Story of the Tomato Millionaire

This was sent to me by Glen McReady.

An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test -- (Floors, sweeping and cleaning).

After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day.

Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed.

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket.

Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly.

After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pickup truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the internet from the very start!"

After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"

Moral of this story:

1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.

2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.

3. Since you're reading this story via computer, you're probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.

4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you probably have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.

I guess this man's success is possible - enjoyed the story -but don't hold out much hope for me, or you.....LOL

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Yeah, I didn't believe the part about the store bought tomatoes. I just liked the morale that technology is not the end-all for all of one's life ambitions.

Dave

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Wonderful story, Dave! Thank you for sharing it. :)

It's funny but it made me think about gardening. I think many people use the internet as a way to live their lives without _really_ living their lives don't you? I love to talk about gardening with my gardening friends on the internet here at Dave's Garden. But, talking about gardening and actually gardening outside are very different aren't they? Here on the net, I can't smell the clean air, feel the wind on my face, hear the birds sing, or "dig in the dirt". It's funny but I feel like the garden is a place where I can talk to God and He can to talk me. Even though I belong to a church, I get more out of the sermon in my garden than I ever do at the church I go to. Oops! I guess this kind of turned into a sermon didn't it? LOL

Terri