[65] in Dilbert Redistribution
Dilbert Newsletter 50.0
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Scott Adams)
Tue Sep 30 10:38:25 2003
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 10:36:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Scott Adams <dilbertnewsletter@unitedmedia.com>" <dailycomic#2.51065.363837363936.1@ummail3.unitedmedia.com>
To: dilbert-redist@mit.edu
Dilbert Newsletter 50.0
"A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine"
*****************************************************
************** SPECIAL WEASEL EDITION ***************
*****************************************************
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC)
From: Scott Adams (scottadams@aol.com)
Date: September 2003
DNRC Status
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There are 697,303 members of DNRC. Each of you is so brilliant that you already know how this sentence will end before ...oh, right, never mind.
Non-members, the so-called in-duh-viduals, will someday be our domestic servants when Dogbert conquers the world. During that era you might hear phrases never before uttered, such as, "He's the Ambassador from France AND my towel boy!"
Quotes From Induhviduals
-------------------------
Observant DNRC members continue to send me true quotes of
Induhviduals. After staring at the list for a while I realized that if I put them together they make an excellent story:
Excellent Story:
We were sitting on our hands, twiddling our thumbs, when suddenly the door opened. It made the hair on my back stand on end. He was smoking like a fish and swearing like a stuck pig. I could tell from his shifty eyes that he might try to pull the fox over my leg.
"Do you have a pen?" he asked. "I need to make a mental note."
I didn't want him to stick my pen into his ear, but I also didn't think it would be a good idea to rattle the barrel because the monkeys might shoot the fish. So I offered my pen.
"Do you seriously think I came up the river on a banana tree?" he growled before slapping the pen from my hand.
I wanted to fight him, but I already had too many hands in the fire. Still, you have to kill the stone with the bird while you can. He was slow as Moses. I kicked him where the moon don't shine. I didn't want to beat a dead bush, so I waited for his next move. The ball was in his camp now. He didn't look like he had both oars in his basket, but maybe I was trying too hard to read between the tea leaves.
The End
Dilbert's 2003 Weasel Awards
----------------------------
It's time to vote for the 2003 Weasel Awards. This is your chance to shine the spotlight of public ridicule on the weasels that deserve it most.
To vote, go to http://www.dilbert.com and look for the Weasel Poll link.
Voting will end on October 15, 2003.
I Hate My Clothes
-----------------
Today I donated another never-worn shirt to charity. When I say "never" worn, I'm not counting the twenty-five times I put it on, looked in the mirror and asked myself what-the-%$%#*&-was-I-thinking when I bought it? According to the label it's exactly my size, yet inexplicably, the puffy sleeves have enough room to smuggle Al Quaeda cells to remote mountain hideouts.
Whenever I tried on the shirt I experienced a unique blend of anger, self-loathing, and mostly: curiosity. Did the makers of this shirt ever see it worn by a human being? And if so, did that human have ordinary arms or appendages that looked like hippos trying to swallow pigs? And how did I fail to notice any of this when I tried it on in the store? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME????
Yes, I could have returned the shirt. Maybe it's a guy thing, but to me, returning a product is admitting you made a mistake. I can't take the pressure. And realistically, if I returned everything that disappointed me after I got it home, I'd be sitting in an empty house, naked, and starving. I'm a bad shopper, but I have high standards. It's a nasty combination.
My biggest clothing horror involves work-out shorts. I've noticed at the gym that you can deduce the exact age of any man by measuring the length of his shorts. The teens wear gigantic ankle-length shorts. The twenty-somethings wear their shorts below the knee. As you escalate through the age groups, the shorts continue to get more economical. One guy at my gym is 90 and he wears shorts so tiny that when he uses a certain machine you can tell the temperature in a way too horrible to mention.
It's a dilemma. I can buy the Speedo-sized shorts worn by everyone else my age, or I can try to be more stylish and come off looking like a guy who doesn't know how old he is. Apparently the fashion industry has decided it's a waste of fabric to make fashionable clothes for men my age because - and here I'm putting words into their mouths -- it's like adding a sprig of parsley to road kill.
The Office
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As a service to the DNRC, allow me to recommend the funniest show on TV. It's a British comedy called The Office. It takes place in a branch office of a paper company. The boss character in particular is brilliant. He'll stay in your head for hours after you see the show.
If you like Dilbert, and you own a television set, you'll probably like The Office. I first heard about it when hundreds of you wrote to tell me I had to watch it.
The second season starts Oct 12th on the BBC America channel. Check your digital cable or satellite listings for show times or log on to their website at http://www.bbcamerica.com/theoffice
DNRC Wise-Ass Encouragement
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There are many situations in which you would like to insult an Induhvidual while making it sound like encouragement. Here are some examples that take advantage of the fact that people only listen to the first part of what you say.
"You're not out of shape... because technically a circle is a shape."
"My respect for you knows no bounds... on the low end."
"I can tell that you're a renaissance man... and by that I mean a sissy."
Books and Calendars
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Do you have your Dilbert calendar for 2004 yet? If not, click here:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=newsletter1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0740736531/qid%3D1064590995/sr%3D8-2>
Or maybe you'd prefer the non-Dilbert box calendar, Cubicle Hell (Induhvidual stories and quotes)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=newsletter1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0740736922/qid%3D1062095552/sr%3D8-1>
Induhvidual Tales
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Here are some inspirational tales of Induhviduals, submitted by
DNRC members. As usual, I suspect that many of them are either urban legend or lifted from past Dilbert Newsletters that I've forgotten. But that doesn't make them less funny.
--
My older sister was ranting about something and I commented, "You're acting pretty stupid, ya know?" Her defense? "I'm not acting!!!"
---
During a discussion of requirements for a new system we are developing, my manager stated that he wants "24 x 7 availability, 5 days a week!"
---
About a month ago, I was unable to avoid listening to a coworker in the next cube. He was on the phone talking to his wife about their son, and I heard, "He hit you? No, don't take that at all. Smack him if he hits you again." I wonder where his son learned how to resolve problems? Today I heard him talking to his wife about their daughter being in a fistfight. The mystery deepens.
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In class, the teacher told us to answer questions one and two. A quick-thinking student needed more clarity and asked, "Is that one AND two, or one THROUGH two?"
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We recently interviewed a job candidate who told us that the thing she liked least about her previous jobs was that she was "always getting written up." Her explanation for the write-ups included fighting with co-workers, being late, and making mistakes. I hope this was just a practice interview because she needs it!
---
In my high school biology class we somehow got on the topic of birth and the teacher mentioned that his father was the first premature baby in the state to have used an incubator. One Induhvidual raised his hand and asked, "Did he survive?"
---
While I was working my boss came up to me and asked "How much ink will it take for me to scan this into my computer?" I replied that I didn't know and that he should scan it in and see.
Dilbert Fodder
---------------
What's bugging you about your job? Let me know and you might see
it in a Dilbert comic or newsletter. The best comic fodder
involves workplace peeves, devious strategies, frustrations of
dealing with others, conflicting objectives, unintended management
consequences, and of course my favorite - idiot bosses.
And I love True Tales of Induhviduals.
And if you're seeing any new management trends that need to be
mocked, I can help. Send your (brief) suggestions to me at:
scottadams@aol.com.
IMPORTANT: Put "Dilbert" at the end
of your subject line so my spam filter
won't bounce it back.
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