> I got the following message as a forwarded
> email. Its more fun to read in an email (you
> will see why) - but had to share it with you
> guys...

> ----

> An unemployed man is desperate to support
> his
> family. His wife watches TV all day and his
> three
> teenage kids have dropped out of high school
> to
> hang around with the local toughs. 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 $5.15 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 back, 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
> 25lb
> crates of 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 neighbourhood 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 which 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 a 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 $5.15 an hour."

> Which brings us to the moral:

> Since you got this story by email, you're
> probably closer to being a janitor than a
> millionaire.

> Sadly, I received it also

Ankesh,

Awesome story. I printed that one out! Morality booster....Reality downer.