Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes

[SF Girl]

Hi folks,

I am a trainer, and I have do a training on ISO 9001, and I want to salt & pepper the training with jokes and cartoons.

Does anyone have any jokes or cartoons about "Quality" to share? Or jokes about how people hate change?

Thanks very much for any help.

SF Girl

 

[normzone]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

I searched my archives but no luck. There should be some though, although they might just be rewrites of the old "How many inspectors does it take to screw in a light bulb?" nature.

Also google for engineer jokes, plenty of those. I commend you on your plan.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

Hi folks,

I am a trainer, and I have do a training on ISO 9001, and I want to salt & pepper the training with jokes and cartoons.

Does anyone have any jokes or cartoons about "Quality" to share? Or jokes about how people hate change?

Thanks very much for any help.

SF Girl

For starters, browse through our forum entitled
Funny Stuff - Jokes and Humour

 

[Big Jim]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

If you have access to old Dilbert cartoons, there were several strips on the subject including Dilbert stumbling across the "Big Honkin' Manual".

One that I remember well is the pointy haired boss saying "you can't have compliance without lieance".

 

[Steve Prevette]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~riesbeck/mathphyseng.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKv5ulewTO4

Some of the above have appeared on Elsmar

Then there is the story I was told about Dr. Deming. He visited a meeting of the Deming Users Group in San Diego. The group members had all gotten t-shirts made up with his photo on them. He arrived, so all the t-shirts and said - if you were really committed you would have gotten tattoos.

Dr. Ackoff has some good ones at
http://www.f-laws.com/pdf/A_Little_Book_of_F-LawsE.pdf

 

[pldey42]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

My jokes are anonymised anecdotes about real situations I've seen as an auditor. Sorry, I'm reserving them for my book, you know, that one that everyone has in them. But everyone who has worked in quality has seen situations that, with hindsight, are funny.

For example, I asked a software engineering manager why his software quality was poor.

"Because the technologies we use are complex and not all the engineers understand all of them," he said.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"They don't go on the training classes."

"Why?" (I had studied five whys well.)

"I don't send them."

"Um, why don't you send them on the training classes you know they need?" I asked; auditors have to be persistent, right?

"No time?"

"They have no time to attend training? Why?"

"They're too busy fixing the bugs they made by not knowing enough... Ok," he sighed, "Write it up. I'll fix it."

I typically used this joke to enliven the lecture about 6.2.2. I don't like jokes that are there just to make people laugh, I use them to reinforce learning points.

I'd suggest going back over your own experience. What made you laugh? The thing is, jokes about real life bring people together. Especially if, as above, a senior manager is the butt of the joke.

BTW I don't think people resist change. They resist badly managed change that places them at risk.

Hope this helps
Pat

 

[normzone]

Re: Help a damsel in distress with Quality Jokes?

And that last line is just one more reason why this place must survive and prosper. You guys are why I am succeeding at what could have been a suicide mission.

 

[MIREGMGR]

Do a search at dilbert.com for the 9/25/95 strip, and the several days before and after that. Adams did a story line about an ISO 9000 audit.

It's engineer jokes, but perhaps applicable.

 

[Bev D]

I also use a dose of Dilbert cartoons. no more than 1 for every 8 hours of instruction. but I also use non sequitor and soem Calvin and Hobbes.

However, I tend to use 'original humor'. as previously stated, I take actual examples and under the concept of 'some day we'll look back on this and laugh' I make a tough situation humor. sometimes black humor...

one I really like that isn't original is:
"the auditor is the guy who comes in after the battle and bayonets the wounded" I use it to illustrate several points. teh auditors responsibility to NOT make the auditees feel bad, to recognize that the auditees did a lot of hard work and some misses are inevitable, and that the auditor shoudl focus on items that have a major impact on quality and not on the nit picky trivial stuff.

 

[Sarah Stec]

For people who are new to Quality, I like comparing it with character-building exercises. Calvin's dad (of Calvin and Hobbes) went on many character-building exercises, and what he says is similar to what a lot of people say when you tell them to, say, do internal audits.