DOUBTS

1. When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?

2. If the 'black box' flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

3. Who copyrighted the copyright symbol?

4. Can you cry under water?

5. Why do people say, 'You've been working like a dog' when dogs just sit around all day?

6. Why are the numbers on a calculator and a phone reversed?

7. Do fish ever get thirsty?

8. Can you get cornered in a round room?

9. Why do birds not fall out of trees when they sleep?

10. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables then what is baby oil made from?

11. What should one call a male ladybird?

12. If a person suffered from amnesia and then was cured would they remember that they forgot?

13. Can you blow a balloon up under water?

14. Why is it called a 'building' when it is already built?

15. If you were traveling at the speed of sound and you turned on your radio would you be able to hear it?

16. If you're traveling at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, what happens?

17. Why is it called a TV set when there’s only one?

18. Why do most cars have speedometers that go up to at least 130 when you legally can't go that fast on any road?

Funny Conversation

Dress Well When Calling
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the brown house on the corner.
Dispatcher: Do you have an address? (on a dress??)
Caller: No, I have on a bra and a panty, why?


Roving Rat
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham and cheese sandwich .
Dispatcher: Excuse me?
Caller: I made a ham and cheese sandwich and left it on the kitchen table and when I came back from the bathroom, someone had taken a bite out of it.
Dispatcher: Was anything else taken?
Caller: No, but this has happened to me before and I'm sick and tired of it!


Persistent
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency?
Caller: I' m trying to reach nine eleven but my phone doesn't have an eleven on it.
Dispatcher: This is nine eleven.
Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one
Dispa tcher: Yes, ma'am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same thing.
Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I'm not stupid.


On His Way Out
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What's the nature of your emergency?
Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart
Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
Exasperated Caller: No, you knucklehead, This is her husband calling.
First child is sitting in the womb!


Healthy Calling
Dispatcher: 9-1-1
Caller: Yeah, I'm having trouble breathing. I'm all out of breath. Darn....I think I'm going to pass out.
Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?
Caller: I'm at a pay phone on North and State Street.
Dispatcher: ! Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?
Caller: No, I am healthy.
Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing?
Caller: Jogging five miles.

Bomb Blast Kills Policeman in Peshawar

Bomb blast kills policeman in Peshawar

By Ali Hazrat Bacha
Monday, 08 Jun, 2009 | 07:04 PM PST |

PESHAWAR: Unidentified terrorists blew up a police van, killing of one police personnel and wounding another at the main Akhun Baba Road in Hazarkhwani area of Peshawar on Monday.

Peshawar SSP (operations) Abdul Ghafoor Afridi told dawn that the blast occurred in the limits of the Yakatut Police Station where police had cordoned off the area.

He said efforts were being made to arrest the accused involved in the crime. He said several sensitive areas had already been cordoned off in this regard.

The police, he said had already been alerted and they had established check points at all entry and exit points to check movement of any suspected vehicles and pedestrians, making an entry into the city was very difficult and that was why they had targeted the police.

An official of the Bomb disposal Squad said that the explosives weighed from 40 to 50 kilogram which were planted in a pressure cooker like cylinder and blasted through remote control at about 4.20.

He said the bomb was so powerful that it made a four foot deep and 10 foot wide crater in the road.

An eyewitness Basher Khan Mohmand told reporters that he saw a huge blast and the police van tore into pieces. A police personnel with multiple wounds, he said was lying on the road who was then rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital by his colleagues

A source in the hospital told Dawn that the policeman had already succumbed to his wounds prior to shifting to the emergency, saying that he had sustained serious injuries on his head, chest and abdomen.

Gohar Khan, a police officer on the blast site told this correspondent that the driver Aamir Nazwaz, who belonged to Nishtarabad Peshawar, was sitting in the police van, listening to a wireless message while other officers were standing at a distance, keeping watch on suspects.

It is to be mentioned that the blast took place on a road with a madressa on one side and the shrine of the famous saint Akhun Baba on the other side where hundreds of people come on a daily basis.

An official of the Yakatut Police Station said that a case against unidentified terrorists had been registered.

Management Traps and How to Avoid Them

Management Traps and How to Avoid Them

Much has been written about the secrets of good management and few will argue that the best managers are inspired, visionary, dedicated, industrious, energetic, energizing and display integrity, leadership, common sense and courage. So where is it that managers commonly fail or falter and lose their precious foothold on the corporation's top rungs? The following, from the career experts at bayt.com, are ten of the most basic management traps and tips to avoid them:

Weak managers set weak goals

As a manager your role is to get specific jobs completed by employees in the most optimal, efficient and innovative manner and in order to do that, you need to set clear objectives. Successful managers set SMART goals - goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based. They are able to communicate these goals clearly, simply and concisely to their employees so that none are vague or uncertain about expectations. By all means reach for the stars in your objectives but to do so without supplying employees with the training, resources, flexibility and freedom they need to accomplish their goals and a schedule of regular supervision and feedback is to set them (and yourself) up for failure.


Weak managers micro-manage - effective leaders inspire

The days of command and control organizations are long over - today's managers recognize that in order to leverage their skills and maximize their team's output they need to adopt a flexible approach and 'lead' their teams to excellence rather than closely supervise, instruct and control them. The best leaders communicate to their employees a vision and ignite in them the fire, motivation and desire to work towards making this vision a reality. Good leaders unleash their employees to innovate and achieve optimal solutions by communicating top-level goals and objectives and a suggested blueprint for success then leaving the employees to determine how to get there most optimally while ensuring they have the aptitudes, training, resources and work environment necessary to achieve superior results. While a program of regular feedback and supervision is essential, managers should ensure that their management style is not repressive, meddling or overly overbearing. The golden rule is to communicate the 'what' and the 'why' of the work that needs to be done and leave the employees to determine the 'how' without burdening them with strict instruction manuals or prescribed rules and patterns that are largely redundant and inconducive to speed, creativity, progress and innovation.


Weak managers are afraid of hiring/cultivating strong leaders

Strong leaders/managers have the self-confidence to hire the best people, take them to new levels and cultivate in them all the qualities needed to make them in turn effective leaders of the future. Weak leaders replicate themselves in their hiring decisions and hire mediocre players, mistakenly believing that an employee with more skills, acumen or industry knowledge than themselves will ultimately undermine them or make them look bad. The best managers are characterized by an ability to stimulate their employees to superior performance and through coaching, training, feedback as well as by example, inspire in them all the qualities needed to make effective managers. A good manager helps employees achieve their full potential and constantly raises the bar so that employees never stop learning, innovating and growing. Coaching, training, career planning and programs for ongoing growth and development of key staff are high on the priority lists of the best managers.


Weak managers belittle their employees

Bosses who favour the archaic 'tough' management style where employees are singled out for public reprimand and negative feedback is plentiful while recognition and positive reinforcement are scarce will fail to win the loyalty, respect and commitment of their teams over the long run. Without an inspired, fired up, self-confident employee base these managers set themselves and their teams up for failure. Effective leaders by contrast, respect their employees and give them regular feedback with intelligent constructive criticism and loudly laud special accomplishments in both public and private, while communicating any negative feedback ONLY in private and focusing such criticism strictly on the job performance, not the person's character. Strong leaders recognize and reward a job well done. These leaders inspire their teams to perform at their best and are able to elicit from them a high degree of loyalty and a 'hunger' to raise the bar and continuously excel. In such organisations, employees are not afraid to challenge their boss's ideas or upset the status quo in the interest of innovation and excellence and are encouraged to take risks to elevate the business to a new level. The autocrats and bureaucrats on the other hand sap their employees' self-confidence, drive and energy with their overbearing management style and fail to induce in them any motivation to raise the bar or excel.

Weak managers have obsolete skills-strong leaders constantly reinvent themselves

In today's knowledge-driven economies and highly competitive environment, skills, training and education rapidly become obsolete and effective managers know that they must constantly re-educate themselves and update their skills to maintain an edge. While over-confident managers with an inertia to further education fall by the wayside, good managers regularly take an honest inventory of their skills and abilities and upgrade their technical knowledge and soft skills wherever appropriate. They encourage their teams to do likewise with sound career planning and performance appraisal programs and an emphasis on training and self-education.


Weak managers have poor communication skills

Good communication includes cultivating and maintaining open channels of communication with the team and others in the organisation, giving constructive, intelligent feedback, eliciting ideas through brainstorming sessions or otherwise, articulating the company vision and mission in no uncertain terms, setting clear objectives and listening attentively with an open-mind to employees grievances, suggestions and any other issues. Effective leaders have an open-door policy that welcomes input, suggestions and feedback from employees and recognize that good ideas and the next best idea/process/innovation can come from anywhere. Strong leaders listen; weak leaders talk. Strong leaders pay attention to their employees and encourage them to express professional opinions and ask for more responsibility; weak leaders think they are above such open-door policies. Employees who are not listened to and are not made to feel important or respected as professionals or individuals are unlikely to innovate or express any exciting new ideas that can move a company forward.


Weak managers blame

Everybody makes mistakes and strong leaders protect their good people from taking the fall when they err. Good bosses recognize that the occasional slip-ups are inevitable and can be learning opportunities and are ready to take personal responsibility when the team makes a misstep. A good boss realizes that his most promising employees want to succeed, will grow as a result of their mistakes and are unlikely to repeat the same mistakes. They do no set their people up as a negative example for the rest of the organization nor point fingers when the going gets tough. Good bosses are personably accountable for their actions as well as the actions of their subordinates and do not allow a culture of blame to permeate the organisation.


Weak managers take full credit for their team's accomplishments

While weak leaders usurp all the credit for a job well done by their teams, the strongest leaders will give the full credit to the team as a whole or the team member responsible for the project. Strong leaders motivate, energize and inspire by giving credit where credit is due and being generous with reward and recognition wherever appropriate. Strong leaders publicly thank their employees for a job well done and recognize that a motivated, successful, energized team will reflect directly on the boss.


Weak managers thrive on bureaucracy

Weak leaders are fond of, augment and live well with the layers and bureaucratic shackles that tie an organisation down; strong leaders remove them. Today's effective leaders recognize that in order to compete they must operate like a small company with a high level of speed, responsiveness and flexibility. They realize that to maintain their edge in today's marketplace their organization needs to be responsive to changing market conditions and remove the shackles, boundaries, layers, clutter and obsolete policies, procedures and routines that get in the way of the freedom and free flow of people, resources and ideas.


Weak managers are divorced from their teams

Effective managers genuinely care about their employees and take the time to get to know them and to understand their strengths, weaknesses, what makes them tick and their goals and ambitions. They also take the time to learn something about their personal life. While weak managers will maintain an outdated aloofness and a formal distance from their teams, exceptional managers are able to bring out the best in every employee and win their loyalty and respect by understanding their unique needs, motivations and abilities and showing the team that they are important and personally significant. Strong managers are team players and through their constant involvement with their teams communicate to them that they are there for them and supportive of them. Effective managers by building a supportive work environment, build a camaraderie and team spirit that enthuses and excites the team to new levels of performance.