An unemployed man interviews for a job with Microsoft as a cleaner.
The hiring manager arranges for an aptitude test (Section: Floors,
sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says: You will be hired at a starting
salary of $30 per day. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I
can send you a form to complete and advise you where to report for
work on your first day.
Taken aback, the unemployed man protests that he is neither in
possession of a computer nor of an e-mail address. To this the MS
manager replies: "Well, then, that really means that you virtually
don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed."
Stunned, the man leaves.
Not knowing where to turn and only having about $10 left, he decides
to buy a 10 kg box of tomatoes at the local supermarket. Within less
than 2 hours, he sells the tomatoes singly at 100% profit. Repeating
the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100
before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on the man that
he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up
early and earlier every day and going to bed later and later, he
multiplies his hoard of profits in quite a short time.
Not too long thereafter, he acquires a cart to transport several
dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again shortly
afterwards on a pick-up truck. By the end of the second year, he is a
greengrocer with a fleet of trucks and a staff of over a hundred
former unemployed people.
Considering the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy
some life insurance. Calling 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 that he might forward the documentation.
When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned:
"What, you don't even 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 have been by now, if you had been connected
from the very start!"
After a moment's silence, the tomato millionaire replied: "Sure! I
would have been a cleaner at Microsoft!"
Morals of the story:
1: The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
2: If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.
3: Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer
to becoming a cleaner than you are to becoming a millionaire.
4: if you do have a computer and e-mail, Microsoft is already taking
you to the cleaners.
