You know you've been brainwashed by "Total Quality Management" when...
You ask the waiter what the restaurant's core competencies are
You decide to organize your family into a team-based organization
You refer to dating as test marketing
You insist the kids call you a Facilitator instead of a Father
You actually know what a paradigm is
You understand the airlines' fare structure
You write executive summaries on your love letters
Your Valentine's Day cards have bullets
You think that it's efficient to write a ten page presentation w/people you don't know
You celebrate your wedding anniversary by conducting a performance review
You believe you never have any problems in your life, just issues and improvement opportunities
You use Stratification to decide what to watch on TV
You explain to your bank manager you prefer to think of yourself as highly leveraged as opposed to in debt
You end every argument by saying “First, please submit your Matrix, and then we'll discuss this”
You can explain the difference between re-engineering, down-sizing, right-sizing" and firing people
You refuse to go on a family vacation w/o an action plan
You talk to the waiter about process flow when your meal arrives late
You think your cat needs intense Motivational Training
You want your significant other to draft a Statement of Commitment
You have wall charts at home for your household chores
You start to feel sorry for Dilbert's boss
You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend
You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense
You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child
At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about forming quality circles
Your deliverable for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills
You use the term value-added without laughing
You ask the car salesman if the car comes with an Internet connection
You give constructive feedback to your dog
You form Break-Thru Teams to handle every family crisis

--Contributed by Chris Green (Fall 2004)

Women claim that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:

• In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
• They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
• They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.
• As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer you could have had a better model

--Contributed by Fallyn King (Fall 2004)

A cop pulls Jenna Bush over for speeding

A cop pulls Jenna Bush over for speeding and he notices her eyes are red.
He says, "Gee, your eyes look red. Have you been drinking?"
Jenna replies, "No officer, but gee, your eyes look glazed. Have you been eating doughnuts?

--Contributed by Kelli Lemon (Fall 2004)

ISO 9000 Registration

David Letterman’s top ten list regarding signs you’ve been working too hard on your ISO registration.

10. While ordering a Happy meal at McDonalds drive-through, you were able to incorporate the words empower, paradigm, and systemic.
9. Tattooed on your left arm is a fishbone chart, and on your right arm a Pareto chart.
8. As part of your prenuptial agreement, you have asked your fiancée for a copy of her complaint files, and you have begun referring to her mother as a “subcontractor”.
7. Several of your employees think that Malcolm BALDridge was the first president of the Hair Club for Men.
6. You have set up a quarantine area in your kitchen for meals prepared by your spouse that do not meet your specifications!
5. Your quality consultant thinks that carving his initials on the picnic table outside your office is what is referred to as “benchmarking”.
4. Your quality manager thinks the term “re-engineering” is something that happens after two trains collide.
3. Your management representative has confused Juran and Deming with Bartles and James.
2. Before leaving your car at the local garage for a tune-up, you ask to see your mechanic’s procedures and work instructions.

And the finally the number one sign that you have been working too hard on your registration is:

1. Your household was certified to ISO 9000 before your plant was!

--Contributed by Laura J Dietrich (Fall 2004)

Defectives

Apparently the computer giant, IBM, decided to have some parts manufactured in Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they set out that they will accept three defective parts per 10,000 .

When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter. " We, Japanese people, had a hard time understanding North American business practices. But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured and have been included in the consignment. Hope this pleases you."

--Contributed by Mi Chen (Fall 2004)

Cup Holder

True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:

Caller: Hello, is this Tech Support
Tech: Yes it is. How may I help you?
Caller: The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?
Tech: I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?
Caller: Yes, attached to the front of my computer.
Tech: Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?
Caller: It came with my computer. I don’t know anything about a promotional. It just has 4X on it.

At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!

--Contributed by Sunil Shrestha (Fall 2004)

Project

Ninety-Ninety Rule Of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

--Contributed by Waseem Ahmed Manzoor (Fall 2004)

Committee
A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decides that nothing can be done.

--Contributed by Waseem Ahmed Manzoor (Fall 2004)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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