GOVERNMENT AT WORK

[Guest guest]

A guy stopped at a local gas station and, after filling histank, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood byhis car to drink his cola and watched a couple of men workingalong the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or threefeet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind him and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole,the other was 25 feet behind filling in the hole. The menworked right past the guy with the soft drink and went on down the road."I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can into atrash container and heading 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 all this digging and refilling?""Well, we work for the government and we're just dong ourjob," 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 wastingthe taxpayers' money?""You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaningon his shovel and wiping his brow."Normally there's three of us: me, Elmer and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree and Leroy, here, putsthe dirt back. Now just because Elmer's sick, that don't mean that Leroy and me can't work."