Business jokes

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After awhile, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here. And that's how company policy begins...

Three women were sitting around talking about their husbands' performance as lovers. The first woman says 'My husband works as a marriage counsellor. He always buys me flowers and candy before we make love. I like that.'

The second woman says, 'My husband is a motorcycle mechanic. He likes to play rough and slaps me around sometimes. I kinda like that.'

The third woman just shakes her head and says, 'My husband works for Microsoft. He just sits on the edge of the bed and tells me how great it's going to be when I get it.'

If Oracle made toasters... They'd claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you'd discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away and that, indeed, the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters... They would market the Reverse Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.

If IBM made toasters... They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Xerox made toasters... You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.

If Radio Shack made toasters... The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could buy all the parts to build your own toaster.

If Thinking Machines made toasters... You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Cray made toasters... They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.

If the Rand Corporation made toasters... It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it.

If the NSA made toasters... Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.

If Sony made toasters... The ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

If Timex made toasters... They would be cheap and small quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting.

If Fisher Price made toasters... 'Baby's First Toaster' would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread that pops up like a jack-in-the-box.

If Microsoft made toasters... Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster '02 would weigh 15,000 pounds (requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

If Apple made toasters... It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but five years earlier.

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

Ego Surfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media and so on, looking for references to one's own name.

Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a big mistake.

Perot: To quit unexpectedly, as in "My cellular phone just perot'ed."

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income,Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.