The interviewer examined the job application then turned to the prospective employee.
“I see you have put ASAP down for the date you are available to start, meaning as soon as possible, of course. However, I see you’ve put AMAP down for required salary. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before, what does it mean?”
The applicant replied, “As Much as Possible!”
—–
“Smiling has always been easier than explaining why you’re sad.”
——
As a member of the organization that installs computer systems aboard Navy ships, I am mindful of how important the off-ship e-mail capabilities are to sailor morale, especially when some vessels are deployed for up to six months.
One day while shopping at the base commissary, I noticed another crucial aspect of my job. I was trailing a frazzled mother with two active children, and I watched as she stalked over to where her young son had perched himself on the rail of the freezer case.
“If you don’t get off there right now,” she commanded, “I’m going to e-mail your father!”
—–
On some air bases, the military is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle.
One day, on just such a field, the tower received a call from an aircraft asking, “What time is it?”
The tower responded, “Who is calling?”
The aircraft replied, “What difference does it make?”
The tower replied, “It makes a lot of difference:
- If you are a commercial airlines flight, it is 3 o’clock.
- If you are an Air Force aircraft, it is 1500 hours.
- If you are a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells.
- If you are an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3.
- If you are a Marine Corps aircraft, it’s Thursday afternoon.
- If you are in the National Guard, it’s still a couple of hours until quitting time.”
—–
“Hello, hello?” shrilled a spinsterish voice over the phone. “Is this the SPCA?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to send somebody over right away.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a horrid magazine salesman sitting in a tree teasing my dog.”
—–
A traveling salesman was held up by a bad storm in the Hawaiian Islands. He sent an e-mail to his corporate headquarters advising them that he was stranded for a few days and requested instructions.
The reply came back shortly: “Begin vacation as of yesterday.”
—–
I don’t want to be a millionaire, I just want enough money to be able to stare off into the distance while pumping gas.
—–
A clergyman was walking down the street when he came upon a group of about a dozen boys, all of them between 10 and 12 years of age.
The group surrounded a dog. Concerned lest the boys were hurting the dog, he went over and asked “What are you doing with that dog?”
One of the boys replied, “This dog is just an old neighborhood stray. We all want him, but only one of us can take him home. So we’ve decided that whichever one of us can tell the biggest lie will get to keep the dog.”
Of course, the reverend was taken aback. “You boys shouldn’t be having a contest telling lies!” he exclaimed. He then launched into a ten minute sermon against lying, beginning, “Don’t you boys know it’s a sin to lie,” and ending with, “Why, when I was your age, I never told a lie.”
There was dead silence for about a minute. Just as the reverend was beginning to think he’d gotten through to them, the smallest boy gave a deep sigh and said, “All right, give him the dog.”
—–
The computer in my high school classroom recently started acting up. After watching me struggle with it, one of my students came up and took over.
“Your hard drive crashed,” he said.
I called the computer services office and explained, “My computer is down. The hard drive crashed.”
“We can’t just send people down on your say-so. How do you know that’s the problem?”
“A student told me,” I answered.
“We’ll send someone over right away.”
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