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How to hunt an elephant:

MS-DOS support people will not bother to hunt elephants in the first   
place, bcause everyone knows that you can't fit an elephant into 640K.

Software salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an   
invoice for an elephant.

Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them as
desktop "elephants."

Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything
that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.

Experienced mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at   
least one unique elephant, before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate   
exercise.

Professors of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique
elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant   
as an exercise for their graduate students.

Computer scientists hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
  1. Go to Africa
  2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope
  3. Work northwards in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
     alternately east and west.
  4. During each traverse pass,
     (a) Catch each animal seen
     (b) Compare each animal caught to a known elephant
     (c) Stop when a match is detected

Experienced programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in
Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

Assembly language programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their   
hands and knees.

ORACLE users obey a slightly different algorithm. They round up all the
elephants in the known world and shoot one. This takes longer but the end
result is the same. All remaining elephants are released.

Mainframe operating system designers will all hunt the same elephant, and
all claim  credit for the kill on the grounds that each was working on a
virtual elephant.

Engineers hunt elephants by catching grey animals at random, and stopping
when any one of them weighs within +/- 15 percent of any previously
observed elephant.

Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are   
paid enough then they will hunt themselves.

Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an
elephant.

Consultants don't hunt elephants, and have never hunted anything at all,   
but they can be hired by the half-day to advise those people who do.

Operations research consultants can also measure the correlation of   
hat-size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, as   
long as someone else will identify the elephants.

Politicians don't hunt elephants, they will share the elephants that you
catch with the people who voted for them.

Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing
about who owns the droppings. Software lawyers will claim that they own   
the entire herd based on the look-and-feel of one dropping.

Vice-presidents of R&D try hard to hunt elephants, but their staff are
designed to prevent it. When the VP does get to hunt elephants, the staff
will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely pre-hunted
before the VP sees them. If the VP does see a no pre-hunted elephant, the
staff will (i) compliment the VP's keen eyesight, and (ii) enlarge itself
to prevent any recurrence.

Senior managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption
that elephants are just like field-mice but with deeper voices.

Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants, and look for mistakes   
the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

Salespeople don't hunt elephants, but spend their time selling elephants
they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.