A high school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking, “What do you do in life?”
He replied, “I study astronomy.”
“Dear me,” said the girl. “I finished astronomy last year.”
"What did I do wrong, baby? [silence] Sweetheart... tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing."
"I know something's wrong..."
"I'm fine."
"Just tell me what I did."
"You know what you did."
"I really don't! Please tell me so I can fix it."
"I shouldn't have to tell you. You should already know."
"Well, please... since I don't... please just tell me!"
[She sighs and turns around.] "Back in 1985..."
A woman goes to the doctor's and says, "Doctor, Doctor, you have to help me. Every time I go to the bathroom, DIMES come out!"
The doctor tells her to relax, go home, rest with her feet up and come back in a week. A week later the woman returns and says, "Doctor, Doctor, it's gotten worse! Every time I go to the bathroom, QUARTERS come out!! What's wrong with me?"
Again the doctor tells her to relax, go home, rest with her feet up and come back in a week. Another week passes and the woman returns and yells, "Doctor, Doctor, I'm still not getting better! Every time I go to the bathroom, HALF-DOLLARS come out! WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME?!!"
The doctor says, "Relax, Relax,... you're just going through your change!"
The government has a vast scrap yard in the middle of the desert. The congressman whose district it's in says someone might steal from it at night, so congress creates a night watchman, GS-4 position and hires a person for the job. Then the congressman asks, "How does the watchman do his job with out instruction?"
So congress creates a planning position and hires two people - one person to write the instructions, a GS-12, and one person to do time studies, a GS-11.
"How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" the congressman asks.
So Congress creates a quality control position and hires a GS-9 to do quality control studies and a GS-11 to write the reports. Then the congressman asks "How are these people going to get paid?"
So congress authorizes a positions of timekeeper, GS-9, and payroll officer, GS-11, and two people are hired to fill the slots.
"Who will be accountable for all of these people?" the congressman asks.
So they hire three people, and administrative officer, GS-13, an assistant administrative officer GS-12, and a legal secretary, a GS-8. On the eve of the next election season the congressman looks at the cost and says, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $40,000 over budget. We must cutback overall costs."
So they lay off the night watchman.