[24] in Dilbert Redistribution
Dilbert Newsletter 17.0
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dogbert)
Fri Aug 22 19:05:44 1997
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 17:15:10 -0400
Reply-To: "Dogbert's New Ruling Class" <DILBERT_NEWS@LISTSERV.UNITEDMEDIA.COM>
From: dogbert <dogbert@LISTSERV.UNITEDMEDIA.COM>
To: DILBERT_NEWS@LISTSERV.UNITEDMEDIA.COM
Dilbert Newsletter 17.0
-----------------------
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC)
From: Scott Adams
Date: Late August 1997
Highlights:
------------------------------------------------
- True Stories of Induhviduals
- Prank reports
- How I'm destroying the economy of the planet
- Dogbert answers my mail
------------------------------------------------
DNRC Status Report
------------------
Since the inception of the DNRC in 1994, the economy of the world has
surged to record levels of employment and productivity. There have been
no major wars. Inflation has come under control, and the budget of the
United States has been balanced.
That's a pretty good record, considering all we did was read e-mail and
make fun of stupid people. I'm proud of each and every one of you.
You might ask, what's left for us to accomplish? Will we get bored?
Don't worry. I'm creating new worldwide problems every day. Case in
point, this recent headline:
San Jose Mercury News, Sunday, August 10, 1997
"Dread of Dilbert discourages [technical] majors. Nobody wants to
be a nerd -- not even bright students."
This is not just a case of some reporter who gets paid by
the word. No, this is an important problem and it's my fault.
I accept full responsibility.
But I've done far worse. According to several articles published
recently, plus a new book due out this fall, the Dilbert comic is
a "safety valve" that causes employees to meekly accept mistreatment
on the job. (This is in stark contrast to the bloody cubicle
rebellion that was happening prior to the Dilbert comic.)
Maybe you have also noticed that the most popular design for men's
neckties lately is the wide red and black stripe design. President
Clinton wears one often. Coincidence?
Apparently I'm well on the way to destroying the education, technology,
economy and fashion of the planet. I do this so the DNRC will have new
challenges. Now go to it!
DNRC Tip For The Day
--------------------
When some people see the word "coworker" they think it means the
same as "co-worker." But it doesn't. Coworker is from the Olde
English expression, "cow orker," as in the following sentence that
is best read with a cockney accent, "I ain't workin' with 'im!
He's a bloody cow orker!"
True Tales of Induhviduals
--------------------------
Because you can't get enough of those whacky Induhviduals
(the people who are not members of the DNRC), here are more True
Tales as reported by DNRC operatives.
---------
I was visiting Windsor castle, outside of London, on vacation. Windsor
castle is directly in the flight path of Gatwick International Airport.
While standing outside the castle admiring the elegant structure, a
plane flew overhead at a relatively low altitude making a tremendous
amount of noise.One particularly annoyed American tourist Induhvidual
standing next to me whined, "Why did they build the castle so close
to the airport???"
---------
I pulled into the burger king driveup window and placed my order.
Remembering that I wanted to get some extra coins for the coffee
machine at work, I handed the guy $6.00 for my $4.25 bill and said,
"Could I get some extra change?"
He looks at me, blankly. A full five seconds pass while he is trying
to figure it out. "Oh yeah, ok." He says, "Quarters fine?" "Yeah, sure"
I tell him. He then gives me my food and seven quarters...plus a
dollar...and three more quarters.
I guess when the customer asks for extra change he gets it!
---------
I walked up to the counter at a chain fried chicken joint and asked the
cashier-Induhvidual for a soda and a piece of chicken.
"Crispy or regular", she asked.
"I don't care. Either will be fine," I replied.
"Crispy or regular", she asked again, annoyed.
"...Ahh, Crispy then," I responded.
"We are out of crispy," she said.
---------
A couple of years ago, when I worked at a large company, our "sexual
harassment training" included a company letter that stated "Don't treat a
female engineer like a secretary." Needless to say, the secretaries were
not amused.
---------
I was helping a friend (yes I admit it, I have an Induhvidual for a
friend) set up her new computer. It was a desktop model, so I naturally
placed it on top of her desk in the traditional setup. A few minutes
after I had installed the software, she complained that she wished she
had bought a tower pc instead of the desktop computer as it took up too
much space on her desk. I promptly took the computer off the desk,
flipped it on its side and placed it on the floor. She then looked at
me in amazement and asked,"You can do that?"
(Editor's Note: An easy way to make some extra money is by offering to
upgrade Induhvidual's desktop computers to tower configurations.)
---------
(Name changed to protect the guilty person in this true tale)
I had just started work in a laboratory. I frequently ran across news
items that I would pass along to our supervisor. I would write across
the top: "Tina, FYI."
After about two weeks, Tina walked in and said "Are you mad at me?"
I said "no, why?"
She said, "Well, you keep sending me these rude notes. Everything I get
from you says 'FYI.' I KNOW what the 'FY' stands for. What does the 'I'
stand for? ENORMOUSLY?"
[Editor's Note: Evidently, the "I" stands for Induhvidual.]
---------
This one sounds like urban legend to me, but I'll pass it on anyway.
There was a soccer professional in Germany who was offered a third
of an amount of money. That didn't sound like enough, so he asked
for at least a fourth, and got it. When he saw how easy it was he
pushed some more and finally got a fifth!
[Editor's Note: I'll bet his wife got a fifth when she hear that, and
drank it alone.]
---------
I walked down to the Pepsi machine. Soda is $.90 .. There were three
post-its(tm) on the machine... one said "this machine owes me $.90"
another "this machine owes me $.90" and last but not least "this machine
owes me $1.80"......
---------
My friend is sitting in an introductory electromagnetism class,
and the teacher is discussing the concept of the electric field,
and how electric charges give rise to electric fields. So he sets
up the problem by saying, "And so we take our magic wand and put a
charge Q on this conductor, and a charge -Q on this conductor." He
continues to explain the problem, until a couple of minutes later,
one of the students blurts out "What magic wand!?"
[Editor's Note: When this student enters the workforce, I hope I meet
him when I ask for "extra change."]
---------
I was at the library making copies of articles for a research paper and
discovered that the copy machine wasn't working (after having plugged
several dimes into it). I told the girl at the library desk the copy
machine was malfunctioning, to which she replied, "I know".
Exasperated, I asked why she hadn't put a sign on the machine
indicating it was broken so people wouldn't waste their money. Her
answer was, "We don't have a sign like that".
---------
I'm afraid that my future sister-in-law is an Induhvidual. Borrowing a
line from Steven Wright, I asked her, "When you shoot a mime, do you use
a silencer?" She said smuggly, "No, they can still hear."
---------
A friend was asked to be interim director of our Institute while the
director was away. The following day I noticed him looking at a form
with an amused look on his face. He was required by policy to sign a
form to authorize the transfer of signing authority. Under each category
indicating the amounts or the things he could sign for (i.e. vacations,
overtime, etc.) it said NONE in each case.
He had to sign a form which would give him the authority not to
authorize anything.
---------
I brought my film to the "One Hour Developing" place and asked for the
one hour service. "No problem," said the owner, You can pick it up in
two hours."
I protested, "The sign says one hour developing. "
"That's right," he said, "One hour developing takes about two hours."
[Editor's Note: Be sure to order the double-wide prints, which are the
same size as the regular ones.]
DNRC Prank Report
-----------------
This galactic prank report comes directly from the field:
I took the QuickTime panorama of the Mars Pathfinder, reworked it into
my own HTML web page (neatly entitled "Pathfinder Mission Control")
and put a heading "Pathfinder Active Camera Control" above the panorama.
Soon the news travelled, from Induhvidual to Induhvidual, that I had
found a way to control the camera on the Pathfinder from my computer at
work. My PC was swarmed by Induhviduals each taking their turn
"controlling the camera".
And another prank report...
A friend of mine works at a large insurance company as a sysadmin. He
informed his boss that the boss's hard disk needed to be "balanced."
My friend gave his boss a program which writes "weight files" on
carefully computed spots on the disk, so that the balanced disk will run
smoother. The boss distributed the program among the employees and
ordered them to regularly have their hard disks balanced.
DNRC Motto
----------
Visionary Dave Morse suggests this motto for the DNRC:
I can please only one person per day.
Today is not your day.
Tomorrow isn't looking good either.
Curing the Voicemail-Playing Coworker
-------------------------------------
I get many complaints from people about their cow-orking co-workers
who use the speakerphone function to listen to their voicemail messages
everyday. This is very annoying if you are in the next cube. But I
have a cure for this.
From an anonymous phone, preferably a payphone or the desk phone of
a dimwitted cow-orker, leave a sexually suggestive message on the
offending Induhvidual's voice mail. Do this every day until the
problem abates.
The messages should be naughty enough to embarrass the person who
plays it aloud, but not so naughty that you'll get fired if they find
out it's you. I suggest using breathy and suggestive sentences that
make oblique references to things like vegetable oil, feathers and
lost wristwatches.
That oughta do it.
Dogbert Answers My Mail
-----------------------
In this section, Dogbert answers the mail that I'm too polite
to answer myself.
Dear Mr. Adams,
After reading your 7/31/97 cartoon and sharing it with a fellow
co-worker, we got into a small discussion.
The issue involves the last panel of the cartoon in which a rather
large person is pictured at a copy machine. Is this large human being
clearly meant to be a female? If so, I feel this could be taken as
being politically incorrect for the reason that men can also have fat
rear ends. However, it always seems that women are the ones pictured
with the fat rear ends.
A short reply from your side to clarify the situation would be greatly
appreciated.
Barb L.
Dear Bulb,
You make a good point. All the male characters in the Dilbert strip are
trim and good-looking. Dilbert, Wally and the Pointy-haired boss are all
Chippendale dancers on weekends.
But the female characters don't get such favorable treatment. More often
than not they are depicted as gigantic creatures whose butt cheeks
embrace Wally's head in an accicental embrace. Apparently this is Mr.
Adams' idea of "funny."
I will talk to Mr. Adams about this obvious bias and have it corrected
immediately.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
Your Opinion On Next Dilbert Book
---------------------------------
I'm looking for opinions from the wise and astonishingly attractive
members of DNRC. What do you think I should focus on for the next
hardcover Dilbert book?
The Dilbert Principle focused on cubicle life and bad management.
Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook did the same. The newest
book, The Dilbert Future, took a broader view, describing how idiots
will threaten every aspect of business, technology and society in the
future. Should the next book go back to a business-only focus, or
would you like to see me keep a wider scope? You can best answer
that by telling me your reaction to The Dilbert Future. Did you
appreciate the break from office humor or did you wish there had been
more of it? If you liked The Dilbert Principle but didn't read
The Dilbert Future, why not?
(There's one theory that the book cover designs for The Dilbert Principle
and The Dilbert Future are so similar that people think they already read
The Dilbert Future.)
Send any thoughts on The Dilbert Future and suggestions for the next
book to scottadams@aol.com
Thanks!
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---------------------------
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------------------------------
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