Thanks to Fruit Buns for this joke.
A bloke goes to the local council to apply for a job in the office.
The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?"
He replies, "Yes, caffeine."
"Have you ever worked for the public service before?"
"Yes, I was in the army." he says, "I was in Iraq for two tours."
The interviewer says, "That will give you 5 extra points toward employment."
Then he asks, "Are you disabled in any way?"
The guy says, "Yes. A mine exploded near me when I was there and I lost both of my testicles".
The interviewer grimaces and then says, "O.K.. You've got enough points for me to take you on right away. Our normal hours are from 8.00am to 4.00pm…. but you can start tomorrow at 10.00am – and carry on starting at 10.00am every day."
The bloke is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8.00am to 4.00pm, why don't you want me here until 10.00am? I'm not looking for any special treatment y'know"
"What you have to understand is that this is a council job," the interviewer says, "for the first two hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our bollocks. There's no point in you coming in for that."
NannaMagnet - 13 years ago
A company chairman was given a ticket for a performance of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.” Since he was unable to go, he passed the invitation to the company’s Industrial Engineering Manager.
The next morning, the chairman asked him how he enjoyed it and, instead of a few plausible observations, he was handed a memorandum:
1. For a considerable period, the oboe players had nothing to do. Their number should be reduced, and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus avoiding peaks of inactivity.
2. All twelve violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplicative, and the staff of this section should be drastically cut. If a large volume of sound is really required, this could be obtained through the use of an amplifier.
3. Much effort was involved in playing the demi-semiquavers. This seems an excessive refinement, and it is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees instead of craftsmen.
4. No useful purpose is served by repeating with horns the passage that has already been handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to twenty minutes.
In light of the above, one can only conclude that had Schubert given proper attention to these matters, he probably would have had the time to complete his symphony.