The Smart Shepard

A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly abrand new Jeep Cherokee advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. Thedriver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglassesand a YSL tie leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd: "If I cantell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give meone?"

The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his peacefully grazing flockand calmly answers "sure!" The yuppie parks the car, whips out hisnotebook, connects it to a cell-phone, surfs to a NASA page on theInternet where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans thearea, opens up a database and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complexformulas. Finally he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-techminiaturized printer, turns round to our shepherd and says: "you havehere exactly 1586 sheep!"

"This is correct. As agreed, you can take one of the sheep," says theshepherd. He watches the young man make a selection and bundle it in hisCherokee.

Then he says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will yougive me my sheep back?"

"Okay, why not" answers the young man. "You are a consultant," says theshepherd.

"This is correct," says the yuppie, "How did you guess that?"

"Easy" answers the shepherd. "You turn up here although nobody calledyou. You want to be paid for the answer to a question I already knew thesolution to. And you don't know anything about my business because youtook my dog."