The creator of the Dilbert comic strip has died at age 68, after a battle with prostate cancer. God rest his soul and comfort his loved ones and many fans.
I loved the Dilbert series; many of the comically idiotic management policies that formed the basis of much of the humor in the strip I would actually see adopted at the agency I worked for (and in the banking industry in which I had previously worked). It even became a kind of game; someone would circulate a Dilbert cartoon, with one or more characters labeled as people at the agency, and the representation was always spot on. I bet JeffS and others here probably had similar experiences.
Vale, Scott. You will be missed!
ReplyDeleteI bet JeffS and others here probably had similar experiences.
Oh, my, yes. Including circulating Dilbert strips labeled with the names of local idiots.
More times than I care to remember, Dilbert even had predictive value. You'd see the pointy-haired boss formulate some stupid plan, and, sure enough, my employer would adopt something similar, if not the exact thing. It was uncanny.
DeleteI worked for the feds - Military Sealift Command. Fortunately, as a mariner I was apart from most of that nonsense, because it just doesn't work aboard ship. Or in any operational environment for that matter. But when I would have t go to headquarters between assignments, generally for training, it was fully visible among the people in the office.
ReplyDeleteI used to ponder how many of those useless slugs MSC could drop and still function. At any rate, the fleet had a requirement and the ships responded while the office staff did whatever the hell it was they did.
With my agency, which was involved in international financing, it was almost always the case that in the underwriting area (including all sorts of risk management), we were short, but in marketing and HR, there was always what I would call a "superfluity".
DeleteI did the Dilbert thing with a strip that featured the woman with the pyramid hair. I renamed it after the boss's wife, who did the purchasing.
ReplyDeleteSomething like this:
Boss: And so what would you say you've done this quarter to improve the morale of our suppliers?
Woman: I failed to give them the beatings they so richly deserve.
Boss: So you'd call yourself a team player, then?
Haw!
DeleteAdams described nearly every office environment everywhere with Dilbert.
ReplyDeleteBefore Scott Adams revealed where he really worked, there were several people at my company who believed he must have worked there, because the strips were so spot on.
ReplyDelete