Email Address

"Email Address"

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 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
25 lb. 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 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 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 $5.35 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!!!
Received on Fri Jul 7 06:30:54 2006