Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
There are just some things that don’t belong in a Best Practices Manual…
One investigator to another, as they slowly walk through the wreckage of a 747–bits of fuselage and bodies lying about: “Well the Best Practices Manual suggested that the pilot use the landing gear rather than attempt to land the plane on its belly.”
Two surgeons are bent over an operating table where a man lies, stomach exposed. The first surgeon begins to cut into the patient’s stomach. “Argghhhhhhh!”, screams the patient, who then scrambles off the table and runs away as fast he can, hand cupped over the bleeding cut. The first surgeon looks at the other, mystified. The other shrugs and says, “Well, the Best Practices Manual suggests anesthetizing the patient first.”
Once a dam is built, the Best Practices Manual says it needs to be maintained.
The architects of the new zoo were chagrined to read in the Best Practices Manual that it’s the animals that are put into cages–not the visitors. The architects will rectify the problems…as soon as they can safely leave the conference room.
Leon Moisseiff created beautiful bridges. Unfortunately, he ignored the Best Practices Manual, which said they should also be sound.
“This is the National Weather Service. A category 5 hurricane with a storm surge estimated to be 30 feet tall is approaching your area. We here in the weather room agree that the best practice would be that everyone in the path leave the area. But hey! It’s only a suggestion. Have a nice day!”
Tommy Joe, anxious to try out the new gun he bought neglected to read the Best Practices Manual. Later, the police agreed that if he had, he would have known not to look down the barrel of the gun to see if a bullet was stuck in the chamber.
The parachutist had just enough time to reflect on her folly in ignoring the Best Practices Manual and passing up the parachute folding class in favor of one on origami. Her parachute, folded into the shape of a graceful swan in flight, flapped like a dead, beheaded chicken for a minute before completely failing.
The Best Practices Manual suggests that all team members use the same system of measurement when building navigation systems.
In the year 2020, a small group of men and women land successfully on Mars. After a week of exploring the Red Planet, they load back into their landing craft and prepare to leave the planet. However, when the pilot tries to turn on the ignition, all that happens is a sputtering sound. They radio to Earth: “Houston, we have a problem.” The engineers of NASA are mystified until one, glancing through a manual, points out, “Best Practices says we needed enough fuel to get to Mars and back. We only loaded enough to get to Mars”. The room is quiet. Finally one engineer is heard to murmur, “Bummer.”