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Cows
A cowboy was herding his herd in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a
young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie,
leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how
many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects
it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where
he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the
digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the
cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on
amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly
what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, Why not?"
"You're a consultant" says the cowboy.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even
though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already
knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know anything about
my business."
". . . Now give me back my dog."
young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie,
leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how
many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects
it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where
he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the
digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the
cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on
amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly
what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, Why not?"
"You're a consultant" says the cowboy.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required" answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even
though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already
knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know anything about
my business."
". . . Now give me back my dog."