Floor Cleaner At Microsoft

[fortytwo]

Cleaning an old file cabinet I came across this Pearl of Wisdom I collected a couple of decades ago. Worth sharing.

 

An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor.
The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test
(Section:Floors, sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum
wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send
you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your
first day.
Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor
an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that
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 having only
$10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb flat of tomatoes at the
supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes
individually 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 him that he could quite easily
make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and
going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly.
After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen
boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can
buy a pick-up truck to support his expanding business. By the end
of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and
manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all
selling tomatoes.
Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy
some life insurance. Consulting with 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 to send the final documents electronically.
When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned,
"What, you don't 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 be now, if you had been connected
to the internet from the very start!"
After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why,
of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"
Moral of this 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 janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.
4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been
taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.

[Al F]

Great story. But what's this about hard work. Don't I get stuff for just participating?

[wa_desert_rat]

That's a nice story but it leaves out the details. Like how the cops came to arrest him because the store where he bought the tomatoes complained that he was selling them in their parking lot. Then the city prosecuted him for conducting business within the city without a business license. While he was in jail the state revenue department filed charges against him for not collecting sales tax for the tomatoes he sold.

 

But one this is right... he won't need an email address in jail.

 

WDR

[Jack Mayer]

Great story. But what's this about hard work. Don't I get stuff for just participating?

"Participating"? NO, you don't have to participate. You only have to exist and be smart enough to apply for benefits.