Upon their arrival, the doctor said that the hospital was testing an amazing new high-tech machine that would transfer a portion of the mother’s labor pain to the baby’s father.

He asked if they were interested. Both said they were very much in favor of it.

The doctor set the pain transfer to 10% for starters, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced before. But as the labor progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and kick it up a notch.

The doctor then adjusted the machine to 20% pain transfer. The husband was still feeling fine. The doctor then checked the husband’s blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing.

At this point they decided to try for 50%. The husband continued to feel quite well. Since the pain transfer was obviously helping the wife considerably, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him.

The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain and the husband had experienced none. She and her husband were ecstatic.

When they got home they found the postman dead on the porch.

Jacob addresses the man behind the counter: “Are you the owner?”

The pharmacist answers, “Yes.”

Jacob: “We’re about to get married. Do you sell heart medication?”

Pharmacist: “Of course we do.”

Jacob: “How about medicine for circulation?”

Pharmacist: “All kinds.”

Jacob: “Medicine for rheumatism and scoliosis?”

Pharmacist: “Definitely.”

Jacob: “How about Viagra?”

Pharmacist: “Of course.”

Jacob: “Medicine for memory problems, arthritis, jaundice?”

Pharmacist: “Yes, a large variety. The works.”

Jacob: “What about vitamins, sleeping pills, Geritol, antidotes for Parkinson’s disease?”

Pharmacist: “Absolutely.”

Jacob: “You sell wheelchairs and walkers?”

Pharmacist: “All speeds and sizes.”

Jacob: “We’d like to use this store as our Bridal Registry.

When they get there, St. Peter says: “We only have one rule here in heaven: Don’t step on the ducks!”

So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck!

Although they try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one. Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw.

St. Peter chains them together and says, “Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this man!”

The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck.

And along comes St. Peter, who doesn’t miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man.

He chains them together, with the same admonishment as for the first woman.

The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps.

She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks.

One day St. Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on …. Very tall, long eyelashes, muscular.

St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.

The happy woman says, “I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?”

The guy says, “I don’t know about you, but I stepped on a duck.”

And God said, “I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.”

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve.

And it was a good animal.

And God was pleased.

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.

And Adam said, “Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.”

And God said, “I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.”

And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.

And they were comforted.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, “Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.”

And God said, “I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.”

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.

And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat’s eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.

And Adam and Eve learned humility.

And they were greatly improved.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was happy.

And Cat didn’t give a shit one way or the other.

They bought a bull to mate with the cow to get more cows, so they’d never have to worry about their milk supply again. They put the bull in the pasture with the cow but whenever the bull tried to mount the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull and he was never able to do the deed.

The people were very upset and decided to go the Vet, who was very wise, to tell him what was happening and ask his advise.

“Whenever the bull tries to mount our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward,” they said. “When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. If he attempts from the one side, she walks away to the other side.”

The Vet rubbed his chin thoughtfully and pondered this before asking, “Did you by chance, buy this cow in Texas ?”

The people were dumbfounded, since no one had ever mentioned that they had brought the cow over from Texas.

“You are truly a wise Vet,” they said. “How did you know we got the cow from Texas?”

The Vet replied with a distant look in his eye, “My wife is from Texas.”

“Do you know how they make these gloves?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” she replied.

“Well,” he spoofed, “there’s a building in Canada with a big tank of latex, and workers of all hand sizes walk up to the tank, dip in their hands, let them dry, then peel off the gloves and throw them into boxes of the right size.”

She didn’t crack a smile.

“Oh, well. I tried,” he thought.

But five minutes later, during a delicate portion of the procedure, she burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I was just envisioning how condoms are made!”

Then he noticed a dead jackass lying in the middle of his front lawn.

Being new to town and not knowing who to call, he dialed the Capitol.

“Good morning, sir, how can we help you?”

“Ah, the best of the day ta yerself. This is Father O’Malley at St. Bridgid’s. There’s a dead jackass lying on me front lawn! Would ye be kind enough to send a couple of yer lads over to take care of the matter?”

The person on the other end, considering themselves a bit of a wit, answers “Well now, Father, it was always my impression that your type of people took care of last rites!”

After a moment of silence, Father O’Malley replied: “Aye, that’s certainly true. But we’re first obligated to notify the next of kin.”

The second dragonboat follows closely and again the Viking crew leap into the surf, haul up their ship and assemble neatly with spears, swords and shields and await their orders.

The third one straggles on to the beach, the crew climbs wearily out and half heartedly hauls up their ship. They gather in a motley and bedraggled mass and await their orders.

The leader cries out “First ship, you are on looting. Second ship, you get on with the burning”. At which the third crew cries out “Oh no, not raping again”.

08:05 am User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?

08:12 am Accounting called to say they couldn’t access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, “Well, it works for me.” Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer…

08:14 am User from 805 call said they received error message “Error accessing Drive 0.” Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to microsupport.

11:00 am Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The “Myst” and “Doom” nationals are this weekend!

11:34 am Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */US.

12:00 pm Lunch

3:30 pm Return from lunch.

3:55 pm Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason.

Return to napping.

4:23 pm Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask them what chip set they’re using. Tell them to call back when they find out.

4:55 pm Decide to run “Create Save/Replication Conflicts” macro so next shift has something to do.

Tuesday

8:30 am Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.

9:00 am Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes SmartIcon. “Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the calendar database!” I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.

9:35 am Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need form J-19R=9C9\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell them it’s in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.

10:00 am Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last week’s “Reengineering for Customer Partnership,” I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment.

10:07 am Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a smoke.

1:00 pm Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.

1:05 pm Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in computer room, even if I do yell “Omigod — Fire!”

1:15 pm Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.

1:20 pm Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for “Notice Loads” or “NoLoad Goats,” she’s not sure, couldn’t hear over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably “Lettuce Nodes.” Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks about it and hangs up.

2:00 pm Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she does that.

2:49 pm Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.

Wednesday

8:30 am Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form. Tell them Of course, they should have been checking “Bitset,” not “chipset.” Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.

9:10am Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 1000am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material…

10:00 am Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager’s office. He says he can’t dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he’s aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.

10:30 am Tell Louie he’s doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX system sometime.

11:00 am Lunch.

4:55 pm Return from lunch.

5:00 pm Shift change; Going home.

Thursday

8:00 am New guy (“Marvin”) started today. “Nice plaids” I offer. Show him server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome and color.

8:45 am New guy’s PC finishes booting up. Tell him I’ll create new ID for him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.

9:30 am Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. “Nice plaids” Louie comments. Is this guy great or what?!

11:00 am Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of sleeves (“Always have backups”). User calls, says Accounting server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another happy customer!

11:55 am Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01 “Whereas all new employee beginning on days ending in ‘Y’ shall enjoy all proper aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to provide sustenance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift.” Marvin doubts. I point to “Corporate Policy”database (a fine piece of work, if I say so myself!). “Remember, that’s DOUBLE pepperoni and NO peppers!” I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile to get to exit door.

1:00 pm Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy…

4:30 pm Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.

5:00 pm Shift change. Flick HR’s server off and on several times (just testing the On/Off button…). See ya tomorrow.

Friday

8:00 am Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them it worked fine before I left.

9:00 am Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.

9:02 am Yep. A user calls. Users in Des Moines can’t replicate. Me and the Oiuji board determine it’s sunspots. Tell them to call Telecommunications.

9:30 am Good God, another user! They’re like ants. Says he’s in San Diego and can’t replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it’s sunspots, but with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two hours.

10:17 am Pensacola calls. Says they can’t route mail to San Diego. Tell them to set server ahead three hours.

11:00 am E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.

11:20 am Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.

11:23 am Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.

11:25 am Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. “So hard to get good help…” I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. “No problem!”

11:30 am Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he’s invited to a meeting this afternoon. “Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff” I tell him.

12:00 am Lunch.

1:00 pm Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make them fast.

1:03 pm Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!

2:30 pm Look in support manager’s contact management database. Cancel 245 pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know.

2:39 pm New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.

2:50 pm Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor’s office means appointment cancelled. Says he’s just going to go on home. Ask him if he’s seen corporate Web page lately.

3:00 pm Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:00 pm Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point size to “2″ in help databases.

4:30 pm User calls to say they can’t see anything in documents. Tell them to go to view, do a “Edit — Select All”, hit delete key, and then refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:45 pm Another user calls. Says they can’t read help documents. Tell them I’ll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.

4:58 pm Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much.

5:00 pm Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a good weekend.

Teacher: “Whoever answers the questions I ask, first and correctly can leave early today.”

Little Johnny says to himself, “Good, I want to get outta here. I’m smart and will answer the question.”

Teacher: “Who said ‘Four Score and Seven Years Ago’?”

Before Johnny can open his mouth, Susie says, “Abraham Lincoln.”

Teacher: “That’s right Susie, you can go home.”

Johnny is mad that Susie answered the question first.

Teacher: “Who said ‘I Have a Dream’?”

Before Johnny can open his mouth, Mary says, “Martin Luther King.”

Teacher: “That’s right Mary, you can go.”

Johnny is even madder than before.

Teacher: “Who said ‘Ask not, what your country can do for you’?”

Before Johnny can open his mouth, Nancy says, “John F. Kennedy.”

Teacher: “That’s right Nancy, you may also leave.”

Johnny is boiling mad that he has not been able to answer to any of the questions.

When the teacher turns her back, Johnny says, “I wish these bitches would keep their mouths shut!”

The teacher turns around: “NOW WHO SAID THAT?”

Johnny: “TIGER WOODS. CAN I GO NOW?