The Extended Murphy's Law - If a series of events can go wrong, it will do so
in the worst possible sequence.
Murphy's First Corollary - Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Murphy's Second Corollary - Everything takes longer than you think.
Murphy's Third Corollary - If there is a possibility of several things going,
the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Murphy's Fourth Corollary - If you perceive that there are four possible ways
which a procedure will go wrong, and circumvent these, a fifth way will promptly
develop.
Murphy's Fifth Corollary - Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to
worse.
Murphy's Sixth Corollary - Whenever you set out to do something, something else
must be done first.
Murphy's Seventh Corollary - Every solution breeds new problems.
Murphy's Eighth Corollary - It is impossible to make anything foolproof because
fools are so ingenious.
Murphy's Ninth Corollary - Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Murphy's Asymmetry Principal - Things go wrong all at once, but things go right
gradually.
COROLLARY: It takes no time to break something; it takes time to fix it.
Murphy's Fourth Law for Husbands - Your wife's stored possessions will on top
of you stored possessions.
First Law of Office Murphyology - Important letters which contains no errors
will develop errors in the mail.
Third Law of Office Murphology - The last person who quit or was fired will be
held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or
is fired.
Murphy's Law of Research - Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Murphy's Monetary Maxim - Inflation is never having it so good and parting with
it so fast.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law - Murphy was an optimist.
Murphy's Observation on Business - The toughest thing in business is minding
your own.
The Murphy Philosophy - Smile... :) tomorrow will be worse. :-(((
Parkinson's First Law - Work expands to fill the time available for its
completion; the things to be done swell in perceived importance and complexity
in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in their completion.
Parkinson's Second Law - Expenditures rise to meet income.
Parkinson's Third Law - Expansion means complexity and complexity decays.
Parkinson's Fourth Law - The number of people in any working group tends to
increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.
Parkinson's Fifth Law - If there is a way to delay an important decision, the
good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
Parkinson's Sixth Law - The progress of science varies inversely with the
number of journals published.
Parkinson's Law for Medical Research - Successful research attracts the bigger
grant which makes further research impossible.
Zymurgy's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Law - When it rains, it pours.
Klipstein's First Law of General Engineering - A patent application will be
proceeded by one week by a similar application made by an independent worker.
Klipstein's Second Law of General Engineering - Firmness of delivery dates is
inversely proportional to the tightness of the schedule.
Klipstein's Third Law of General Engineering - Dimensions will always be
expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in
furlongs per fortnight.
Klipstein's Fourth Law of General Engineering - Any wire cut to length will be
too short.
Klipstein's Third Law of Production - A motor will rotate in the wrong
direction.
Klipstein's Sixth Law of Production - A failure will not appear until a unit
has passed final inspection.
Klipstein's Ninth Law of Production - After an access cover has been secured by
16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
First Law for Naive Engineers - In any calculation, any error which can creep
in will do so.
Third Law for Naive Engineers - In any formula, constants (especially those
obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated as variables.
Fifth Law for Naive Engineers - The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing
stands the greatest chance of being omitted.
Tenth Law for Naive Engineers - Parts that positively cannot be assembled in
improper order will be.
Eleventh Law for Naive Engineers - Interchangeable parts aren't.
First Law of Applied Confusion - The one piece that the plant forgot to ship is
the one that supports 75% of the balance of the shipment.
COROLLARY: Not only did the plant forget to ship it, 50% of the time they
haven't made it.
Second Law of Applied Confusion - Truck deliveries that normally take one day
will take five when you are waiting for the truck.
Fourth Law of Applied Confusion - In any structure, pick out the one piece that
should not be mismarked and expect the plant to cross you up.
Fifth Law of Applied Confusion - Never argue with the fabricating plant about
an error. The inspection prints are all checked off, even to the holes that
aren't there.
First Handy Office Excuse - I'm waiting for an O.K.
Tenth Handy Office Excuse - I didn't think it was very important.
Eleventh Handy Office Excuse - I'm so busy, I just can't get around to it.
Twelfth Handy Office Excuse - I thought I told you.
The VCR Rule - The most expensive special feature on the VCR never gets used.
Finagle's First Law - If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's Second Law - No matter what the anticipated result, there will always
be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it or (c) believe it happened
due to their own pet theory.
Finagle's Fourth Law - Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it
only makes it worse.
Finagle's Fourth Law - In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
Leo Beiser's First Computer Axiom - When putting information into memory,
remember where you put it.
Greer's Third Law - A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what
you want it to do.
Smith's Law of Computer Repair - Access holes will be 1/2" too small.
COROLLARY: Holes that are the right size will be in the wrong place.
First Law of Computer Programming - Any given program, when running, is
obsolete.
Second Law of Computer Programming - Any given program costs more and takes
longer.
Third Law of Computer Programming - If a program is useful, it will have to be
changed.
Fourth Law of Computer Programming - If a program is useless, it will have to
be documented.
Fifth Law of Computer Programming - Any given program will expand to fill
available memory.
Sixth Law of Computer Programming - The value of a program is proportional to
the weight of its output.
Johnson and Laird's Law - A toothache tends to begin on Saturday night.
Oien's Observation - The quickest way to find something is to start looking for
something else.
Turner's Definition - A satellite dish means getting 150 more channels of
nothing to watch.
Johnson's Third Law - If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the
issue which contained the article, story, or installation you were most anxious
to read.
COROLLARY: All of your friends either missed it, lost it or threw it out.
First Law of Bicycling - No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against
the wind.
Jeff's Theorem of the Stock Market - The price of a stock moves inversely to
the number of shares purchased.
Brook's Law - Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Law of Annoyance - When working on a project. if you put away a tool that
you're certain you're finished with, you will need it instantly.
Cooper's Law - All machines are amplifiers.
Clarke's Second Law - The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to
go beyond them into the impossible.
The Student's Tautology - The teacher is never absent on the day of the exam.
Whole Picture Principle - Research scientists are so wrapped up in their own
narrow endeavors that they cannot possibly see the whole picture of anything,
including their own research.
Match's Maxim - A fool in a high station is like a person on the top of a high
mountain; everything appears small to them and they appear small to everybody.
Peter's Theorem - Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.
Second Law of Traffic - The extra hour you allowed for traffic will be
superseded by an hour-and-a-half traffic jam.
First Law of Supermarket Shopping - The more useful the shopping list the more
likely it will be left at home.
Spark's Rule - Speak with authority; however, only expound on the obvious and
proven facts.
Jean's Law of Automotives - Any car utilized as a "back-up" car breaks down
just after the primary car breaks down.
Truth of Management - Think before you act; it's not your money.
Flugg's Law - When you need to knock on wood is when you realize the world is
composed of aluminum and vinyl.
Emily's Rule of Sporting Events - The more long awaited a sporting event is,
the less exciting it will be.
Angus' Exchange Axiom - When travelling overseas, the exchange rate improves
the day after you have purchased foreign currency.
Issawi's Law of Committo Dynamics - The less you enjoy serving on committees,
the more likely you will be pressed to do so.
First Law of Travel - It always takes longer to get there than to get back.
LaCombe's Rule of Percentages - The incidence of anything worthwhile is either
15-25 percent or 80-90 percent.
Dudenhoefer's Corollary to LaCombe's Rule - An answer of 50 percent will
suffice for the 40-60 range.
Fausner's First Rule of the Household - A knife too dull to cut anything else
can always cut your finger.
Commoner's Second Law of Ecology - Nothing ever goes away.
Chisholm's Third Corollary - If you explain so clearly that nobody can
misunderstand, somebody will.
First Law of Bridge - It's always the partner's fault.
Troutman's First Programming Postulate - If a test installation functions
perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
Rule of the Great - When somebody you greatly admire and respect appears to be
thinking deep thoughts, they are probably thinking about lunch.
Clarke's First Law - When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
something is possible, he or she is almost certainly right. When they state
that something is impossible, they are very probably wrong.
Jana Sue's Theory of Love - Love is where a woman never gets what she's
expecting and a man never expects what he's getting.
Hersh's Law - Biochemistry expands to fill the space and time available for its
completion and publication.
Meskimen's Law - There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
do it over.
First Law of Debate - Never argue with a fool - people might not know the
difference.
Iron Law of Distribution - Them that has, gets.
Spark's First Rule - Strive to look tremendously important.
John's Collateral Corollary - In order to get a loan you must first prove you
don't need it.
First Law of Socio-Genetics - Celibacy is not hereditary.
Spark's Second Rule - Attempt to be seen with important people.
Kelly's Reformation - Nice people don't finish nice.
Marquette's Second Law of Home Repair - The first replacement part you buy will
be the wrong size.
Imbesi's Law of the Conservation of Filth - In order for something to become
clean, something else must become dirty.
Freeman's Extension to Imbesi's Law - It is possible to get everything dirty
without getting anything clean.
Hutchison's Law - If a situation requires undivided attention, it will occur
simultaneously with a compelling distraction.
Hellrung's Law - If you wait, it will go away.
SHAVELSON'S EXTENSION: ...having done its damage.
Chisholm's Fourth Corollary - If you do something which you are sure will meet
with everybody's approval, somebody won't like it.
The Dialectics of Progress - Direct action produces direct reaction.
Coit-Murphy's Statement on the Power of Negative Thinking -It is impossible for
an optimist to be pleasantly surprised.
First Law of Traffic - The slow lane you were stopped in starts moving as soon
as you leave it.
Kitman's Law - Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
Third Law of Applied Confusion - After adding two weeks to the schedule for
unexpected delays, add two more for the unexpected unexpected delays.
The Workshop Principle - Most projects require three hands.
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology - There's always one more bug.
Jenkinson's Law - It won't work.
Rule of Accuracy - When working toward the solution of a problem, it always
helps if you know the answer.
Campbell's Law - Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.
Nagler's Comment on the Origin of Murphy's Law - Murphy's Law was not
propounded by Murphy, but by another person of the same name.
Truman's Law - If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Tuccille's First Law of Reality - Industry always moves in to fill an economic
vacuum.
The Functionary Falsity - People inn systems do not do what the system says
they are doing.
Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.
Glyme's Formula for Success - The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can
fake that, you've got it made.
Rusk's Law of Delegation - Where an exaggerated emphasis is placed upon
delegation, responsibility, like sediment, sinks to the bottom.
Alinsky's Rule For Radicals - Those who are the most mortal are farthest from
the problem.
Law of the Search - The first place to look for anything is the last place you
would expect to find it.
Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis - If an idea can survive a bureaucratic
review and be implemented, it wasn't worth doing.
Fowler's Note - The only imperfect thing in nature is the human race.
Fifteenth Law of Systemantics - A complex system that works is invariably found
to have evolved from a simple system that works.
Reverend Chichester's Third Law - If the bulletin covers are in short supply,
church attendance will exceed all expectations.
Savignano's Mail Order Law - If you don't write to complain, you'll never
receive your order. If you do write, you'll receive the merchandise before your
angry letter reaches its destination.
Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law - A bird in hand is safer than one overhead.
Rominger's Rule for Students - The more general the title of a course, the less
you will learn from it.
Rominger's Rule for Teachers - If daily class attendance is mandatory, a
scheduled exam will produce increased absenteeism.
The Principle for Patients - You never have the right number pills left on the
last day of a prescription.
Second Principle for Patients - If your condition seems to be getting better,
it's probably you doctor getting sick.
Tenenbaum's Law of Replicability - The most interesting results happen only
once.
Telesco's First Law of Nursing - All the IV's are at the other end of the hall.
Troutman's Third Programming Postulate - Job control cards that positively
cannot be arranged in improper order will be.
Shaw's Principle - Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool
will want to use it.
The Course of Progress - Most things get steadily worse.
Telesco's Second Law of Nursing - A physician's ability is inversely
proportional to his or her availability.
The Bunny Law - Everything multiplies.
Heller's Law - The first myth of management is that it exists.
JOHNSON'S COROLLARY: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
organization.
Hertzberg's First Law of Wing Walking - Never leave hold of what you've got
until you've got hold of something else.
Jones' Law - The person who can smile when things go wrong has thought of
someone he or she can blame it on.
Swipple Rule of Order - The one who shouts loudest has the floor.
Westheimer's Rule - To estimate the time it takes to do a task: Estimate the
time you think it should take, multiply by 2, and change the unit of measure to
the highest unit. Thus, we allocate 2 days for a one-hour task.
The Kennedy Constant - Don't get mad - get even.
Lavia's Law of Tennis - A mediocre player will sink to the level of his or her
opposition.
Second Law of Kitchen Confusion - In a family recipe you have just discovered
in an old book, the most vital measurement will be illegible.
Arthur's Second Law of Love - The love letter you finally got the courage to
send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself
in person.
Owen's Law for Secretaries - As soon as you sit down a cup of hot coffee, your
boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.
Maryann's Law - You can always find what you're not looking for.
Fuller's Law of Journalism - The further away the disaster or accident occurs,
the greater the number of injured required for it to become a story.
Conway's Law - In any organization there will always be one person who knows
what is going on. This person must be fired.
Mason's First Law of Synergism - The one day you'd sell your soul for
something, souls are a glut.
Law of Life's Highway - If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong
lane.
Scott's First Law - No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
Simon's Law - Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
Denniston's Law - Virtue is its own punishment.
Miller's Law of Insurance - Insurance covers everything except what happens.
Kelly's First Law of Aerial Navigation - The most important information on any
chart is on the fold, which is torn.
Lewis' Law - No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've
bought it it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
Ballance's Law of Relativity - The length of a minute depends on which side of
the bathroom door you are on.
Lowery's Law - If it jams - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
anyway.
Fahnestock's Rule - If at first succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
O'Toole's Axiom - One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.
The Schainker Converse to Hoare's Law - Inside every small problem is a larger
problem struggling to get out.
Ruckert's Law - There is nothing so small that it can't be blown out of
proportion.
Fox on Problematics - When a problem goes away, the people working to solve it
do not.
Aristotle's Dictum - One should always predict the probable impossible to the
improbable possible.
Gresham's Law - Trivial matters are handled promptly; important matters are
never solved.
Canada Bill Jones' Motto - It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their
money.
Paul's Law - In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
save.
Michel's Rule for Prospective Mountain Climbers - The mountain get steeper as
you get closer.
Sattinger's Law - It works better if you plug it in.
First Rule of Superior Inferiority - Don't let your superiors know you're
better than they are.
Van Herpen's Law - The solving of a problem lies in finding the solvers.
Jones' Law of Zoos and Museums - The most interesting specimen will not be
labeled.
Stitzer's Vacation Principle - When packing for a vacation, take half as much
clothing and twice as much money.
Lemar's Parking Postulate - If you have to park six blocks away, you will find
two new parking spaces right in front of the building entrance.
Yount's Law of Mail Ordering - The most important item in an order will no
longer be available.
Scott's Second Law - When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be
found to have been correct in the first place.
Breda's Rule - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle
arrive last.
Fox on Bureaucracy - A bureaucracy can outwait anything.
Hall's Law - The means justify the means. The approach to a problem is more
important than the solution.
The Rule of the Rally - The only way to make up for being lost is to make
record time while you are lost.
Perlsweig's Law - People who can at least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People
who can most afford to pay rent, build up equity.
Boob's Law - You always find something the last place you look.
Bloch's Commentary on Boob's Law - You always find something the first place
you look. But you never find it the first time you look there.
Angler's Axiom - No matter how well you perform your job, a superior will seek
to modify the results.
Law of the Perversity of Nature - You cannot successfully determine beforehand
which side of the bread to butter.
Telesco's Third Law of Nursing - Everybody want a pain shot at the same time.
Waldrop's Principle - The person not here is the one working on the problem.
Porkingham's Third Law of Sportfishing - The worse your line is tangled, the
better is the fishing around you.
Peter's Placebo - An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Harris' Lament - All good ones are taken.
Porkingham's Second Law of Sportfishing - The least experienced fisherman
always catches the biggest fish.
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules - The first ninety percent of the task
takes ten percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety
percent.
Collin's Conference Principle - The person with the most monotonous voice
speaks after the big meal.
Cohen's Law - What really matter is the name you succeed in imposing on the
facts - not the facts themselves.
Parker's Law - Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
Churchill's Commentary on Man - People will occasionally stumble over the
truth, but most of the time they will pick themselves up and continue on.
Hammond's Second Law of the Kitchen - The rotten egg will be the one you break
into the egg batter.
Ferguson's Precept - A crisis is when you can't say, "Let's forget the whole
thing."
Young's Second Law - It's the dead wood that holds up the tree.
COROLLARY: Just because the tree is still standing doesn't mean it's not dead.
Whistler's Law - You never know who's right, but you always know who's in
charge.
Gray's Law for Buses - A bus that has refused to arrive will do so only when
the would-be rider has walked to a point so close to the destination that it is
no longer worthwhile to board the bus.
McKee's Law - When you're not in a hurry, the traffic light will turn green as
soon as your vehicle comes to a complete stop.
Soper's Law - Any bureaucracy reorganized to enhance its efficiency is
immediately indistinguishable from its predecessor.
Curtois' Rule - If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk
less.
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics - Once you open a can of
worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.
Montue's Law of Auto Repair - The car runs worse after a minor tune-up.
First Law of Gardening - Other people's tools work only in other people's
gardens.
Osborn's Law - Variables won't; constants aren't.
Troutman's Fifth Programming Postulate - If the input editor has been designed
to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad
data past it.
Law of Selective Gravity - An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Owen's Theory of Organizational Deviance - Every organization has an allotted
number of positions to be filled by misfits.
Sweeney's Law - The length of a progress report is inversely proportional to
the amount of progress.
Blair's Observation - The best laid plans of mice and humans are usually about
equal.
Freeman's Rule - Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become
competent, at least in a specialized field.
The Eleventh Commandment - Thou shall not committee.
Putt's Law - Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who
understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not
understand.
Corollary to Owen's Theory - Once a misfit leaves the organization, another
will be recruited.
The Fifth Rule of Politics - When a politician gets an idea, he or she usually
gets it wrong.
Miller's Law - Exceptions prove the rule - and wreck the budget.
Roche's Fifth Law - Every American crusade winds up as a racket.
Sherman's Law of Press Conferences - The explanation of a disaster will be made
by a stand-in.
Wilkie's Law - A good slogan can stop analysis for fifty years.
The Smith's Law - No real problem has a solution.
Third Law of Committo Dynamics - Those most opposed to serving on committees
are made chairpersons.
Buchwald's Law - As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse.
Drew's Law of Professional Practice - The client who pays the least complains
the most.
Jaruk's Second Law - If it would be cheaper to buy a new item, the company will
insist upon repairing the old one.
COROLLARY: If it would be cheaper to repair the old one, the company will insist
on the latest model.
Horowitz's Rule - Wisdom consists of knowing when to avoid perfection.
O'Reilly's Law of the Kitchen - Cleanliness is next to impossible.
Fox on Levelology - What will get you promoted on one level will get you fired
on another.
Knox's Principle of Star Quality - Whenever a superstar is traded to your
favorite team, he or she fades. Whenever your team trades away a useless no-
name, he or she immediately rises to stardom.
Rudin's Law - In a crisis that forces people to choose among alternative
courses of action, most people will choose the worst course possible.
Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crud.
The Lippman Law - People specialize in their area of greatest weakness.
First Law of Dignity - No one is so dignified that a public relations photo
cannot make him or her look foolish.
Second Law of Gardening - Fancy gizmos don't work.
Jordan's Law - An informant who never produces information is too deviant to be
trusted.
Jenning's Corollary - The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side
down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
Pfeifer's Corollary - No one keeps a record of the decisions you could have
made but didn't. Everyone keeps a record of your bad ones.
Anthony's Law of Force - Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
Williams and Holland's Law - If enough data is collected, anything may be
proven by statistical methods.
Wyszowski's First Law - No experiment is reproducible.
Van Roy's Second Law - If you can distinguish between good advice and bad
advice, then you don't need advice.
Law of Communications - The inevitable result of improved and enlarged
communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased
area of misunderstanding.
Old and Kahn's Law - The efficiency of a committee meeting is inversely
proportional to the number of participants and the time spent on deliberations.
Bralek's Law for Success - Trust only those who stand to lose as much as you do
when things go wrong.
The Ordering Principle - Those supplies necessary for yesterday's experiment
must be ordered no later than tomorrow afternoon.
Python's Principle of TV Morality - There is nothing wrong with sex on
television, just as long as you don't fall off.
Mayne's Law - Nobody notices the big errors.
Issawi's Law of the Conservation of Evil - The total amount of evil in any
system remains constant. Hence, any diminution in one direction - for instance,
a reduction in poverty or unemployment - is accompanied by an increase in
another, e.g., crime or air pollution.
Jose's Axiom - Nothing is as temporary as that which is called permanent.
COROLLARY: Nothing is as permanent as that which is called temporary.
Hoffer's Law - When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate
each other.
Special Law - The workbench is always untidier than the last time.
Barr's Inertial Principle - Asking a group of scientists to revise their theory
is like asking a group of cops to revise the law.
Kenton's Corollary to O'Brien's Observation - Switching back to the line you
just left screws up both lines and makes everyone angry.
Shedenhelm's Law of Backpacking - All trails have more uphill sections than
they have level or downhill sections.
First Law of Kitchen Confusion - Multiple-function gadgets will not perform any
function adequately.
COROLLARY: The more expensive the gadget, the less often you will use it.
The Path of Progress - A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
Pantuso's First Law - The book you spent $19.95 for today will come out in
paperback tomorrow.
Shapiro's Law of Reward - The one who does the least work will get the most
credit.
Ginsberg's Theorem - 1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.
Gillette's Law of Telephone Dynamics - The phone call you have been waiting for
will come the minute you're out the door.
Second Law of Scientific Progress - Exceptions always outnumber rules.
Third Law of Gardening - If nobody uses it, there's a reason.
First Law of Revision - Information necessitating a change of design will be
conveyed to the designer after - and only after - the plans are complete.
(Often called the "Now they tell us!" law)
Ehrman's Second Rule - Who said things would ever get any better?
Sprinkle's Law - Things always fall at right angles.
Launegayer's Observation - Asking dumb questions is easier than correcting dumb
mistakes.
Harbour's Law - The deadline is one week after the original deadline.
The Futility Factor - No experiment is ever a complete failure - it can always
serve as a negative example.
Imhoff's Law - The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic
tank - the really big chunks always rise to the top.
Hartz's Uncertainty Principle - Ambiguity is invariant.
Shanahan's Law - The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of
people present.
Emerson's Observation - In every work of genius we recognize our rejected
thoughts.
Vile's Fifth Law of Lines - A short line outside a building becomes a long line
inside.
Malek's Law - Any simple idea will be worked in the most complicated way.
Levy's Eighth Law - No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with
detail.
Katz's Law - People and nations will act rationally when all other
possibilities have been exhausted.
Thomas' Law of Sports - The one who least wants to play is the one who wins.
First Law of Postal Delivery - Love letters, business contracts and money you
are due always arrive three weeks late.
Second Law of Postal Delivery - Junk mail arrives the day it was sent.
Rush's Rule of Gravity - When you drop change at a vending machine, the pennies
will fall nearby while all other coins will roll out of sight.
Pfeifer's Principle - Never make a decision you can get someone else to make.
Chisholm's Second Law - When things are going well, something will go wrong.
Deal's Law of Sailing - The amount of wind will vary inversely with the number
of people you take on board.
Fox on Yesmanship - It's worth scheming to be the bearer of good news.
Rune's Rule - If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.
Second Law of Revision - The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the
further its influence will extend and the more plans that will have to be
redrawn.
Gilb's Second Law of Unreliability - Any system which depends on human
reliability is unreliable.
Thal's Law - For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop - Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the
least accessible corner of the workshop.
Peer's Law - The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.
Mr. Cooper's Law - If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of
technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it.
Bunuel's Law - Overdoing things is harmful in all cases, even when it comes to
efficiency.
Hendrickson's Law - If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings eventually
become more important than the problem.
Crane's Law - There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Pareto's Law (The 20/80 Law) - 20% of the customers account for 80% of the
turnover. 20% of the components account for 80% of the cost, etc.
Allison's Precept - The best simple-minded test of expertise in a particular
area is the ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in
that area.
Gerard's Law - When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks
take two weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear
overnight.
Cole's Law - Thinly sliced cabbage.
Grossman's Misquote of H.L Mencken - Complex problems have simple, easy-to-
understand wrong answers.
O'Brien's Observation - If you change lines, the one you just left will start
to move faster than the one you are now in.
Basic Baggage Principle - Whatever carousel you stand by, your baggage will
come in another one.
Fourth Law of Gardening - You get the most of what you need that least.
Gold's Law - If the shoe fits, it's ugly.
Voltaire's Law - There is nothing more respectable than an ancient evil.
Chisholm's First Corollary - When things just can't get any worse, they will.
Law of Information Retrieval - A document discarded as worthless will become
vital shortly after the trash is collected.
Booker's Law - An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
Walton's Law of Politics - Fools and their money are soon elected.
Gillette's Law of Household Moving - What you lost during your first move you
find during your second move.
McClaughry's Law of Zoning - Where zoning is not needed, it will work
perfectly. Where it is desperately needed, it always breaks down.
Third Law of Revision - If, when completion of a design is imminent, field
dimensions are finally supplied as they actually are - instead of as they were
meant to be - it is always simpler to start all over.
The Army Axiom - Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
Deal's Second Law of Sailing - No matter how strong the breeze when you leave
the dock, once you have reached the furthest point from port the wind will die.
Cahn's Axiom - When all else fails, read the instructions.
Harvard Law - Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it
damn well pleases.
Jay's First Law of Leadership - Changing things is central to leadership, and
changing them before anyone else does is creativity.
Lord Falkland's Rule - When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is
necessary not to make a decision.
O'Brien's Principle (The $357.73 Theory) - Auditors always reject any expense
account with a total divisible by 5 or 10.
Weinberg's Corollary - An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Hammond's Fourth Law of the Kitchen - Time spent consuming a meal is inversely
proportional to time spent preparing it.
Mr. Cole's Axiom - The sum of the intelligence on the planet is constant; the
population is growing.
Johnson's Second Law - If, in the course of several months, only three
worthwhile social events takes place, they will all fall on the same evening.
Bob's Law of Televised Sports - If you switch from one football game to another
in order to avoid a commercial, the second game will be running a commercial,
too.
The Queue Principle - The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood
that you are standing in the wrong line.
Ducharme's Precept - Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
Joe's Law - The inside contact that you have developed at great expense is the
first person to be let go in any reorganization.
Devries' Dilemma - If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't
want hits the paper.
Finman's Bargain Basement Principle - The one you want is never the one on
sale.
Chisholm's Second Corollary - Anytime things appear to be going better, you
have overlooked something.
Gumperson's Law - The probability of anything happening is in inverse ration to
its desirability.
Ehrman's Commentary - Things will get worse before they get better.
Atwood's Fourth Corollary - No books are lost by lending except those you
particularly wanted to keep.
The Airplane Law - When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to
transfer to is on time.
Law of the Lost Inch - In designing any type of construction, no overall
dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:40 p.m. on Friday.
Johnson's First Law - When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at
the most inconvenient time.
Baker's Corollary - You never want the one you can afford.
Dehay's Axiom - Simple jobs always get put off because there will be time to do
them later.
Fourth Law of Revision - After painstaking and careful analysis of a sample,
you are always told that it is the wrong sample and doesn't apply to the
problem.
Worker's Dilemma - 1. No matter how much you do, you'll never do enough.
2. What you don't do is always more important than what you
do do.
Fairfax's Law - Any facts which, when included in the argument, give the
desired result, are fair facts for the argument.
Issawi's Observation on the Consumption of Paper - Each system has its own way
of consuming vast amounts of paper: in socialist societies by filling out large
forms in quadruplicate, in capitalist societies by putting up huge posters and
wrapping every article in four layers of cardboard.
Potter's Law - The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely
proportional to the subject's true value.
Weiler's Law - Nothing is impossible for people who don't have to do it
themselves.
Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government - No person's life, liberty, or
property are safe while the legislation is in session.
Sinteto's First Law of Construction - A 60-day warranty guarantees that the
product will self-destruct on the 61st day.
Flug's Rule - The slowest checker is always at the quick-checkout lane.
Lewis' Law - People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
Luposchainsky's Hurry-Up-and-Wait Principle - If you're early, it'll be
cancelled. If you knock yourself out to be on time, you will have to wait. If
you're late, you will be too late.
Theory of Selective Supervision - The one time in the day that you lean back
and relax is the one time the boss walks through the office.
Bucy's Law - Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable person.
Grelb's Addition - If it was bad, it'll be back.
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