Tomatoes
An unemployed man went to apply for a job with Microsoft as
a janitor.
The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test.
After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed
as a janitor at minimum wage; $5.15 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 a back, the man protests that he has neither a computer
nor an e-mail address. To this the Microsoft manager replies,
"Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist
and can therefore hardly expect to be employed by Microsoft."
Stunned, the man leaves.
Not knowing where to turn andhaving only $10.00 in his wallet,
he buys a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. In less
than two hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100%
profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he
ends up with almost $100.00 before going to sleep that night.
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 pickup
truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second
year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup 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 to fit his new circumstances. 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!"
"Well," replied the tomato millionaire, "I would
be a janitor at Microsoft!"
By definition, a fable must have a moral. This one has four:
- The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule
your life.
- If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become
a millionaire.
- Since you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer
to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.
- If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been
taken to the cleaners by Microsoft
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