Business Jokes — most commented jokes

What does Santa call his wife at tax time?
→ A dependent Claus.

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel.

"I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.

"The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $1.37."

"And that's how you built an empire?" the boy asked.

"Heavens, no!" the man replied. "Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars."

A friend of mine was a frequent user of a pay telephone at a popular truck stop, and was greatly inconvenienced when the phone went out of commission.

Repeated requests for repair brought only promises.

After several days, the phone company was again contacted and told that there was no longer a rush.

The phone was now working fine--except that all money was being returned upon completion of each call.

A repairman arrived within the hour!

The world is divided into two groups. There are those who know, and those who don't know. Those who know are no problem.

Those who don't know are also in two groups.

One is those who don't know and know they don't know. Well, they can learn!

But then, there are those who don't know, and don't know they don't know. And they become unit managers!

Four corporate presidents, one English, one French, one Japanese and one American, were on their way to an international business conference when they were kidnapped by terrorists and taken to a secret hideout.

"You, your companies, and your countries are enemies of the Revolution," screamed the terrorist leader, "and you're going to be executed! Do you have any last requests?"

The Englishman spoke first.

"Before I die, I want to honor my country and protest this barbaric act by singing "God Save The Queen" to all you men."

"That can be arranged," said the terrorist.

The Frenchman said, "And I want to honor my country before I die by singing "The Marseilles" to your men."

The Japanese said, "Before I die, I wish to honor my country by giving the lecture I was going to present on the Japanese style of industrial management."

The terrorist turned finally to the American.

"What is your last request?"

The American replied, "I want you to kill me right now so I don't have to listen to another lecture on the Japanese style of industrial management!"

An American automobile company and a Japanese auto company decided to have a competitive boat race on the Detroit River. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day, they were as ready as they could be.

The Japanese team won by a mile.

Afterwards, the American team became discouraged by the loss and their morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. A Continuous Measurable Improvement Team of "Executives" was set up to investigate the problem and to recommend appropriate corrective action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese team had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, whereas the American team had 1 person rowing and 8 people steering. The American Corporate Steering Committee immediately hired a consulting firm to do a study on the management structure.

After some time and billions of dollars, the consulting firm concluded that "too many people were steering and not enough rowing." To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year, the management structure was changed to "4 Steering Managers, 3 Area Steering Managers, and 1 Staff Steering Manager" and a new performance system for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a six sigma performer. "We must give him empowerment and enrichment." That ought to do it.

The next year the Japanese team won by two miles.

The American Corporation laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all of the paddles, cancelled all capital investments for new equipment, halted development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to the consulting firm, and distributed the money saved as bonuses to the senior executives.

The Mafia was looking for a new man to make weekly collections from all the private businesses that they were 'protecting'.

Feeling the heat from the police force, they decided to use a deaf person for this job. If he were to get caught, he wouldn't be able to communicate to the police what he was doing.

Well, on his first week, the deaf collector picks up over $50,000. He gets greedy, decides to keep the money and stashes it in a safe place.

The Mafia soon realizes that their collection is late, and sends some of their hoods after the deaf collector. The hoods find the deaf collector and ask him where the money is. The deaf collector can't communicate with them, so the Mafia drags the guy to an interpreter. The Mafia hood says to the interpreter, "Ask him where the money is."

The interpreter signs, "Where's the money?"

The deaf replies, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The interpreter tells the hood, "He says he doesn't know what you're talking about."

The hood pulls out a large gun and places it in the ear of the deaf collector. "NOW ask him where the money is."

The interpreter signs, "Where is the money?"

The deaf man replies, "The $50,000 is in Central Park, hidden in the third tree stump on the left from the West 78th Street gate."

The interpreter says to the hood, "He says he still doesn't know what you're talking about, and doesn't think you have the guts to pull the trigger."

Before going to Europe on business, a man drove his Rolls Royce to a downtown NY City bank and went in to ask for an immediate loan of $5,000. The loan officer was quite taken aback, and requested collateral. "Well, then, here are the keys to my Rolls-Royce", the man said. The loan officer promptly had the car driven into the bank's underground parking for safekeeping, and gave him $5,000.

Two weeks later, the man walked through the bank's doors, and asked to settle up his loan and get his car back. The loan officer checked the records and told him, "That will be $5,000 in principal, and $15.40 in interest." The man wrote out a check, thanked the loan officer, and started to walk away.

"Wait sir," the loan officer said, "while you were gone, I found out you are a millionaire. Why in the world would you need to borrow?"

The man smiled. "Where else could I securely park my Rolls-Royce in Manhattan for two weeks and pay only $15.40?"

Another friend of mine is a very successful businessman. He started with five thousand pounds - now he owes fifty-five million.

When Bernard got fired from his last job they were really tough. They made him hand back his keys to the executive toilets, return his company credit card, give back his company car, and even give back his ulcer!