Dilbert: how close to reality?

Welcome to engineering.

There is a thread somewhere, I will dig for it.

Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
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SolidWorks Legion

dilbert is in my experience completely real. Every character is drawn from Scott's real world experience. Yes, it is sad. Sadder by far is when you realise you were acting like the pointy-haired boss ... very sad !

There have been Dilbert threads in Pat's Pub in the Eng-Tips Group section. Usually it's to point out one of the daily strips off of the site

I believe that i worked for the pointy-haired boss in my last job. It's frightening to see the level of incompetence that apparently permeates the management ranks in many companies as you go up the executive ladder. Scott Adams will never run out of material for his comic strip.

I used to think the Dilbert World was a grossly exaggerated satire of the corporate world. I spent most of my career working for small companies, and in the early 2000's the company I was at was bought up by a large Corporation, and within a year I was sure that there was a direct feed from our office to Scott Adams' drawing table. When the daily workday began to mirror the Dilbert Strip, I knew it was time to get out.

One of the many incidents was the mandatory Employee Ethics Exam we all had to take. This was printed up in a nice booklet and distributed to all 8,000 employees, at some great cost, and all while some of the principals of the Corporation were being investigated for varous mis-deeds. We all had to do this exam - it was mandatory - withholding our expense payments, and management "letters to file" were used as threats to have us all fill out this test. The back of the booklet had the Corporate address - Cayman Islands - a nice tax haven, and within 6 months a number of the Principals were now in front of judges facing jail time.

A lot of new cynics were generated by that effort. There was a lot of staff turnover there, for some reason...

Not only is Dilbert a real person, he is friends with Milton.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

In the late 90's, there was a very long Dilbert session on ISO:90001 registration. We were going through the process at the time and there were several days that the Dilbert cartoon matched our meeting minutes a little too close. I dont't know which one he was, but he had to have been there.

One thing i've regretted about dilbert.com is that they removed the golden "Mission Statement Generator". It randomly combined management buzzwords to generate a company's mission:

"Our mission is to proactively leverage our market shares while sinergising our customer approach at the lowest possible cost."

Made that up, yet it is very close to some company mission's core values as written on their websites!

There have been lots of Dilbert threads, and Dilbert references in non Dilbert threads. I started one just a couple of weeks ago in the Pub after several people had come up to me asking if I'd 'seen yesterdays dilbert strip'.

The scary part is when you realize you are any other character than Dilbert.

Heck even being Dilbert isn't a panacea.

"The scary part is when you realize you are any other character than Dilbert" I sometimes find myself feeling like Alice, wanting to use the fists of death on some poor soul.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

On a good day I'm Alice, on a bad day Wally.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

It was the realisation that I was becoming like Wally that gave me my afore mentioned epiphany.

I am definitely Alice, through and through. My boss even put an Alice strip up on my wall.

Too bad the system seems to be set up to reward the Wallys.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

"I used to just come for the doughnuts, but now I'm all about cross-charging my time to your project."

It's very accurate except in one way: Dilbert is funny.

photoengineer, one suspects, that from the outside, elements of it might be quite amuzing.

Dilber is not a cartoon. It is a documentary!