People - IT occupations: If they went hunting elephants …

Computer scientists
- Hunt elephants using algorithm A
  - 1. Go to Africa
    2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope
    3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent east to west.
    4. During each traverse pass:
        a. Catch each animal seen
        b. Compare to known elephant
        c. Stop when match detected
    (Version A.1 is in beta test, where the goto's are being eliminated, and will be ready "real-soon!)
    Experienced programmers place an elephant in Cairo, so the algorithm will terminate.
    Assembly programmers execute the Algorithm on their hands and knees.
Computer engineers
- Go to Africa
  Catch grey animals at random
  When one weighs within plus or minus 15 % of any previously observed elephant, they stop.
Consultants
- Can be hired out to tell others what to do (they may never have hunted anything at all !)
Vice-presidents of engineering, research and development
- Try hard to hunt elephants, but their staff will do their utmost to prevent it
- When the Vice-President does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely pre-hunted before the Vice-President sees them.
- If the Vice-President does see a non pre-hunted elephant, the staff will:
  - 1. Compliment the VP's keen eyesight, and
    2. Enlarge itself to prevent it happening again
Senior managers
- Set broad elephant hunting policies based on the assumption that elephants are just like big field mice, but with deeper voices.
Quality assurance inspectors
- Ignore elephants and look for the mistakes other hunters made when they were packing the land-rover.
Salespeople
- Don't hunt elephants
- Spend their time selling elephants they haven't got, for delivery two days before the season opens.
Software salespeople
- Ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.
Hardware salespeople
- Catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them as desktop elephants.
.. and so others ...
- Mathematicians
  - Go to Africa
    Throw out everything that is not an elephant
    Catch one of whatever is left.
- Economists
  - Don't hunt elephants, but believe if elephants are paid enough they'll hunt themselves
- Statisticians
  - Hunt the first animal they see n times, and call it an elephant
- Politicians
  - Don't hunt elephants, but share the ones you catch with the people who voted for them.
- Lawyers
  - Don't hunt elephants, but
    Follow the herds arguing about who owns the droppings.
- Software lawyers
  - Claim they own the entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.