UP FROM POVERTY - A Modern Fable:
An unemployed man went to apply for a job with Microsoft.
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 aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail
address. To this the MS 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 and having only $1.00 in
his wallet and hungry, he buys a couple of bananas from a street vendor. A
lady a block away offers him $2.00 for the two bananas. He returns to the
street vendor buys four bananas, walks a few blocks away and sells those
bananas. Repeating the process many more times that day, he ends up with
almost $100.00 profit before going to sleep that night. Thus it dawns on him
that he could quite easily make a living selling bananas.
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 bananas 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 bananas. Within two years he
owns several fruit and vegetable markets. After five years he owns a chain
of supermarkets.
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 millionaire, "I would be a janitor at Microsoft!"
By definition a fable must have a moral. This one has four:
01. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
02. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a
millionaire.
03. Since you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming
a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire. |
