Ahh yes...

[JenNjuice4]

It all makes sense now...(sorry it's long, but worth the read!)...

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result; all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey every again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here. And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins. :laughing

 

[Cincinnatus]

So sad... so true.

Reminds me of when I worked at Boeing....

"We've done it this way since WW2, don't even think about changing this procedure."

My job description was written in Nov 1957. Data Analyst 3.

It is to laugh & cry...

 

[reelo21]

Long, but good...

 

[reelo21]

> JUST A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
>
>
> Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?
>
>
>
> The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
> inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
>
>
>
> Why was that gauge used?
>
>
>
> Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates
> built the US Railroads.
>
>
>
> Why did the English build them like that?
>
>
>
> Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the
> pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
>
>
>
> Why did "they" use that gauge then?
>
>
>
> Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
> that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
>
>
>
> Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
>
>
>
> Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break
> on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the
> spacing of the wheel ruts.
>
>
>
> So who built those old rutted roads?
>
>
>
> Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England)
> for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
>
>
>
> And the ruts in the roads?
>
>
>
> Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to
> match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were
> made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel
> spacing.
>
>
>
> The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived
> from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And
> bureaucracies live forever.
>
>
>
> So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it
> that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly
> right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough
> to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
>
>
>
> Now the twist to the story...
>
>
>
> When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big
> booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are
> solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their
> factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred
> to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from
> the factory to the launch site.
>
>
>
> The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the
> mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly
> wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is
> about as wide as two horses' behinds.
>
>
>
> So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's
> most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years
> ago by the width of a Horse's ass.
>
>
>
> And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important ??

 

[ChopStx]

which reminds me of ill fated space shuttle crash...

 

[reelo21]

Not really the same idea, but funny, no?

 

[opd]

horses ass bit is funny, but heres the snopes page about it:
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

 

[yzsofst]

the horse thing is funny

 

[CBRgirl]

No wonder I feel like a monkey when I go to work (for the State of California).