People are Idiots! So proclaims Scott Adams in this ever-so-popular book The Dilbert Principle : A cubicle’s eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads and other workplace afflictions . And I agree.
The generation before mine had various superheroes to look-up to, Superman, Spiderman, Phantom and all. In this age of super geekism, the new superhero is Dilbert. If you have read the comic strip then you will have an idea of the kind of sarcastic humor Scott Adams masters in. Actually Indians are very apt in this genre of humor socially but somehow it doesn’t reflect in the books or movies.
Anyways, in this book Adams has, in a management book style, given real life accounts and experiences proving his theory that people are idiots, without any exceptions. Some of the topics he attacks and ridicules are.
-> Management Lies
-> Performance reviews (My favorite)
-> Business communications
-> Marketing
-> Consultants
-> Sales
-> Meetings
-> Leaders
-> Employee Strategies
And hell lot of other things you would encounter in a normal office life. The best part Adams changes your perspective towards things in a very drastic way. After reading this book you’ll tend to find some ’’Dilbert’’ like qualities in your office and surprisingly you will find some.
Many of his regular characters also feature in this book like
Dogbert :- The evil upper management person who likes to make devilish plans to humiliate employees
Dilbert’s boss :- The dumb boss who can’t differentiate between a laptop and Etch-A-Sketch
Wally :- Dilbert’s co-worker and fellow geek
Catbert :- Dilbert’s smart and intelligent cat
Ratbert :- The consultant working under Dogbert
Trolls in Accounting :- For once I completely agree with Adams on this one, My company seriously has trolls in the accounting department. Just try to get something important done from them. Sheesh !!
Apart from being extremely funny and witty, Adams at times becomes a little bitter and sadistic. Maybe his personal experiences might have been that way, at least I haven’t experienced something bad (I mean a few minor things here and there).
Adams sure does makes and ending in a positive way. The last chapter New Company Model : OA5 (which means Out At 5) talks about an idealistic situation where everything works fine for the company, the management and the employees.
Plus the graphical illustrations (or comic strips in laymen’s term) are excellent.
Here are some really funny sentences from the book.
Theory of Evolution (Summary):
First, there were some amoebas. Deviant amoebas adopted better to the environment, thus becoming monkeys. Then came Total Quality Management.
Talking like a Manager:
A manager would never say, ’’I used my fork to eat a potato’’. A manager would say, ’’I utilized a multitined tool to process a starch resource’’. The two sentences mean almost the same thing but the second one is obviously from a smarter person.