The Function of an Executive

(Philip Jenks, Jim Fisk, Robert Barron – The Official High-Flier’s Handbook, apud Mark Powell, Business Matters)

The following description of an executive is meant to be a joke – or is it? Can you work out what
the missing words might be?
As nearly everyone knows, an executive has practically nothing to do except to decide what is to
be done; to tell someone to 1. ………………..it; to listen to reasons why it should not be
2. ......................, why it should be done by 3. ......................else, or why it should be done in a
different 4. ................................; to follow up to see if the thing has been done; to discover that it
has 5. .......................; to enquire why; to listen to feeble 6. ................................. from the person
who should have don it; to follow it 7. ........................ again to see if the thing has been done,
only to discover that it has now been done, but 8. ..........................; to point
9. ...........................how it should have been done; to conclude that until it can be redone it may
as well be 10. ................................how it is; to wonder if it is not time to get
11. .............................. of a person who cannot do anything right; to reflect that he has a wife and
12. ................................. , and that any successor would probably be just as bad – and maybe
13. .............................; to consider how much simpler it would have been and how much better
the thing would have been done if one had done it 14. ........................... in the first
15. ..............................; to reflect sadly that one could have done it right in twenty minutes, and,
as things turned 16. ........................, one has had to spend two days to find out why it has taken
three weeks for someone else to do it wrong.

The Function of an Executive

(Philip Jenks, Jim Fisk, Robert Barron – The Official High-Flier’s Handbook, apud Mark Powell, Business Matters)

The following description of an executive is meant to be a joke – or is it? Can you work out what
the missing words might be?
As nearly everyone knows, an executive has practically nothing to do except to decide what is to
be done; to tell someone to 1. ………………..it; to listen to reasons why it should not be
2. ......................, why it should be done by 3. ......................else, or why it should be done in a
different 4. ................................; to follow up to see if the thing has been done; to discover that it
has 5. .......................; to enquire why; to listen to feeble 6. ................................. from the person
who should have don it; to follow it 7. ........................ again to see if the thing has been done,
only to discover that it has now been done, but 8. ..........................; to point
9. ...........................how it should have been done; to conclude that until it can be redone it may
as well be 10. ................................how it is; to wonder if it is not time to get
11. .............................. of a person who cannot do anything right; to reflect that he has a wife and
12. ................................. , and that any successor would probably be just as bad – and maybe
13. .............................; to consider how much simpler it would have been and how much better
the thing would have been done if one had done it 14. ........................... in the first
15. ..............................; to reflect sadly that one could have done it right in twenty minutes, and,
as things turned 16. ........................, one has had to spend two days to find out why it has taken
three weeks for someone else to do it wrong.