A Little Workplace Humor

In a world where we can spend half a morning on a telephone waiting for assistance of some kind or other from a person in Punjab, you have to be grateful for 4-1-1. Tell the little recording you're looking for the number of Benny's Restaurant in Muleshoe, Texas and in no time a real person without an accent is on the line asking whether that's Benny's Bar and Grill in Upper Muleshoe or Benny's Happy Time Cafe in Muleshoe Creek. Information has come a long way from when I was a kid. Mapquest is something else we can be grateful for. In preparing to drive cross country I asked how to drive from my house in Los Angeles to my brother's house in Nyack, N.Y. and in a couple of seconds I had exact directions. It even told me the distance was 2818.22 miles and would take me 41 hours and 40 minutes if I avoided traffic and didn't stop for a Subway's sandwich. What it didn't tell me, however, was that I'd have to sell the car if I wanted to afford the gas.