Thursday, April 02, 2009

Story: Self-fullfilling Prophesy

What is recession?

This story was told by a commenter named Resesi at my earlier posting Bayi Story: Recession and Layoffs. I like to share it with all of my readers who may have missed it.

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.

He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.

He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.

His eyes were weak, so he never watched television.

But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.

He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales.

His sales and profit went up.

He ordered more a more raw material and buns and use to sale more.

He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers.

He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.

As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"

The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible.

The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."


The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV.

He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.

So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic.

He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand.

And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.

The father said to his son, "Son, you were right".

"We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

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P/S: Thanks to Risesi.

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3 comments:

moo_t said...

enlightening :)

Anonymous said...

Recession is all in the mind.

Don't worry... things will change for better over time.

In meantime enjoy... kaboooommmm!!!

Mr Bojangles said...

Yeah. Reminds me of what the Brazilian Prez said:

This economic crisis is caused by the greed and stupidity of white people with blue eyes. Before the crisis they appeared to know everything, now they demonstrate that they don't know anything.