THE POWER OF EMAIL

An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor.

The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (Section:

Floors, sweeping and cleaning). After the test, the manager says, "You will

be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address

so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for

work on your first day."

Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail

address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you

virtually don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in

his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 pound flat of tomatoes at the

supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes

individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that

day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night.

And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling

tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies

his profits quickly. After a short time he acquires a cart to transport

several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that

he can buy a pick-up truck to support his expanding business. By the end of

the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a

staff of a hundred formerly unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some

life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance

plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone

conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send

the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What,

you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth

without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would

be now, if you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!"

After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course!

I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"

Moral of this story:

1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.

2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a

millionaire.

3. Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to

becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.

4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been taken to the

cleaners by Microsoft.