In-Depth

Last Laughs

• 04/01/2001

"We can’t do this proposed project. CANNOT. It will involve a major design change, and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy system. And, above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this application has been written. So, even if somebody wants to work on it, they can’t."

"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don’t have any staff with experience in this type of work. Also, the language is unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature."

"This project involves a design change in the system, and we don’t have much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do the project, but we would need more time than usual to complete it."

"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So, they can train other people. In my opinion, we should take this project, but with caution."

"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in remodeling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some people have already given in-house training in this area to other staff members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by us under any circumstances."

"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this project successfully and well within the given time frame."

A co-worker was having trouble with his computer. So he called Tim, the computer guy, to come over to his work station. Tim clicked a couple buttons and solved the problem.

As he was walking away, the co-worker asked him, "So, what was wrong?" Tim replied, "It was an ID ten T error." The co-worker didn’t want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired: "An ID ten T error? What’s that ... in case I need to fix it again?"

Tim grinned. "Haven’t you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?"

"No," The co-worker replied.

"Write it down," he said, "and I think you’ll figure it out."

He wrote: I D 1 0 T

Follow-up stories to the news that Unisys Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Dell Computer Corp. are teaming up to create new voting technology.

BLUE BELL, PA (November 12, 2002) – After being unable to recover the results of last week’s congressional election, the Unisys Help Desk closed the ticket today with a recommendation to reboot the system and try the election again.

REDMOND, WA (October 25, 2004) – Microsoft announced today that because of production delays in Election ’04, next month’s presidential election has been pushed back to the second quarter of next year.

WASHINGTON (August 3, 2005) – President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore conceded today’s election at 8:00 p.m. after preliminary results showed them losing overwhelmingly. Final results, released immediately after polls closed in Hawaii, showed both the incumbent Republican and his Democratic challenger failed to garner 100 votes nationwide. The winning ticket received 1,073,741,824 votes – all write-ins. "President-elect Gates and I are honored and humbled by this historic victory," said Vice President-Elect Michael Dell in his acceptance speech.

"Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen."

"A system admin’s life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards!"