[STOLEN JOKE]
A shepherd is minding her sheep on a hill one day when a swanky executive car makes its way gingerly down the lane nearby. It comes to a halt and the mirrored electric window rolls down, through which can be seen a complex dashboard of flashing lights and controls. A man sticks his head out and calls to the shepherd, complaining about the stupid sat-nav and lack of road signs, and asking for directions.
The shepherd tells the man how to get back onto the correct route, and makes a joke about relying too much on technology to follow what should have been a straight road.
Not wanting to leave with his tail between his legs, the man in the car proposes a bet: if he can use the tech in his car to calculate the precise number of sheep in her entire flock spread across the hill, would she let him take away one of the sheep as a prize?
Of course, she says.
The driver then pulls out a laptop and erects a mini satellite dish, and calls upon all manner of satellite photography and fractal chaos calculation apps to determine the size of the flock. Five minutes later, he has the answer. And the shepherd confirms he is correct!
She lets him pick a sheep to take, which he duly hauls into the enormous boot of the car. As he does this, the shepherd proposes a counter-bet: if she can guess what he does for a living, she wins her sheep back again. He agrees. Why not?
She tells him he is a management consultant. Fair enough, he replies, right first time. But how did she guess?
"You've over-specified the vehicle you need for your journey but thought it looked good. You don't know where you are going or where you have come from, but you blame other people for this. You chose to waste expensive technology to tell me how many sheep I have – something that I already know and would have been happy to tell you too for free if you'd asked. But most of all, you blindly accepted a challenge about which you know absolutely nothing.
"Now, can I have my dog back?"
[JOKE ENDS]