Company Policy
Start with a cage containing five apes.

In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result - all the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several more attempts.

Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes all try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes, which have been sprayed with cold water, have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's always been around here.

And that's how company policy begins....

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop...
A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner the price. "Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and an extra thousand for the story behind it." "At that price, you can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take the bronze rat." The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer, more rats come out and follow him. By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars... following him. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes racing to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a lamp post, grasping it with one arm, while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay as far as he can throw it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown. Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah sir, you've come back for the story," says the owner. "No," says the tourist, "I was just hoping you had a bronze sculpture of a lawyer "