We haven't seen research validating the extent to which humor improves leadership and communications, but we enjoy the humor we hear and see in the our clients' coffee rooms, bulletin boards and chat rooms. Following is a list of some of our personal favorites. We invite you to add to our collection, use the Contact Us form on the About/ Contact Us page. If we post your joke in the collection we'll be happy to send you a copy of our book The Partnering Solution (Career Press, 2005) and that's not a joke!
The Engineer, the Physicist, the Mathematician, and the Statistician
An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a statistician are taken, one at a time, into a room to undergo a psychological test. In the room is a table (upon which is a pad and pencil), a chair, a bucket of water, and a waste basket rigged so that it can be set ablaze from an adjacent room in which the psychologists watch. The engineer is first, and the basket is set ablaze. The engineer immediately jumps up, grabs the bucket of water and dashes the entire thing onto the fire, flooding the entire room and extinguishing the fire. The physicist is next. The basket ignites, the physicist quickly calculates exactly how much water is required to extinguish the flames and pours exactly that amount, neatly extinguishing the flames. The mathematician next. The basket blazes up, the mathematician calculates exactly how much water is required to put out the fire, and then walks out of the room. The statistician is last. The basket is ignited. He grabs the bucket, pours half on one side, half on the other, and announces, "It's out."
On Time
A mathematician wandered home at 3 AM. His wife became very upset, telling him, "You're late! You said you'd be home by 11:45." The mathematician replied, "I'm right on time. I said I'd be home by a quarter of twelve."
The Mathematician, the Biologist and the Physicist
A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate." The biologists: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."
The Horse
There was once a very smart horse. Anything that was shown it, it mastered easily, until one day, its teachers tried to teach it about rectangular coordinates and it couldn't understand them. All the horse's acquaintances and friends tried to figure out what was the matter and couldn't. Then a new guy looked at the problem and said, "Of course he can't do it. Why, you're putting Descartes before the horse!"
Descartes
Renee Descartes is sitting in a bar, he's had a few beers. The bartender comes over and asks, "Would you like another?" Descartes replies, "I think not," ……….and disappears.
The Biologist, the Statistician, the Mathematician and the Computer Scientist
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. They drive out on the savannah in their jeep, stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle: a white zebra! It's fantastic! There are white zebra's! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist: "Oh, no! A special case!"
Mean Lovers
A statistics professor liked the bumper sticker he kept on his office door that read "Statisticians are mean lovers" until the day someone crossed out the word "mean" and replaced it with the word "average." A little later, someone else scribbled, "Is this deviation standard?"
More Statistician Bumper Stickers
Statisticians probably do it.
Statisticians do it continuously but discretely.
Statisticians do it when it counts.
Statisticians do it. After all, it's only normal.
Statisticians do it with 95% confidence.
Statisticians do it with large numbers.
Statisticians do it with only a 5% chance of being rejected.
The Physicist, the Chemist, and the Statistician
Three professors (a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician) are called in to see their dean. Just as they arrive the dean is called out of his office, leaving the three professors there. The professors see with alarm that there is a fire in the wastebasket. The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the fire will go out." The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants." While the physicist and chemist debate what course to take, they both are alarmed to see the statistician running around the room starting other fires. They both scream, "What are you doing?"
More On Statisticians
A statistician is a person who draws a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion.
A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet in ice, and he will say that on the average he feels fine.
Statistician: Someone who doesn't have the personality to be an accountant.
Mobius
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip? To get to the same side.
How to Love a Geek: Do's and Don'ts – Crib Notes
DO:
– Carry paper at all times. If geeks don't have paper, who knows what they'll write on.
– Remember where the car is parked. I suggest the method of carrying around a Polaroid camera and photographing the car and its relation to the parking lot.
– Carry a compass and a map.
– Familiarize yourself with the literature: The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python's movies and Flying Circuses along with Star Trek movies and shows.
– Ask for help in your math courses. However, when being helped never say, "I just want to know how to do it. Don't tell me what it means."
– Learn how to play euchre (and bridge). This is probably what the geek had in mind when s/he asked you if you wanted to be partners. – When your geek invites you out to a gathering of other geeks be prepared to not understand a single word that they are saying, even if they are all English words.
DO NOT:
– Announce "Puns are the lowest form of humor."
– Go shopping for food, especially without a calculator! The geek will ensure that you save that indispensable, extra 3.33 cents by buying the Super-JUMBO box of baking powder, even if it takes 3.33 hours to figure it out (and 3.33 years to use up that much).
– Go out to dinner with a huge group of people and upon the arrival of the bill ask the geek to figure out who owes what to whom.
– Expect your geek to add, subtract, multiply, divide, or count with any speed or accuracy. (If this really bothers you, go out with a nice, dependable HP calculator.)
– Confuse the geek's vocabulary with your own. HP does not mean steak sauce to a geek, chips do not go with fish, nor does reading the news have anything to do with the Record or Herald.
– Ask a geek, "So what are you going to do with a degree in math?"
– Ask the geek to divide a cake or any other non-parallelogram shaped food.
Software Or Hardware?
Q) How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A) None. That's a hardware problem.
When Trekkies become software developers, they say things like:
– Specifications are for the weak and timid!
– You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
– Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
– Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"
The Mechanical, Electrical, and Microsoft Engineers
A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer were riding together in a car. The vehicle came to a sudden stop, and the three engineers looked quizzically at each other, wondering what the problem might be. The mechanical engineeer recommended checking the various belts. The electrical engineer suggested that they trace the wires of the vehicle to try to locate a short or a break. But then the Microsoft engineer came up with a clever idea: "Why don`t we just close all the windows, shut off the engine, get out of the vehicle, have a cup of coffee, get back into the vehicle, restart the engine, re-open the windows, and maybe the car will be able to go."
