“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
It’s St Patrick’s day, so maybe a story with an Irish flavour today.
One dark night in Dublin, a fire started inside a local chemical plant and in a blink of an eye it exploded into massive flames.
The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around.
When the fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fireman in charge and said,
"All our secret formulas are in the vault in the centre of the plant. They must be saved. I will give 50,000 euros to the fire department that brings them out intact."
But the roaring flames held the fire-fighters off.
Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate.
As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now 100,000 euros to the fire station who could bring out the company's secret files.
But still the fire fighters could not get through.
From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight.
It was the nearby rural township volunteer fire brigade, composed mainly of over 65's.
To everyone's amazement, that little run-down fire engine roared right past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant.
Without even slowing down it drove straight into the middle of the inferno.
Outside, the other firemen watched as the old timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides.
It was a performance and effort never seen before.
Within a short time, the old timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas.
The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to 200,000 euros and walked over to personally thank each of the brave fire fighters.
The local TV station caught the thank you on film and asked their chief,
"What are you going to do with all that money?"
“Well," said Paddy, the 70-year-old fire chief, "de furst ting we're gonna do is fix de fekkin brakes on that bloody fire truck."
Have a great St Pat’s Day, and if you’re having a pint of Guinness (or unlucky enough to be having a glass of green beer instead) remember that old Irish toast,
“May you be in heaven a good half-hour before the devil even knows you’re dead!”
And finally, an Irish blessing,
"May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,
the foresight to know where you're going,
and the insight to know when you're going too far."
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