends extra hours on the job: Miserable home life.

Stern disciplinarian: A real jerk.

Straightforward: Blunt and insensitive.

Strong adherence to principles: Stubborn.

Tactful in dealing with superiors: Knows when to keep mouth shut.

Takes advantage of every opportunity to progress: Buys drinks for superiors.

Takes pride in work: Conceited.

Unlimited potential: Will stick with us until retirement.

Uses resources well: Delegates everything.

Uses time effectively: Clock watcher.

Very creative: Finds 22 reasons to do anything except original work.

Visionary: Cannot handle paperwork or any project that lasts less than a week.

Well organized: Does too much busywork.

Will go far: Relative of management.

Willing to take calculated risks: Doesn’t mind spending someone else’s money.

Zealous attitude: Opinionated.

Energetic self-starter: You’ll be working on commission.

Entry level position: We will pay you the lowest wages allowed by law.

Experience required: We do not know the first thing about any of this.

Fast learner: You will get no training from us.

Flexible work hours: You will frequently work long overtime hours.

Good organizational skills: You’ll be handling the filing.

Make an investment in you future: This is a franchise or a pyramid scheme.

Management training position: You’ll be a salesperson with a wide territory.

Much client contact: You handle the phone or make “cold calls” on clients.

Must have reliable transportation: You will be required to break speed limits.

Must be able to lift 50 pounds: We offer no health insurance or chiropractors.

Opportunity of a lifetime: You will not find a lower salary for so much work.

Planning and coordination: You book the bosses travel arrangements.

Quick problem solver: You will work on projects months behind schedule already.

Strong communication skills: You will write tons of documentation and letters.

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty’s address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write is letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can’t because there isn’t one typewriter in your house, only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as “friends,” but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers, and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers’ questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase “digital compression” in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase “digital compression.” Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don’t have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates’ e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying “phone number” and replace it with “voice number,” since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-) .

13. You back up your data every day.

14. You know more about the computer than about all of your friends.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot’s phrase “electronic town hall” makes more sense than the term “information superhighway,” but you don’t because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it’s okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a-quarter and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an “intriguing” fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say “I don’t know” when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better, the track ball or the track pad.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don’t use a laptop.

31. You email this message to your friends over the net. You’d never get around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the phone. In fact, you have probably never met most of these people face-to-face.

32. You don’t even read magazine articles anymore, unless someone’s keyed them into e-mail and forwarded it to you.

33. You print the itinerary of your vacation from a scheduler software.

34. You pack the laptop computer first for any trip.

35. While you’re away from home, the first three numbers you call are your voicenet, a bulletin board, and one of your e-mail accounts.

36. You are reading this from a screen.

Generally, this will not be a concern until you are promoted to an executive position. But once you’ve created the illusion that you serve even the slightest purpose at your place of “business,” there’s no telling how far you’ll go. In the real working world, productivity is all a matter of appearances.

Appearance: You are furiously taking notes while conducting an important telephone marketing survey.

Reality: You are pretending to take notes while talking to your friend who has called collect from Bulgaria.

Appearance: You are on the phone with a client in New York and you have said, “Yes sirree! That stock is about to shoot through the roof, now’s a great time to buy, I tell ya!”

Reality: You are on the phone with a friend in Guam and you have said, “Yeah, this job is terrible, and my boss is such a pushy whining… Yes sirree! That stock is about to shoot through the roof, now’s a great time to buy, I tell ya!”

Appearance: You are at your computer writing a serious business memorandum to your department supervisior.

Reality: You are at your computer telling dead-baby jokes to your e-mail correspondent in Namibia.

Appearance: You are urgently plugging numbers into a complicated spreadsheet.

Reality: You are playing Tetris.

Appearance: You are tapping away on calculator keys, helping out the accounting department.

Reality: You are paying your electric bill.

Appearance: You are reading the DOS manual.

Reality: You are reading the TV guide you placed in the DOS manual.

Appearance: You are staring at an empty computer screen, absorbed in deep thought.

Reality: You have pressed “Escape” just in time, erasing a MacDraw portrait entitled “Supervisor with Pitchfork Wound Clinging to a Cliff”

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to your request for additional information for block number 3 of the accident reporting form. I put “poor planning” as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I trust the following detail will be sufficient.

I am an amateur radio operator and on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80 foot tower. When I had completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought up about 300 pounds of tools and spare hardware. Rather than carry the now un-needed tools and material down by hand, I decided to lower the items down in a small barrel by using a pulley, which fortunately was attached to the gin pole at the top of the tower.

Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and material into the barrel. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow decent of the 300 pounds of tools. You will note in block number 11 of the accident reporting form, that I weigh only 155 pounds.

Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40 foot level, I met the barrel coming down. This explains my fractured skull and broken collarbone.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold onto the rope in spite of my pain.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of tools hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed approximately 20 pounds. I refer you again to my weight in block number 11. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower.

In the vicinity of the 40 foot level, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles and the lacerations of my legs and lower body. The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of tools and fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools, in pain, unable to stand and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me… I again lost my presence of mind. I let go of the rope.

Tom had this problem of getting up late in the morning and was always late for work. His boss was mad at him and threatened to fire him if he didn’t do something about it. So Tom went to his doctor who gave him a pill and told him to take it before he went to bed. Tom slept well and in fact beat the alarm in the morning by almost two hours. He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.

“Boss”, he said, ” The pill actually worked!”

“That’s all fine” said the boss, ” But where were you yesterday?”

The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody, but one girl laughed uproariously.

“What’s the matter?” grumbled the boss. “Haven’t you got a sense of humor?”

“I don’t have to laugh,” she replied. “I’m leaving Friday.”