Author: The Wise Owl (Page 8 of 10)

Smart enough for the 3rd grade?

July 14, 2007 / / 0 Comments

A first-grade teacher, Ms Brooks was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, “Harry what is your problem?” Harry answered, “I’m too smart for the first-grade. My sister is in the third grade and I’m smarter than she is! I think I should be in the third grade too!”

Ms Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal’s office. While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms Brooks he would give the boy a test and if he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the first-grade and behave. She agreed. Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: “What is 3 x 3?”
Harry: “9”.

Principal: “What is 6 x 6?”
Harry: “36”.

And so it went with every question the principal thought a third-grade should know. The principal looks at Ms Brooks and tells her, “I think Harry can go to the third-grade.”

Ms Brooks says to the principal, “Let me ask him some questions?” The principal and Harry both agree.

Ms Brooks asks, “What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?
Harry, after a moment: “Legs.”

Ms Brooks: “What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?”
The principal wondered, why does she ask such a question!
Harry replied: “Pockets.”

Ms Brooks: “What does a dog do that a man steps into?”
Harry: “Pants”

Ms Brooks: What’s starts with a C and ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin whitish liquid?
Harry: Coconut

The principal’s eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer, Harry was taking charge.

Ms Brooks: What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?
Harry: Bubblegum

Ms Brooks: What does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down and a dog do on three legs?”
The principal’s eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer.
Harry: Shake hands

Ms Brooks: Now I will ask some “Who am I” sort of questions, okay?
Harry: Yep.

Ms Brooks: You stick your poles inside me. You tie me down to get me up. I get wet before you do.
Harry: Tent

Ms Brooks: A finger goes in me. You fiddle with me when you’re bored. The best man always has me first. The Principal was looking restless and bit tense.
Harry: Wedding Ring

Ms Brooks: I come in many sizes. When I’m not well, I drip. When you blow me, you feel good.
Harry: Nose

Ms Brooks: I have a stiff shaft. My tip penetrates. I come with a quiver.
Harry: Arrow

Ms Brooks: What word starts with an ‘F’ and ends in ‘K’ that means a lot of heat and excitement?
Harry: Firetruck

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, “Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last ten questions wrong myself.”

The Responsibility Poem

July 14, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Condensed version

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody couldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

The Responsibility Poem

Charles Osgood has written “The Responsibility Poem” which is the full length version. I found it at Charles Osgood on Responsibility

There was a most important job that needed to be done,
And no reason not to do it, there was absolutely none.
But in vital matters such as this, the thing you have to ask
Is who exactly will it be who’ll carry out the task?

Anybody could have told you that Everybody knew
That this was something Somebody would surely have to do.
Nobody was unwilling; Anybody had the ability.
But Nobody believed that it was their responsibility.

It seemed to be a job that Anybody could have done,
If Anybody thought he was supposed to be the one.
But since Everybody recognized that Anybody could,
Everybody took for granted that Somebody would.

But Nobody told Anybody that we are aware of,
That he would be in charge of seeing it was taken care of.
And Nobody took it on himself to follow through,
And do what Everybody thought that Somebody would do.

When what Everybody needed so did not get done at all,
Everybody was complaining that Somebody dropped the ball.
Anybody then could see it was an awful crying shame,
And Everybody looked around for Somebody to blame.

Somebody should have done the job
And Everybody should have,
But in the end Nobody did
What Anybody could have.

Life, plans and opportunities

June 4, 2007 / / 0 Comments

John Lennon said ” Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” To me it does not mean to skip plans entirely, just that we need to enjoy life too.

“Opportunity favors the prepared mind” is the tag line for BlackRock, an investment company. It is also a great way of thinking, being prepared and having alternatives at hand makes life easier. The more we consider our options, the more open we are to see and grab opportunities when they turn up.

Writing lists – by hand

May 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Penelope Trunk from Brazen Careerist is guest blogger at JibberJobber and has posted about Writing Lists. She writes I am a list writer. I do it by hand. Every day.

I write lists by hand too, it makes me think more about what’s in the lists than when I just enter something into a computerized list. Penelope puts it this way:

You know those things that you keep on your list forever but never get to? You face reality much sooner if you rewrite by hand. The repetition of rewriting something that will never happen starts to get to you. You leave it off.

Writing lists by hand naturally helps me with one key issue, to decide what is important and what is not.

Butterflies First Live In Cocoons

April 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I found more interesting things to read at “Masterful Living Newsletter”. This post is about the importance of having periods of rest, to recharge and get ready for the next step in life. In “Butterflies First Live In Cocoons” Christen Murphy Resmo starts like this:

We all must have restful periods of incubation and calm. You’re meant to enjoy this time to relax and quietly grow, or simply catch your breath a while. Inactivity helps you gather energy so that you can take yourself to a whole new level in life. You’ll need these stores of energy so that, in the right time and place, you’ll be able to take off and fly high.

I agree that it is very important to take time outs, to rest a while and recharge.

The consultant and the shepherd

March 7, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Once upon a time there was a shepherd looking after his sheep on the edge of a deserted road. Suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee screeches to a halt next to him.

The driver, a young man dressed in a Brioni suit, Cerrutti shoes, Ray-Ban glasses, and a YSL tie gets out and asks the shepherd – If I guess how many sheep you do have, you give me one of them?

The shepherd looks at the young man, then looks at the sheep which graze and says:
– All right.

The young man parks the car, connects the notebook and the mobile, enters a NASA site, scans the ground using his GPS, opens a data base and 60 Excel tables filled with algorithms, then prints a 150-pages
report on his high-tech mini-printer. He then turns to the shepherd and says:
– You have excactly 1586 sheep here.

The shepherd answers:
– That´s correct, you can have your sheep.

The young man takes the sheep and puts in the back of his jeep. The shepherd looks at him and asks:
– If I guess your profession, will you return my sheep to me?

The young man answers:
– Yes, why not.

The shepherd says:
– You are a consultant!

– How did you know?, asks the young man.

– Very simple, answers the shepherd.
– First, you come here without being called. Second, you charge me a sheep to tell me something I already knew. Third, you do not understand anything about what I do, because you took my dog!

Beyond this Point There Be Dragons

February 27, 2007 / / 0 Comments

The other day I found this interesting note on the internet:

In the time of the great explorers Columbus, Magellan, and Drake many areas of the earth’s surface, especially the oceans, were uncharted. Most of the people still believed that the earth was flat. Legend among seaman held that sea monsters and other creatures lived in these uncharted regions. As a result, the map makers of this era commonly place the words “beyond this point there be dragons” on uncharted areas.

That is the way we feel when we get outside our personal comfort zones, beyond this point there will be dragons. But if we want to grow outside our current comfort zone then we have to challenge these dragons now and then.

Having fun with creativity

February 11, 2007 / / 0 Comments

This weekend I attended a course about creativity and the subconscious. It was fun playing around with colours, using “the other hand” and finally trying to find a running thread in what we had created. One thing is pretty clear though, I will not make it as an artist but it was great fun.

“The other hand” is a very interesting concept. It is defined as the hand you do not use for writing. What happens is that what you paint or draw with your other hand is quite different from what you do with your “right” hand. Not only in quality (less practice with “the other hand”) but also in style.

The Canoe Race

December 15, 2006 / / 0 Comments

A Japanese Company and a California Company decided to have a canoe race on the Columbia River. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. Afterwards, the California team became very discouraged and depressed. The management of the California company decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. A “Measurement Team” made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was that the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the Californians had 1 person rowing and 8 people steering. The Management of the California company hired a consulting company and paid them incredible amounts of money. They advised that too many people were steering the boat and not enough people were rowing. To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program”, with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. “We must give the rower empowerment and enrichment through this quality program.”

The next year the Japanese won by 2 miles. Humiliated, the management of the California company laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

Then they used the money saved by giving a High Performance Award to the steering managers and distributed the rest of the money as bonuses to the senior executives.

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