As I was relating the latest episode in the continuing saga of the train wreck that is my job to my husband, it occurred to us that this company may be reading the “Dilbert” comic strip, but they’re getting something completely different from it than the rest of us -it seems to be an instruction manual for them. It also occurred to us that this would be a fantastic idea for a “Dilbert” strip.
Just wanted to share that.
Scott Adams worked for, and patterned “Dilbert” after Pacific Bell Telephone (nee Pacific Telephone and Telegraph (PTT), now a part of SBC).
So no, your company is probably not doing a real good job of “Dilbertness” - unless it is spending $28-$30/mo to provide service for which it can charge $13.25, has employees spending their entire days in 20-50 person “meetings” in which they are read “status reports” on projects which drag on until they are cancelled due to lack of progress (AJR, anyone?), promote the useless, and institutionally set one group of “managers” at the throats of another set of “managers”.
I could go on, but to give a quick snapshot of this place:
Remember getitng little gold stars next to your name in kindergarten? Believe it or not, I saw an easel with employee’s names on it - with BIG gold stars beside them. I definitely did NOT stop to ask what the hell THAT was about.
The really sad part: the employees took preverse pleasure in informing new hires "This is where Scott Adams works! We are the model for “Dilbert”!
Well, why wouldn’t they take perverse pleasure in that? They are, after all, the model for “Dilbert.” No one is accusing them of being a good company with normal workers.
I’m not saying my company is an exact replica of Dilbert’s company, just that they seem to see the stuff that goes on in Dilbert’s world and think “Hey! What a neat idea!”
Yeah, featherlou’s point is that we the Workers look at the strip and say, “Yeah! That happens to me all the time! I hate that!” Whereas the Employers look at the same strip and say, “Saaaaaay… THAT’s a neat idea! A time bank! No more splitting between vacation and sick days! Muahahahahaha!”
In my office I have a bookcase filled with business books that I have read over the years. Visitors to my office are drawn to scan the titles and are usually surprised to see “The Dilbert Principle” alongside the serious tomes.
No. I’m not using as a guide for how to behave as a manager. But Scott Adams does an incredible job of highlighting unintended consequences of management decisions. Ideas that seem perfectly harmless on the surface (especially those from HR) can have devastating unintended consequences.
Sometimes an idea is suggested at a management meeting, and more often than not, the suggestion has already been lampooned in Dilbert as ludicrous. That’s why I have Dilbert on my bookshelf. It’s a reminder to myself not to get caught up with the management flavor-of-the-month fad. They’re usually stupid.
Unlike Mr. featherlou’s employer who uses Dilbert as a guide for how to behave, I use it as a guide for how not to behave.
I have an idea for a Dilbert comic strip:
– This company takes Dilbert as an instruction manual.
– Manager at said company is making a presentation.
– Manager starts presentation with an overhead of a cartoon.
– Cartoon is the “Dilbert” in which Dilbert is starting a presentation with a cartoon.
– Dilbert’s cartoon consists of a presenter who begins the presentation with a cartoon, but the cartoon isn’t funny because it has no punchline.
Head spinning yet? 
Hey. I’ve used Dilbert cartoon strips to begin presentations…
My company is distinctly Dilbertesque at times.
We need more resources to get the work done without the current resources having to work the massive hours of overtime that they are doing (hourly associates). We can hire two part-timers for what we’re paying in overtime (since part-timers don’t get benefits). Management won’t do it…why? The current political climate makes it difficult to ask for new positions EVEN WHEN IT WON’T COST ANY MORE! AND they’re considering hiring contract help in those positions so they don’t have to go through the process to hire associates, EVEN THOUGH IT WILL COST MORE!!!
I have those cutouts from one of the books of Dilbert, Wally, PHB, Alice, Ratbert, and Dogbert affixed to my monitor. They’re surrounding the Patron Saint of the Internet.
Hey, I like it.
And you have apparently already become somewhat infected by this Dilbertesqueism yourself, since you are referring to your fellow humans who work there as resources and associates.
You need to check out (IIRC) “Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook”. It explains it all in a twisted sort of way. If you’re not management, it will make you really uneasy.
There was always something that bothered me about “Dilbert,” but I could never articulate it until if found “The Trouble with Dilbert : How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh,” by Norman Solomon.
Over at Amazon, there are a few good reviews, both pro & con, about the book, but it point is worth examining: that the strip is a safe outlet for cubicle workers to say “I work with a bunch of idiots,” and instructs us to wiggle our pinkies in a futile gesture of contempt.
But, according to Solomon, “Dilbert” never looks further, to the top of corporate and government culture, where the CEO’s, top investors, lobyists and legislators are actually very sharp and are well informed on how crappy, low-paying and sometimes downright dangerous millions of peoples jobs actualy are. Which is why Scott Adams is the darling of the corporate seminar circuit, and Tom Tommorow has all the levity of a parking ticket