�"For the armies of American office workers, Dilbert is a reminder that they are not alone." � Chicago Tribune
�"Cruel and incompetent bosses, plus the pervasive stupidity of people Adams calls 'in-duh-viduals,' are favorite targets in the strip, which appears...on the Internet, in best-selling books, and on refrigerator magnets, coffee mugs, desk calendars, software, neckties, and even underwear." � Playboy magazine
Does Dilbert creator Scott Adams have a hidden camera in your office—or is he just completely in tune with the inept managers, wacky office politics, and nonsensical leadership practices that seem to run wild at your company?
Stop looking for the camera. Dilbert has become a hugely successful strip because Adams feels your pain. How? Because this former employee of a major telecommunications company has been there. He's seen the leadership firsthand. And he knows that to successfully navigate the ludicrous world of business, you can't expect common sense to prevail, you need to keep a sense of humor, and above all, you must always look before you leap.
The strip's enormous popularity stems from the fact that its millions of readers easily identify with the crazy plots and wacky characters found within the corporate environment of collections like this one, Don't Step on the Leadership . Sure, most companies don't have a bespectacled engineer with a tie permanently curled up, a cynical talking dog, and a manager with two pointy tufts of hair. But it's the outrageous things Dilbert characters do and say that leave readers knowingly nodding their heads and, of course, laughing uproariously. The antics of Dilbert 's cast are based not only on Adams' own corporate experiences, but on the more than 300 e-mails he receives each day about the office dramas of his devoted fans.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the ŷ database with this name.
Adams was born in Windham, New York in 1957 and received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Hartwick College in 1979.
He also studied economics and management for his 1986 MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
In recent years, Adams has been hurt with a series of debilitating health problems. Since late 2004, he has suffered from a reemergence of his focal dystonia which has affected his drawing. He can fool his brain by drawing using a graphics tablet. On December 12, 2005, Adams announced on his blog that he also suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes the vocal cords to behave in an abnormal manner. However, on October 24, 2006, he again blogged stating that he had recovered from this condition, although he is unsure if the recovery is permanent. He claims to have developed a method to work around the disorder and has been able to speak normally since. Also, on January 21, 2007, he posted a blog entry detailing his experiences with treatment by Dr. Morton Cooper.
Adams is also a trained hypnotist, as well as a vegetarian. (Mentioned in, "Dilbert: A Treasury of Sunday Strips 00).
Along with Zits!, another comic strip I loved was Dilbert. Yes, I was the little kid who spent Sunday morning reading Dilbert. Did I understand everything? No, of course not. But I wanted to. I had this innate need to understand this world and I kept returning to the comics as I grew older. Obviously as an adult I understand a great deal more; not everything but at least I know that my passion for cynical humour was there since childhood.
Scott Adams has created the perfect replica of our world without the pretty wrapping paper. It is the coal you receive as a gift. The realization of your impending adulthood. The little dashing of hope we give ourselves to make our lives meaningful. The rat race many love to romanticize under the name of “life�. Dilbert is, human history.
Any work in any organization -- the bigger the work place, the worse it is -- entails dealing with piles and piles of leadership. Do NOT step in it; get the shovel and try to use it as fertilizer . . . Or better still, leave the leadership in the hallway, quit, and take the shovel with you to go work in a garden. You will be outdoors, doing productive work that bears fruit, a better, more healthy, person for it.
There's plenty of work to be avoided amidst the cubicles, but the Pointy-Haired Boss will do what he can to lead his inferiors in the right direction - even if that direction involves zany antics and possible fatal casualties. Adams keeps the laughs coming with another hilarious collection of comics sure to draw fans back again and again. What sort of troubles will come from this particular ego trip?
We all might have started out like Calvin with a great view of life. But after hitting the workforce we all somewhat become Dilbert. Everyone knows someone like one of the characters in the strips. Highly recommended
I love Dilbert and this book is one of his best in the series. The great thing is, you don't have to work in the IT business to still get the management puns and daily work life. A great laugh!
Unless you read Scott Adams' foreword, in which he refers to his AOL email address, it's very hard to tell that this book is 15 years old, and the strips even older.