The Lighter Side

Lemon squeezer

The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet. The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people had tried over time (weight-lifters, longshoremen, etc.) but nobody could do it.

One day this scrawny little man came into the bar, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny squeaky voice ” I’d like to try the bet” After the laughter had died down, the bartender said OK, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man.

But the crowd’s laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little man “what do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight-lifter, or what?” The man replied “I work for the Canada Revenue Agency.”

Interview

There once was a business owner who was interviewing people for a division manager position. He decided to select the individual that could answer the question “how much is 2+2?”

The engineer pulled out his slide rule and shuffled it back and forth, and finally announced, “It lies between 3.98 and 4.02″.
The mathematician said, “In two hours I can demonstrate it equals 4 with the following short proof.”
The physicist declared, “It’s in the magnitude of 1×101.”
The logician paused for a long while and then said, “This problem is solvable.”
The social worker said, “I don’t know the answer, but I am glad that we discussed this important question.
The attorney stated, “In the case of Svenson vs. the State, 2+2 was declared to be 4.”
The trader asked, “Are you buying or selling?”
The accountant looked at the business owner, then got out of his chair, went to see if anyone was listening at the door and pulled the drapes. Then he returned to the business owner, leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, “What would you like it to be?”

The young accountant

A young accountant spends a week at his new office with the retiring accountant he is replacing. Each and every morning as the more experienced accountant begins the day, he opens his desk drawer, takes out a worn envelope, removes a yellowing sheet of paper, reads it, nods his head, looks around the room with renewed vigor, returns the envelope to the drawer, and then begins his day’s work.

After he retires, the new accountant can hardly wait to read for himself the message contained in the envelope in the drawer, particularly since he feels so inadequate in replacing the far wiser and more highly esteemed accountant. Surely, he thinks to himself, it must contain the great secret to his success, a wondrous treasure of inspiration and motivation. His fingers tremble anxiously as he removes the mysterious envelope from the drawer and reads the following message:

“Debits in the column toward the file cabinet.

Credits in the column toward the window.”

Senior partner parrot

An accountant goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner shows him three identical parrots on a perch and says, “The parrot on the left costs $500.” “Why does that parrot cost so much?” asks the accountant. “Well,” replies the owner, “it knows how to do complex audits.” “How much does the middle parrot cost?” asks the accountant. “That one costs $1,000 because it can do everything the first one can do plus it knows how to prepare financial forecasts”. The startled accountant asks about the third parrot, to be told it costs $4,000. Needless to say, this begs the question, “What can it do?” To which the owner replies “To be honest, I’ve never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two call him Senior Partner.”