Posts tagged: meetings
via QOTD
by: Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.2 If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’
3. There is a very fine line between ‘hobby’ and ‘mental illness.’
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it’s up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
I have found number 13 to be pretty accurate.
#8 rings very true, every single time.
UPDATE: http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/16things.asp
* Thanks Brett :-)
A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and hours are lost.
If you tell your boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.
The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.
When you try to prove to someone that something won’t work, it will.
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.
Anything is possible if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its power cord.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
The first myth of management is that it exists.
A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.
To err is human, to blame somebody else shows good management skills. (thanks to Jordan)
New systems generate new problems.
A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day’s work.
Some people manage by the book - even though they don’t know who wrote the book or even what book.
The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the manufacturer and impossible for the serviceman.
To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and will cost the most.
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
Any design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
If you can’t understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
The more cordial the buyer’s secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order.
If it’s not in the computer, it doesn’t exist.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
When all else fails, read the instructions.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
A difficult task will be halted near completion by one tiny, previously insignificant detail.
There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
The remaining work to finish in order to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches.
If there is ever the possibility of several things to go wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
If something breaks, and it stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you no longer need it; are in the middle of something else; or don’t want it to be fixed because now you don’t want to do what you were supposed to do.
The more urgent the need for a decision to be made, less apparent becomes the identity of the decision maker.
It is never wise to let any piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry.
Don’t fix something that ain’t broke, ‘cause you’ll break it and you still can’t fix it.
If you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed.
Standard parts are not.
Interchangeable tapes aren’t.
Never trust modern technology. Trust it only when it is old technology.
For any given software, as soon as you master it, a new version of that software appears.
The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most.
In today’s technical environment, it is a requirement that we forget more than we learn.
It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make something simple.
Measurements will be quoted in the least practical unit; velocity, for example, will be measured in ‘furlongs-per-fortnight’.
An expert will always state the obvious.
The chance a copy machine will break down is proportional to the importance of the material that needs to be copied and inversely proportional to the amount of time till the material will be needed.
A maintenance department will neglect a customer’s complaints until it starts installations on the customer’s new projects.
If it works in theory, it won’t work in practice. If it works in practice, it won’t work in theory.
No matter how clever and complete your research is, there is always someone who knows more.
The less intelligent the idea, and the person stating it, the more likely it will be funded.
A man with one watch is certain about time. A man with two watches isn’t.
The more knowledge you gain, the less certain you are of it.
Technicians are the only ones that don’t trust technology.
The more you want to contact someone over an instant messenger is inversely proportional to the chances that they will be online.
The more important your email is, the worse your email program will screw it up.
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.