A guy stopped at a local gas station and, after filling his tank,
he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to
drink his cola and watched a couple of men working along the
roadside.
One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then
move on. The other man came along behind him and filled in
the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was 25
feet behind filling in the hole.
The men worked right past the guy with the soft drink and went
on down the road. "I can't stand this," said the man tossing the
can into a trash container and heading down the road toward the men.
"Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's
going on here with all this digging and refilling?"
"Well, we work for the government and we're just doing our
job," one of the men said.
"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're
not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the taxpayers'
money?"
"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on
his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us:
me, Elmer and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree, and
Leroy here puts the dirt back.
Elmer's job's been cut... so now it's just me an' Leroy."
