A construction boss in Boston was interviewing men when along came a guy named Tony from New York.
“I’m not hiring any smart-aleck New Yorker,” the foreman thought, so he made up a math test knowing that Tony wouldn’t be able to answer the questions, and he’d be able to refuse him the job without getting into a dispute.
“Here’s your first question,” the foreman said. “Without using numbers, represent the number 9.”
“Widout numbiz?” Tony says. “Dat’s easy,” and he proceeds to draw 3 trees.
“What’s this?” the boss asks.
The New Yorker replies, “Ain’t you got no brains? Tree ‘n Tree ‘n Tree makes nine. Faghedabout it……”
“Fair enough,” says the Boss.
“Here’s your second question. Use the same rules, but this time use the number 99.”
Tony stares into space for a minute, then picks up the picture he has drawn and makes a smudge on each tree.
“Dare ya go, Buddy.”
The boss scratches his head and says, “How on earth do you get that to represent 99?”
Tony says “Each a da tree’s is dirty now! So it’s dirty tree ‘n dirty tree’ n dirty tree – dat’s 99.”
The boss is getting worried he’s going to have to hire this guy, so he says, “All right, one last math test. Same rules, but this time use 100.”
Tony stares into space again, then picks up the picture once again, makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, “Dare ya go, Mac, a hunnert.”
The boss looks at the picture for a moment and says, “You must be nuts if you think that represents 100!”
Tony leans forward and points to the marks at the base of the trees.
“A little doggie comes along and takes a crap on each a dem trees, so now ya got dirty tree an’ a turd, dirty tree an’ a turd, dirty tree an’ a turd – which makes one hundred. Bada boom, bada bing.”
“There’s your math test. When do I start?”