Jokes and Puns: Lighten up your day!

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.

Putney's Law: If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy.

Corollary: If it feels good, don't do it.

Puritan's Law: Evil is live spelled backwards.

Pudder's Law: Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything that begins badly ends worse.

First Rule of Public Speaking: Nice guys finish fast.

Public Relations Client Turnover Law: The minute you sign a client is the minute you start to lose him.

Proverbial Law: For every proverb that so confidently asserts its little bit of wisdom, there is usually an equal and opposite proverb that contradicts it.

Project scheduling "99" rule: The first 90 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

Professional's Law: Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you're not.

Productivity Equation:

The productivity, P, of a group of people is: P = N x T x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) ) where N is the number of people in the group and T is the number of hours in a work period.

Laws of Procrastination:

Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (the authority who imposed the deadline).
It reduces anxiety by reducing the expected quality of the project from the best of all possible efforts to the best that can be expected given the limited time.
Status is gained in the eyes of others, and in one's own eyes, because it is assumed that the importance of the work justifies the stress.
Avoidance of interruptions including the assignment of other duties can be achieved, so that the obviously stressed worker can concentrate on the single effort.
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.
It may eliminate the job if the need passes before the job can be done.

Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. (also known as the How Come It All Landed On Me Law)

The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices: The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those functions.

Price's Law of Science: Scientists who dislike the restraints of highly organized research like to remark that a truly great research worker needs only three pieces of equipment -- a pencil, a piece of paper, and a brain. But they quote this maxim more often at academic banquets than at budget hearings.

Price's Law of Politics: It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home.

Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side.

Law of Predictive Action: The second most powerful phrase in the world is "Watch this!" The most powerful phrase is "Oh yeah? Watch this!"

Powell's Law: Never tell them what you wouldn't do.

Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules: Everything costs more and takes longer.

Poulsen's Law: When anything is used to its full potential, it will break.

Potter's Law: The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.

The Pollyanna Paradox: Every day, in every way, things get better and better; then worse again in the evening.

Politicians' Rules:

When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them.
When the polls are overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress the volatility of public opinion.
When the polls are slightly unfavorable, play for sympathy as a struggling underdog.
When too close to call, be surprised at your own strength.

Law of Political Erosion: Once the erosion of power begins, it has a momentum all its own.

Plotnick's Law: The time of departure will be delayed by the square of the number of people involved.

Axiom of the Pipe. (Trischmann's Paradox): A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

Pike Law of Punditry: The successful pundit is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.

Pierson's Law: If you're coasting, you're going downhill.

Phone Booth Rule: A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.

Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering:

In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.
Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.
In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated as variables.
The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those conditions encountered in actual service.
The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands the greatest chance of being omitted.
If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be unreasonable.
If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction.
All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
Major changes in construction will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed.
Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
Interchangeable parts won't.
Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.5.
Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.25.
Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with the device will be promptly discarded by the Receiving Department.
Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.
Service Conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.
If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault.
Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion in the field.
If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service experience at an ultimate value, an ingenious idiot will promptly calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.
Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.

Phelps's Law of Retributive Statistics: An unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally long sequence of trouble.

Phelps's Laws of Renovation:

Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice as much and take three times as long as originally estimated.
Any plumbing pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent condition; those you decide to leave in place will be rotten.

Phases of a Project:

Exultation.
Disenchantment.
Confusion.
Search for the Guilty.
Punishment of the Innocent.
Distinction for the Uninvolved.

Peterson's Law: History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or, expressed differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt.

Peter's Theorem: Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.

Peter's Rule for Creative Incompetence: Create the impression that you have already reached your level of incompetence.

Peter's Placebo: An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. Peter's Prognosis: Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will disappear.

Peter's Perfect People Palliative: Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some (perhaps) not-so-good qualities. In considering our fellow people we should remember their good qualities and realize that their faults only prove that they are, after all, human. We should refrain from making harsh judgments of people just because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.

Peter's Paradox: Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their colleagues.

Peter's Observation: Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.

Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves.

Peter's Law of Evolution: Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.

Peter's Inversion: Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficiency.

Peter's Hidden Postulate According to Godin: Every employee begins at his level of competence.

Peter Principle: In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties. Corollaries:
Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
If at first you don't succeed, try something else.

Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Persig's Postulate: The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.

Perlsweig's Law: People who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People who can most afford to pay rent, build up equity.

Perkin's postulate: The bigger they are, the harder they hit.

Perelman's Point: There is nothing like a good painstaking survey full of decimal points and guarded generalizations to put a glaze like a Sung vase on your eyeball.

Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool MOM.

Peers's Law: The solution to a problem changes the problem.

Peckham's Law (Beckhap's Law?): Beauty times brains equals a constant.

Peck's Programming Postulates (Philosophic Engineering applied to programming):

In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually do so.
Not until the program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
Any constants, limits, or timing formulas that appear in the computer manufacturer's literature should be treated as variables.
The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the greatest chance of being left out of the calling sequence.
If only one compiler can be secured for a piece of hardware, the compilation times will be exorbitant.
If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be.
Interchangeable tapes won't.
If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault.
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.
Duplicated object decks which test in identical fashion will not give identical results at remote sites.
Manufacturer's hardware and software support ceases with payment for the computer.

Paulg's Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.

Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.

Paul Principle: People become progressively less competent for jobs they once were well equipped to handle.

Paturi Principle: Success is the result of behavior that completely contradicts the usual expectations about the behavior of a successful person.
Corollary: The amount of success is in inverse proportion to the effort involved in attaining it.

Patton's Law: A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Patricks's Theorem: If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.

Pastore's Truths:
Even paranoids have enemies.
This job is marginally better than daytime TV.
On alcohol: four is one more than more than enough.

Dolly Parton's Principle: The bigger they are, the harder it is to see your shoes.

Parson's Laws:
If you break a cup or plate, it will not be the one that was already chipped or cracked.
A place you want to get to is always just off the edge of the map you happen to have handy.
A meeting lasts at least 1 1/2 hours however short the agenda.

Mrs. Parkinson's Law: Heat produced by pressure expands to fill the mind available, from which it can pass only to a cooler mind.

Parkinson's Principle of Non-Origination: It is the essence of grantsmanship to persuade the Foundation executives that it was THEY who suggested the research project and that you were a belated convert, agreeing reluctantly to all they had proposed.

Parkinson's Law of 1000: An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.

Parkinson's Law of the Telephone: The effectiveness of a telephone conversation is in inverse proportion to the time spent on it.

Parkinson's Law of Medical Research: Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.

Parkinson's Law of Delay: Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

Parkinson's Sixth Law: The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.

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 Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.

Parkinson's Third Law: Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.

Parkinson's Second Law: Expenditures rise to meet income.

Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion.

Parkinson's Axioms:
An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.
Officials make work for each other.

Parkin's Law of Irritation: Anything that happens enough times to irritate you will happen at least once more.

Parker's Third Rule of Tech Support: If you can't navigate a one-level, five-item phone tree, you didn't need a computer anyway.

Parker's Law of Political Statements: The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility, and vice versa.