The Joke Shop

To: All Hospital Staff
From: Adminstration/Groundskeeping
Date: March 23, 2008
Re: New Cost Cutting Measures

Effective April 1 this hospital will no longer provide security. Each charge nurse will be issued a .38 caliber revolver and 12 rounds of ammunition. An additional 12 rounds will be stored in the pharmacy. In addition to routine nursing duties, Charge Nurses will rotate the patrolling of the hospital grounds. A bicycle and helmet will be provided for patrolling the park areas. In light of the similarity of monitoring equipment, ICU will now take over the security surveillance duties. The unit secretary will be responsible for watching cardiac and security monitors as well as continuing previous secretarial duties.

Food service will be discontinued. Patients wishing to be fed will need to let their families know to bring something, or may make arrangements with Subway, Domino’s, etc., before meal time. Coin-operated phones will be available in the patient rooms for this purpose as well as for other calls the patient may wish to make.

Housekeeping and physical therapy are being combined. Mops will be issued to those patients who are ambulatory, thus providing range-of-motion exercise as well as a clean environment. Families of ambulatory patients may also sign up to clean the rooms of non-ambulatory patients for special discounts for their final bill. Time cards will be provided.

As you can see in the “FROM” line above, administration is assuming grounds keeping duties. If an adminstrator cannot be reached by calling his/her office it is suggested that you walk outside and listen for the sound of a lawn mower, weed whacker, etc.

Engineering is being eliminated. The hospital has subscribed to the TIME_LIFE “How to…” series of maintainence books. These books can be checked out from administration, and a toolbox and some medical jewelry will be standard equipment on all nursing units. We will be receiving the series at the rate of one volume every other month. We already have the volume on Basic Wiring, but if a non-electrical problem occurs, please try to handle it as best you can until the appropriate volume arrives.

Cutbacks in the phlebotomy staff will be accommodated by only performing blood-related lab tests on patients who are already bleeding.

Physicians will be informed that they may order no more than two x-rays per patient stay. This is due to the turnaround time required by Revco’s photolab. Two prints will be provided for the price of one, and physicians are being advised to clip coupons from the Sunday paper if they want extra sets. Revco’s will honor competitor’s coupons for one-hour processing in emergency situations, so if you come across any coupons, please clip them and send them to the ER.

In light of the extremely hot summer temperature the electric company has been asked to install individual meters in each patient room, office, etc., so that the electrical consumption can be monitored and appropriately billed. Fans will be available for sale or lease in the hospital gift shop.

In addition to the current recycling program, a bin for the collection of unused fruit and bread will soon be provided on each floor. Families, patients and the few remaining employees are encouraged to contribute discarded produce. The resulting moldy compost will be utilized by the pharmacy for nocosomial production of antibiotics. The antibiotics will also be available for purchase through the hospital pharmacy and will, coincidentally, soon be the only antibiotics listed in the HMO’s formulary.

This 85 year old couple, having been married almost 60 years, had died in a car crash. They had been in good health the last ten years mainly due to her interest in health food, and exercise.

When they reached the pearly gates, St. Peter took them to their mansion which was decked out with a beautiful kitchen and master bath suite and Jacuzzi.

As they “oohed and aahed” the old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost.

“It’s free,” Peter replied, “this is Heaven.”

Next they went out back to survey the championship golf course that the home backed up to. They would have golfing privileges everyday and each week the course changed to a new one representing the great golf courses on earth.

The old man asked, “what are the green fees?”.

Peter’s reply, “This is heaven, you play for free.”

Next they went to the club house and saw the lavish buffet lunch with the cuisines of the world laid out.

“How much to eat?” asked the old man.

“Don’t you understand yet? This is heaven, it is free!” Peter replied with some exasperation.

“Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol tables?” the old man asked timidly.

Peter lectured, “That’s the best part…you can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never get fat and you never get sick. You don’t even need any phentermine or any other diet pills! This is Heaven.”

With that the old man went into a fit of anger, throwing down his hat and stomping on it, shrieking wildly.

Peter and his wife both tried to calm him down, asking him what was wrong. The old man looked at his wife and said, “This is all your fault! If it weren’t for your blasted bran muffins, I could have been here ten years ago!”

There was this punk who got on a bus. He sat next to an old man who started staring at him, because he was dressed in really colorful clothing. He had all this colorful make-up on, and his hair was spiked up with red, green,& yellow with feathers.

The punk was getting sick of being stared at so he said to the old man, “Hey, old man, what are you lookin’ at,eh? Didn’t you do anything strange when you were a teenager?”

“Well, yeah,” the old man answered. “I flunked school, fed my acne treatment to a hamster and once I got so drunk that I screwed a parrot, so I can’t help but think that maybe you’re my son.

Two women were walking through the woods when a frog called out to them and said: “Help me, ladies! I am a commercial real estate agent who, through an evil witch’s curse, has been transformed into a frog. If one of you will kiss me, I’ll be returned to my former state!”

One woman took out her purse, grabbed the frog, and stuffed it inside her handbag. The other woman, aghast, screamed, “Didn’t you hear him? If you kiss him, he’ll turn into a real estate agent!”

The second woman replied, “Sure, but these days a talking frog is worth more than a real estate agent!”

One day in a major corporation, an IT manager noticed that his main computer programmer (who was an expert on batch file) had not shown up to work for almost a week.

Worried, the IT manager called 911 and the police ended up going to the programmer’s house and they searched for him.

They found him in the shower washing his hair with the water running and his body was wrinkled as a prune.

The police said “Do you know that you haven’t been to work for almost a week”.

The programmer replied “I know, but I bought this new bottle of shampoo and the directions tell me to rinse and repeat!”

These quotes are taken from real corporate performance management reports:

• “Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.”
• “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.”
• “I would not allow this employee to breed.”
• “This associate is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won’t be.”
• “Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.”
• “He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.”
• “This young lady has delusions of adequacy.”
• “He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.”
• “This employee should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better.”
• “This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.”

A tourist from the Atlanta area was hiking through the mountains of Pigeon Forge when he came upon the tiniest cabin he had ever seen in his life. He’d never seen a Pigeon Forge cabin rentals so intrigued, he went up and knocked on the door.

“Anybody home?” he asked.

“Yep,” came a kid’s voice through the door.

“Is your father there?” asked the tourist.

“Pa? Nope, he left afore Ma came in,” said the kid.

“Well, is your mother there?” persisted the tourist.

“Ma? Nope, she left just afore I got here,” said the kid.

“But,” protested the city slicker, “are you never together as a family?”

“Sure, but not here,” said the kid through the door. “This is the outhouse!

A bear walked into a bar one hot summers day and asked the man behind the bar for a beer.

The bar tender told the bear that they don’t serve bears at this bar.

The bear said that he was tired and thirsty and not in a good mood so if he didn’t get a beer he would eat one of his patrons.

The bartender refused so the bear ate this beautiful blond in the corner and walked back to the bar and said that if he didn’t get a beer he’d eat another patron.

The bar tender told him that they never serve drug addicts in this bar.

The bear says “Drug addict?… What are you talking about?”

The bartender says “That was a bar-bitch-you-ate.

(Looks like the bear needs to go to alcohol rehab)

Q: How many vegans does it take to change a lightbulb ?

A: Two. One to change it and one to get out a copy of The Ethical Consumer (or similar) and discover to his/her horror that the manufacturer (Thorn Lighting) is part of Thorn EMI who are involved in, errrr, I dunno, testing software on mainframes or making farms for 3rd world potaters or something.

There was once a very prim and proper older lady who had a problem with passing gas. Since she came from a generation when people didn’t even talk about this kind of problem it took a long time for her to seek help. Finally, however, she was persuaded to consult her family doctor.

After she filled out all the proper forms and had waited about 20 minutes in the waiting room the doctor called her into his office, leaned back in his chair, folded his hands into a steeple and asked her how he could help.

“Doctor,” she said, “I have a very bad gas problem. Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with the Secretary of State and his wife and had six, um, er, ahhh… silent gas emissions. Last night I had dinner with the governor and his wife and had four silent gas emissions. Then, while sitting in your waiting room I had five silent gas emissions! Doctor, I might have fibromyalgia you’ve got to help me! What can we do?”

“Well,” said the doctor raising his voice a little, “I think the first thing we’re going to do is give you a hearing test.”