A lady came to the hospital to visit a friend. She had not been in a hospital for several years and felt very ignorant about all the new technology. A technician followed her onto the elevator, wheeling a large, intimidating looking machine with tubes and wires and dials. “Boy, would I hate to be hooked up to that
thing,” she said.
“So would I,” replied the technician. “It’s a floor-cleaning machine.”
A man is hired by the circus to perform a necessary but rather unpleasant task. He is asked to walk behind the elephants in the center ring, shoveling aside their droppings as they walk about. After a rather difficult evening at work, he goes to the circus cafeteria, sits with other workers, and begins complaining about his work.
“It’s just terrible work, walking behind those huge beasts and first dodging, then shoveling aside the dung they produce. My arms are tired, my shoes and pants are a mess, and I’ll have to shower before I return home, because of the stink.”
His friends at work agree: “Why don’t you just quit this miserable job and find something more rewarding to do. You have to have some skills and talents that you can put to use somewhere else.”
He looks at them, stunned: “You know, you’re probably right, but I just can’t give up the glamour of show business!”
A preacher dies, and when he gets to Heaven, he sees a New York cab driver who has more crowns. He says to an angel, “I don’t get it. I devoted my whole life to my congregation.”
The angel says, “We reward results. Did your congregation always pay attention when you gave a sermon?”
The preacher says, “Once in a while someone fell asleep.”
The angel says, “Right. And when people rode in this guy’s taxi, they not only stayed awake, but they usually prayed!”
A father, who worked away from home all week, always made a special effort with his family at the weekends. Every Sunday morning he would take his daughter out for a drive in the car.
One particular Sunday however, he was so sick that he really didn’t feel like driving at all. Luckily, his wife came to the rescue and decided that for this week she would take their daughter out.
They returned just before lunch and the little girl ran upstairs to see her father. “Well” the father asked, “did you enjoy your ride with Mommy?” “Oh yes! Daddy” the girl replied, “and do you know what… we didn’t see a single bastard!”
Traffic was heavy on the service road to the airport. Our bus driver signaled to change lanes so he could overtake a slow-moving car. Just as he got ready to pass, the driver of the car put her arm out the window indicating she was going to move left. Our driver drew back and waited for her to change lanes but she didn’t. After a minute she pulled her arm back in.
When we tried to pass her a second time, the woman again held out her hand only to withdraw it a minute later. “C’mon, lady, make up your mind,” our driver mumbled. Finally, after four false starts, we sped past her car. I looked down to see the woman painting her fingemails. As she finished each nail, she waved her arm out the window to let the polish dry.
A man lunching at a Chinese restaurant noticed that the table had been set with forks, not chopsticks. He asked why. The waiter said “Chopsticks were provided only on request.”
“But,” the man countered, “if you gave your patrons chopsticks, you wouldn’t have to pay someone to wash all the forks.”
“True,” the waiter shot back, “but we would have to hire three more people to clean up the mess.”
A man wants to celebrate his wife’s birthday by throwing a party. So he goes to order a birthday cake. The salesman asks him what message he wants to put on the cake.
Well he thinks for a while and says let’s put, “You are not getting older you are getting better”.
The salesman asks “How do you want me to put it?”
The man says, “Well put ‘You are not getting older,’ at the top and ‘You are getting better’ at the bottom. ”
The real fun didn’t start until the cake box was opened and the entire party watched the message decorated on the cake “You are not getting older at the top. You are getting better at the bottom!”
Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn’t be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example…
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, “ko-kou-ko-le,” which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth.”
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” came out as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”
Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.”
When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go.” After the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.
Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for “tiny male genitals”. Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, the company’s mistakenly thought the spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that “It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”
An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of the desired “I Saw the Pope” in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed “I Saw the Potato.”
Chicken-man Frank Perdue’s slogan, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained “It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.”
Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means “big breasts.” In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.
Japan’s second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.
In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to extol the drink’s eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence, the slogan, “Orange juice. It gets your pecker up.”
The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will reveal if you are qualified to be a “professional.” Think! And then scroll down for each answer.
The questions are NOT that difficult.
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is:
Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, “Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?”
(Wrong Answer)
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference.
All the animals attend except one.
Which animal does not attend?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. Remember? This tests your memory.
OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
4. You have to cross a river inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You swim across.
All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting.
This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers.
Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four year old!
An 80 year old couple were having problems remembering things, so they decided to go to their doctor to get checked out to make sure nothing was wrong with them.
When they arrived at the doctors, they explained to the doctor about the problems they were having with their memory. After checking the couple out, the doctor told them that they were physically okay but might want to start writing things down and make notes to help them remember things. The couple thanked the doctor and left.
Later that night while watching TV, the man got up from his chair and his wife asked, “Where are you going?”
He replied, “To the kitchen.”
She asked, “Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?”
He replied, “Sure.”
She then asked him, “Don’t you think you should write it down so you can remember it?”
He said, “No, I can remember that.”
She then said, “Well I would also like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down because I know you’ll forget that.”
He said, “I can remember that, you want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.” She replied, “Well I also would like whipped cream on top. I know you will forget that so you better write it down.”
With irritation in his voice, he said, “I don’t need to write that down! I can remember that.” He then fumes into the kitchen.
After about 20 minutes he returned from the kitchen and handed her a plate of bacon and eggs. She stared at the plate for a moment and said angrily:
“I TOLD you to write it down! You forgot my toast!”
Two ladies were hanging out together and one was depressed. “What’s wrong?” The depressed one replied, “I’ve been married four times and every one of my husbands has passed away.”
The other lady asked, “What did they used to do?”
The depressed lady replied, “Well, my first husband was a millionaire, the second was a magician, the third was an evangelist, and the fourth was a mortician.”
And the other said, “Oh, I see, one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go…”
Back in the ancient days before e-mail, people used to send messages by what they quaintly called a telegram. Charges were by the word, regardless of the length of the word.
An infatuated young man was sending a mushy love note to his girlfriend. The message read: “Oozie loves Woozie Woozie Woozie Woozie Woozie Woozie”
“You can have up to 9 words for the same rate”, said the Western Union telegraph operator.
“Why not add another “Woozie” it won’t cost you any more.”
“No, thanks,” replied the young man.
“I think that would sound rather silly.”
If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you’re eating it too slowly.
Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
Problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the store in hot car.
Solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It’ll take the edge off your appetite and you’ll eat less.
A nice box of chocolates provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn’t that handy?
If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
Equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate is a balanced diet.
The preservatives in chocolate make you look younger.
Q: Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
A: Because no one wants to quit.
Put “eat chocolate” at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you’ll get one thing done!
A man was tired of being bossed around by his wife, so he went to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said he needed to build his self-esteem and so gave him a book on assertiveness, which he read on the way home. He finished the book by the time he reached his house.
The man stormed into the house and walked up to his wife. Pointing a finger in her face, he said, “From now on, I want you to know that – I – am the man of this house, and my word is law! I want you to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert afterward. Then, after dinner, you’re going to draw me my bath so I can relax. And, when I’m finished with my bath, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?”
“The funeral director,” his wife replied.
A sales rep, an administration clerk and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke. The Genie says, “I usually only grant three wishes, so I’ll give each of you just one.”
“Me first! Me first!” says the admin clerk.”I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.” Poof! She’s gone.
In astonishment, “Me next! Me next!” says the sales rep. “I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of pina coladas and the love of my life.” Poof! He’s gone.
“OK, you’re up,” the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, “I want those two back in the office after lunch.”
MORAL OF THE STORY: always let your boss have the first say.