The Tomato Company

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids.

He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.

The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.

To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man leaves Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives
home that night with several bags of groceries for his family

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.

Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and

employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance.

Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of those five years ago!"

"Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour."

Which brings us to the moral of the story:

Since you got this story by computer, you're probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire.

Sadly, I received it also.

Thanks raz, that makes me feel really good.....

Good tale, is there any truth in it

ATB

Simon

1. Its illegal to sell good on a street corner with due health and safety law - would you buy something from a poorly dressed man selling it on a street corner.

2. Did he pay VAT or taxes on his earning - think not.

3. 25lb of tomatoes for $10 , the guy at the farmers market is selling tomatoes for 40c a pound , he would have gone broke in a week.

4. On the first day he makes 100% profit on $10 i.e $10. Lets say he takes 1.5 hours to sell the tomatoes - to make the $100 of his first night he would have to spend 13.5 hours selling tomatoes. Presuming the farmers market is close to the selling pitch (in which case why are they buying from him) he must still have some travel time - say 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back. Again lets he had the interview at say 8:00 , to make the $100 buck he would have worked till 2:00 am not including shopping and travel home. The figures on this model are obviously unreliable.

5. For his first week , he is still limited to $100 due to the fact of carrying the 25lb crate so therefore his profits would not be able to be multiplied , unless he can carry multiple crates. Carrying 50lb is beyond most men.

6. Tomatoes are seasonal what happened during the winter.

7. Where did the unlimited demand for tomatoes come from.

8. Where did his previously gang afflicted children learn the vast skill set required to run a tomatoes farm

As demonstrated this story is completely fictional and thus must be considered spam , it would have been better if he was selling drugs or ho's

i do enjoy hearing about successful entrepeuners - fictional or not. Maybe i need to ketchup

Timf - you reeeeeeally need to get out more

quote:

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Originally posted by RazMan
Timf - you reeeeeeally need to get out more

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quote:

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Originally posted by Timf
"Carrying 50lb is beyond most men."

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Carrying 50lb is not beyond most women...

Steve