Business One - Liners & Laws

Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it, get a larger hammer.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner or the workshop.
Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike your toes.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company, Nowadays it insists on it. - Columnist Russell Baker
Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb: The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon by the bee.
Barker's Proof: Proofreading is more effective after publication.
Becker's Law: It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. - Jules Becker & Co. (Becker goes on to claim that his law permeates industry as well as government, "...once a person has been hired inertia sets in, and the employer would rather settle for the current employee's incompetence and idiosyncrasies than look for a new employee.")
Belle's Constant: The ratio of time involved in work to time available for work is about 0.6. - from a 1977 JIR article of the same title by Daniel McIvor and Olsen Belle, in which it is observed that knowledge of this constant is most useful in planning long-range projects. It is based on such things as an analysis of an eight hour workday in which only 4.8 hours are actually spent working (or 0.6 of the time available), with the rest being spent on coffee breaks, bathroom visits, resting, walking, fiddling around, and trying to determine what to do next.
Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: (1) Houses are for people to live in. (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
Berkeley's Laws: (1) The world is more complicated than most of our theories make it out to be. (2) Ignorance is no excuse. (3) Never decide to buy something while listening to the salesman. (4) Most problems have either many answers or no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer. (5) Most general statements are false, including this one. (6) An exception - test a rule; it never proves it. (7) The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it; it probably isn't right. (8) If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made. (9) Check the answer you have worked out once more - before you tell anybody. - Edmund C. Berkeley 

Changed HR policies

Casual Fridays:
Week 1 - Memo No. 1 Effective this week, the company is adopting Fridays as Casual Day. Employees are free to dress in the casual attire of their choice.
Week 3 - Memo No. 2 Spandex and leather micro-miniskirts are not appropriate attire for Casual Day. Neither are string ties, rodeo belt buckles or moccasins.
Week 6 - Memo No. 3 Casual Day refers to dress only, not attitude. When planning Friday's wardrobe, remember image is a key to our success.
Week 8 - Memo No. 4 A seminar on how to dress for Casual Day will be held at 4 p.m. Friday in the cafeteria. A fashion show will follow. Attendance is mandatory.
Week 9 - Memo No. 5 As an outgrowth of Friday's seminar, a 14-member Casual Day Task Force has been appointed to prepare guidelines for proper casual-day dress.
Week 14 - Memo No. 6 The Casual Day Task Force has now completed a 30-page manual entitled "Relaxing Dress Without Relaxing Company Standards." A copy has been distributed to every employee. Please review the chapter "You Are What You Wear" and consult the "home casual" versus "business casual" checklist before leaving for work each Friday. If you have doubts about the appropriateness of an item of clothing, contact your CDTF representative before 7 a.m. on Friday.
Week 18 - Memo No. 7 Our Employee Assistant Plan (EAP) has now been expanded to provide support for psychological counseling for employees who may be having difficulty adjusting to Casual Day.
Week 20 - Memo No. 8 Due to budget cuts in the HR Department we are no longer able to effectively support or manage Casual Day. Casual Day will be discontinued, effective immediately.

Cat Technical Support

This is an actual account by a worker at a technical support and service center. One particular customer had an old console - type machine with a print head that would ride back and forth on a spiral shaft. They also had a big bushy cat who liked to sit on the edge of the printer next to the operator. Well, one day we got a service call that said, "Cat caught in machine, come quick!" When I arrived I saw everyone sitting around mending their various wounds, scratches and contusions. No sight of the cat. It appears that while they were running the machine the cat was twirling his tail in his usual fashion and stuck it down into the printer at the most inopportune time and got sucked in! Apparently, the cat absolutely freaked out and clawed at everyone who came close. They finally freed the cat, and to this day, the cat goes nowhere near the machine.