A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture
when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee advanced out
of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man
in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and
a YSL tie leaned out of thewindow and asked our
shepherd: "If I can tell you exactly how many sheep
you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his
peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers "sure!"
The yuppie parks the car, whips out his notebook,
connects it to a cell-phone, surfs to a NASA page on
the Internet where he calls up a GPS satellite
navigation system, scans the area, opens up a database
and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas.
Finally he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech
mini-aturized printer, turns around to the shepherd
and says: "you have here exactly 1586 sheep!" "That is
correct, take one of the sheep" says the shepherd. He
watches the young man select an animal and bundle it
in his Cherokee.
Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly
what your business is, will you give me my sheep
back?" "Okay, why not!" answers the young man. "You
are a consultant" says the shepherd. "That is correct"
says the yuppie, "How did you guess that?" "Easy"
answers the shepherd. "You turn up here although
nobody called you, you want to be paid for the answer
to a question I already knew the solution of, and you
don't know anything about my business because you took
my dog!