A guy stopped at a local gas station and, after filling his tank, he
paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink
his cola and watched a couple of men working along the roadside.

One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The
other man came along behind him and filled in the hole. While one was
digging a new hole, the other was 25 feet behind filling in the hole.

The men worked right past the guy with the soft drink and went on
down the road. "I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can
into a trash container and heading down the road toward the men.

"Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going
on here with all this digging and refilling?"

"Well, we work for the government and we're just doing our job," one
of the men said. "But one of you is digging a hole and the other
fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting
the taxpayers' money?"

"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on his
shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us: me, Elmer
and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree, and Leroy here
puts the dirt back. Elmer's job's been cut... so now it's just me an'
Leroy".