Posted By fats van den raad Apologies for those that have heard this before.. I just couldn't resist it A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives response. Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1586 sheep." "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." Says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then the shepherd says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" "You're a consultant." says the shepherd. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap about my business." "... Now give me back my dog."

Posted By Stephen J W Clegg. Nice one Fats!

Posted By Pete Driver But who's got the BMW? He who laughs last ....

Posted By steve e ashton Have you heard this one? The Production Department and the QHSE Department decided to engage in a competitive crew race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day, both teams felt ready. The Production Team won by a mile. The QHSE team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action. The consultant's finding: The Production team had 8 people rowing and one person steering. The QHSE team had one person rowing and 8 people steering. After a year of study, and millions spent on analyzing the problem, the consulting firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the QHSE team. As the race day neared again the following year, the QHSE team's management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: Four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive. At the race, the Production Dept won by two miles. Humiliated again, the QHSE Department laid off the rower for poor performance, and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem. ...... Steve

Posted By James M sorry that I was unable to respond until this evening. Like most consultants I have been out all day hard at work, unable to surf the net and email jokes, pictures and drivel to my fellow workmates. However I did have a good earner telling a H&S manager what he already knew.

Posted By Stuart Nagle So.......!! If the shepherd is so bloody clever, why did he ask for his dog back, and not the sheep? Answer: the consultant could not tell the difference...!! Conclusion... Even in an age of high technology, being sharp is no advantage if you can't tell a sheep dog from a sheep!! Stuart