FOUR CONTRACTORS, A TALKING CALCULATOR AND LASER TAPE MEASURE

 An well worn joke about four contractors and a short bid to renovate a building.

One contractor is from across the border in New York, one is from around Waterbury, another one is near Bridgeport, and the fourth is local to the area. 

All four go with a Town official to examine the project and plans.  The Town official first asks the contractor from across the border in New York what he would do and after hearing him say, "Why do you need to renovate the building? I will remove it for $10,000 and you will be able to have land for parking and less budget for maintenance," he was summarily escorted off the property.  Another Town official is considering a partnership for a future project.

Then the contractor from around Waterbury takes out a talking calculator, a laser tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures on the calculator.

"Well," he says, "the calculator can talk for itself," after a brief moment the calculator begins to talk and says, "I figure the job will run about $$20,000: $10,000 for materials, $9,000 for labor and $1,000 profit for my owner."

The Bridgeport contractor doesn't have a talking calculator but  does some measuring and figuring, then says, "We can do this job for $17,000: $9,000 for materials, $7,000 for my crew and $1,000 profit for me."

The  local contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the Town official and whispers, "$37,000."

The look on the official face was of shocked and awed and he says incredulous, "You don't have a talking calculator, laser measuring device and you didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a ridiculous high figure?"

The contractor leans back on his chair whispers into the ear of the official, "$15,000 for you, $15,000 for me and we hire the guy from  Bridgeport to do the job."
"Done!" replies the official.

So, my friends, that joke has more truth in it than we care to think about.