…Common!
There were two guys working for the city. One would dig a hole, he would dig, dig, dig, the other would come behind him and fill the hole, fill, fill, fill. These two men worked furiously. One digging a hole, the other filling it up again. A man was watching from the sidewalk and couldn’t believe how hard these men were working, but couldn’t understand what they were doing. Finally he had to ask them.
He said to the hole digger, “I appreciate how hard you work, but what are you doing? You dig a hole and your partner comes behind you and fills it up again!”
The hole digger replied, “Oh yeah, must look funny, but the guy who plants the trees is sick today.”
(Courtesy: https://www.jokesandco.com)
I’m sure you must have come across that little gem somewhere, and if you haven’t it must have elicited a chuckle or two. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if this little anecdote did have it’s roots in a true incident.
Here’s one from a hot, country built entirely on a desert…
In the pre-mobile phone era, the Government had thoughtfully placed telephone boxes along the highway bordering stretches of endless desert so that travelers had the means to call for help when needed. It was not only the citizens that found the telephone boxes convenient, but also snakes, who found the shade and metal very comfortable indeed! When a hapless customer called the help line to report there were snakes in the boxes, the telephone operator politely informed him that he had gone through the customer service manual diligently but could not find the term “snakes” anywhere in there!
Here’s another one …
Many years ago a beer manufacturing unit installed a new bottling plant and tried a dry-run (pun intended). Everything went well except for the bottle capping. No matter how hard they tried bottle after bottle passed through the conveyor and the machine was not able to cap them. A team of “experts” went to work with great enthusiasm dismantling the machine and poring over the blueprints. Finally, in despair the Director called for the technician who actually designed and installed the plant.
The technician calmly switched on the machine and placed a beer bottle filled with water. The machine promptly capped it. It had weight sensors and was therefore could not cap empty bottles!
