business jokes

There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrnog.

There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrrong.

There is no limit to how bad things can get.

There is no limit to the amount of good that people can accomplish, if they don't care who gets the credit.

There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.

There is no problem so large that it cannot be solved by the application of a correctly chosen thermonuclear device.

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

There is no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

There is no such thing as a "dirty capitalist", only a capitalist.

There is no such thing as instant experience.

There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.

Acheson's Rule Of The Bureaucracy: A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. - Dean Acheson

Action's Law: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Adler's Distinction: Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and from the bureaucrats.

Advertising Rule: In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, that it is curable.

Air Force Inertia Axiom: Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness.

Allen's Distinction: The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. - Woody Allen

Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being.

Alden's Laws: (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. (2) Always be backlit. (3) Sit down whenever possible.

Andrea's Admonition: Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, it isn't and he can.

Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Approval Seeker's Law: Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least. - Washington writer Rozanne Weissman

The Aquinas Axiom: What the gods get away with, the cows don't.

Army Axiom: Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.

Astrology Laws: It's always the wrong time of the month. - Rozanne Weissman

Avery's Rule of Three: Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job - it's the start of a brand new series of three.

Baer's Quartet: What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is good politics. - Eugene Baer (Baer also allows that it can be restated somewhat more compactly as "What's good politics is bad economics and vice versa, vice versa.")

Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele.

Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors.

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