The question of whether Moo is half full or half empty reminds me of the one about the half full/empty beer glass at the pub the other day …
The optimist says the glass is half full.
The pessimist says the glass is half empty.
And the cynic wonders who drank the other half.
For a Irishman, the question isn’t about whether the glass is half full or half empty, it's about who is paying for the next round.
The professional trainer does not care if the glass is half full or half empty, he just knows that starting the discussion will give him ten minutes to figure out why his powerpoint presentation is not working.
The ground-down mother of a persistently demanding five-year-old says sweetheart it's whatever you want it to be, just please let mummy have five minutes peace and quiet.
The consultant says let's examine the question, prepare a strategy for an answer, and all for a daily rate of...
The homebuilder sees the dirty glass, washes and dries it, then puts it away in a custom oak and etched glass cabinet that he built himself using only hand tools.
The Buddhist says don't worry, remember the glass is already broken.
The logician says that where the glass is in process of being filled then it is half full; where it is in the process of being emptied then it is half empty; and where its status in terms of being filled or emptied is unknown then the glass is one in which a boundary between liquid and gas lies exactly midway between the inside bottom and the upper rim, assuming that the glass has parallel sides and rests on a level surface, and where it does not then the liquid/gas boundary lies exactly midway between the upper and lower equal halves of the available total volume of said glass.
The scientist says a guess based on a visual cue is inaccurate, so mark the glass at the bottom of the meniscus of the content, pour the content into a bigger glass; fill the empty glass with fresh content up to the mark; add the original content back in; if the combined content overflows the lip, the glass was more than half full; if it doesn't reach the top, the glass was more than half empty; if it neither overflows nor fails to reach the top then it was either half-full or half-empty. Now what was the question again?
The grammarian says that while the terms half-full and half-empty are colloquially acceptable the glass can technically be neither since both full and empty are absolute states and therefore are incapable of being halved or modified in any way.
The magician will show you the glass with the full half at the top.
The physicist says that the glass is not empty at all - it is half-filled with water and half-filled with air - hence, fully filled on the whole!
The ineffective organization would discuss the question during the board of directors meeting, convene a committee to research the problem, and assign tasks for a root cause analysis, usually without a complete explanation of the problem to those assigned the tasks. The directors would consider the problem to be above the pay grade of those assigned root cause analysis tasks.
The algebraic simultaneous equation theorist says that if the glass is equally half full and half empty, then half full = half empty; therefore ½ x F = ½ x E; therefore (by multiplying both sides of the equation by 2) we show that F = E; i.e. Full equals Empty!
The efficiency analyst says the glass is operating substantially below optimization level, being consistently exactly 50% under-utilized during the period of assessment, corresponding to an over-resourcing in meeting demand equating to precisely 200% of requisite capacity in volume terms, not accounting for seasonal trends and shrinkage, and that if the situation continues there is in theory opportunity for savings or expansion.
The 'perfect' 1950s housewife would not leave the glass sitting there long enough for anyone to consider the question, but would scoop it up, wash it up, dry it to a gleaming shine and put it back in the glass cabinet in a jiffy. No half-full or half-empty in her world... just a full glass or an untidy one.
The obsessive compulsive postpones the question until the level is checked, and checked again, and again, and again...
The psychiatrist would ask you, "Is the half-empty/half-full glass really that important? I mean... really? Think about it. If fact, let's not. Let's set that particular issue aside for a few moments and talk about what's really bothering you.."
The Taoist sees that the glass is both half empty and half full, that neither half could exist without the other, requiring a point of balance in order to maintain equilibrium in the universe, and therefore, are merely two mirror images of the same realistic concept, so in the purity of absolute truth the glass is neither half full or half empty, the glass simply IS...
The optimist says: "The glass is half-full." The pessimist says: "The glass is half-empty". And while they are arguing, the pragmatist takes the glass and drinks it.
The police officer says: "I'll ask the questions."
The opportunist says, "Thanks, folks! While you were debating it, I drank it."
The banker says: "I see an opportunity! Let's put a couple of options on the full half and leverage it until it's too big to fail, then sell a tons of it... Heck! While we are at it, let's do the same to the empty half and sell that too!"
The actor says, "Whatever the director wants it to be - or not to be..."
And last but not least, all of the SI insomniacs and all of MOO's friends will be up all night wrestling with this question.
