A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a plain white Chevy advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a rather stiff man in a suit and tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd... "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a Dole wannabe, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered "sure".
The guy parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130-page report on his miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says,
"You have exactly 1586 sheep. "That is correct; take one of the sheep." said the shepherd. He watches the man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.
Then the shepherd says:
"If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?", "OK, why not." answered the man. "Clearly, you are a government employee." said the shepherd. "That's correct." says the man "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answers the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know сrар about my business...... Now give me back my dog."
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