I know we have all seen this before....however, we need to see it again..
Every night, ten men met at a restaurant for dinner. At the end of the meal, the bill would arrive. They owed $100 for the food that they shared. Every night they lined up in the same order at the cash register. The first four men paid nothing at all. The fifth, though he grumbled about the unfairness of the situation, paid $1. The sixth man, feeling generous, paid $3. The next three men paid $7, $12, and $18, respectively. The last man was required to pay the remaining balance of $59.
The ten men were quite settled into their routine when the restaurant threw them into chaos. It announced that it was cutting its prices: Now it would charge only $80 for dinner for the ten men. This reduction wouldn't affect the first four men — they would continue to eat for free. The fifth person decided to forgo his $1 contribution to the pool, and the sixth contributed $2. The seventh man deducted $2 from his usual payment and now paid $5. The eighth man paid $9, the ninth, $12, leaving the last man with a bill of $52. Outside of the restaurant, the men compared their savings, and angry outbursts began to erupt. The sixth man yelled, "I got only $1 out of the total reduction of $20, and he" — pointing to the last man — "got $7." The fifth man joined in the protest. "Yeah! I got only $1 too. It is unfair that he got seven times more than me." The seventh man cried, "Why should he get a $7 reduction when I got only $2?" The first four men followed the lead of the others: "We didn't get any of the $20 reduction. Where is our share?"
The nine men formed an outraged mob, surrounding the tenth man. The nine angry men carried the tenth man up to the top of a hill and lynched him. The next night, the nine remaining men met at the restaurant for dinner. But when the bill came, there was no one to pay it.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment