The tomato story

[BigG]

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and

three kids. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes

an aptitude test.

 

The human resources manager tells him, 'You will be hired at minimum

wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you

in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and

advise you when to start and where to report on your first day.'

 

 

Taken aback, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a

computer nor an e-mail address.

 

To this the manager replies, 'You must understand that to a company

like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail

address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good

day.'

 

Stunned, the man leaves Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his

wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb.

crates o f beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy

corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the

tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more

that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with

several bags of groceries for his family.

 

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day.

By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into

the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.

 

Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes

of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a

broken-down pickup truck.

 

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left

their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife

is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the

community college so she can keep books for him.

 

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and

employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He

continues to work hard.

 

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice

trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms

that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of

homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the

business grossed over one million dollars.

 

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance.

 

Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit

his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address

in order to send the final documents electronically.

 

When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer

and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, 'What, you

don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be

today if you'd had all of that five years ago!'

 

'Ha!' snorts the man. 'If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be

sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour.'

 

Which brings us to the moral of the story:

 

Since you got this story by e-mail, you're probably closer to being a

janitor than a millionaire.

 

Sadly, I received it also

[SilvrT]

:thumbsup2:

[Yammer Dan]

Time to throw this junk out the door!!!:rotfl:

[Kirby]

You hit the nail on the head that time!!!!! I probably am closer to being a janitor than a millionaire!!!!!!!

[Yammer Dan]

I think if you were to ask the Warden she would claim I missed both. Not much money and seem to make a lot more messes than I clean up!!! I told her I just didn't want to make her feel like she wasn't needed....