MS Tomatoes
An unemployed man goes to try for a job with Microsoft as a cleaner. The manager there arranges
for an aptitude test (Section: Floors, sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says:
“You will be appointed on the scale of $30 per day. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I
can send you a form to complete and advise you where to report for work on your first day.”
Taken aback, the unemployed man protests that he is neither in possession of a computer nor of
an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies:
“Well then, that really 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 only having about $10 left, he decides to
buy a 10kg box of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells the tomatoes
singly 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 the man that he could quite easily
make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up earlier and earlier each day and going to bed later
and later, he multiplies his hoard of profits in quite a short time. Not too long thereafter, he
acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again
shortly afterwards on a pick-up truck. 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.
Considering the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life assurance. Calling
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 that he might
forward the documentation.
When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned:
“What, you don’t even 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 have been by now, if you had
been connected from the very start!”
After a moment’s silence, the tomato millionaire replied:
“Sure! I would have been a cleaner at Microsoft!”
Morals of the story:
- The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
- If you don’t have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.
- Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you’re probably closer to becoming a cleaner
than you are to becoming a millionaire. - If you do have a computer and e-mail, you’re already being taken to the cleaners by
Microsoft.
