12/17/99

A fellow stopped at a rural gas station and, after filling his tank, 
he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to 
drink his cola, and he watched a couple of men working along 
the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep 
and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled 
in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was 
25 feet behind filling in the old. 

The men worked right past the fellow with the soft drink and went 
on down the road. "I can't stand this," said the man, tossing the 
can into a trash container and headed down the road toward the 
men. "Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's 
going on here with this digging?" "Well, we work for the 
government," one of the men said. "But one of you is digging 
a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. 
Aren't you wasting the taxpayers' money?" 

"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning 
on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of 
us--me, Rodney, and Mike. I dig the hole, Rodney sticks in the 
tree, and Mike here puts the dirt back. "Now just because 
Rodney's sick, that don't mean that Mike and me can't work."