The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions - Hardcover

Adams, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0887307876 ISBN 13: 9780887307874

Publisher: Harper-Collins, 1996

Synopsis

The creator of Dilbert, the fastest-growing comic strip in the nation (syndicated in nearly 1000 newspapers), takes a look at corporate America in all its glorious lunacy. Lavishly illustrated with Dilbert  strips, these hilarious essays on incompetent bosses, management fads, bewildering technological changes and so much more, will make anyone who has ever worked in an office laugh out loud in recognition.

The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage -- management.

Since 1989, Scott Adams has been illustrating this principle each day, lampooning the corporate world through Dilbert, his enormously popular comic strip. In Dilbert, the potato-shaped, abuse-absorbing hero of the strip, Adams has given voice to the millions of Americans buffeted by the many adversities of the workplace.

Now he takes the next step, attacking corporate culture head-on in this lighthearted series of essays. Packed with more than 100 hilarious cartoons, these 25 chapters explore the zeitgeist of ever-changing management trends, overbearing egos, management incompetence, bottomless bureaucracies, petrifying performance reviews, three-hour meetings, the confusion of the information superhighway and more. With sharp eyes, and an even sharper wit, Adams exposes -- and skewers -- the bizarre absurdities of everyday corporate life. Readers will be convinced that he must be spying on their bosses, The Dilbert Principle rings so true!

About this title

About the Author

Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, the comic strip that now appears in 1,550 newspapers worldwide. His first two hardcover business books, The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook, have sold more than two million copies and have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for a combined total of sixty weeks.

The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage -- management.

Since 1989, Scott Adams has been illustrating this principle each day, lampooning the corporate world through Dilbert, his enormously popular comic strip. In Dilbert, the potato-shaped, abuse-absorbing hero of the strip, Adams has given voice to the millions of Americans buffeted by the many adversities of the workplace.

Now he takes the next step, attacking corporate culture head-on in this lighthearted series of essays. Packed with more than 100 hilarious cartoons, these 25 chapters explore the zeitgeist of ever-changing management trends, overbearing egos, management incompetence, bottomless bureaucracies, petrifying performance reviews, three-hour meetings, the confusion of the information superhighway and more. With sharp eyes, and an even sharper wit, Adams exposes -- and skewers -- the bizarre absurdities of everyday corporate life. Readers will be convinced that he must be spying on their bosses, The Dilbert Principle rings so true!

Reviews

Adams worked in a cubicle at Pacific Bell for nine years. From there he went on to pen the wildly popular cartoon Dilbert, which appears in over 700 newspapers. He is also the author of six Dilbert books (e.g., Bring Me the Head of Willy the Mailboy, Andrews & McMeel, 1995) and an electronic Dilbert newsletter, has a Web site on the Internet, and is a frequent speaker at business gatherings. His latest book of humorous essays and observations elaborates on the corporate scenarios depicted in his cartoons. The "Dilbert Principle" asserts that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. Chapters include such titles as "Machiavellian Methods," "Pretending To Work," and "Engineers, Scientists, Programmers, and Other Odd People." The book is replete with such advice as "Never walk down the hall without a document in your hand" and "The worth of any project is how it will sound on your resume." He stresses the importance of using the word paradigm as often as possible, discusses the value of computers in pretending to be busy, and recommends that workers awaiting performance reviews openly display copies of Soldier of Fortune magazine on their desks. This cynical, satirical, all-too-familiar glimpse of corporate life is unabashed management bashing and is very funny. Recommended for all humor and business collections.?Alan Farber, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Dilbert, Scott Adams' cartoon character, has become the workplace hero for the 1990s. Surely there is not a cubicle-occupying, meeting-attending, team-building-exercise-participating employee today who has not put one of Adams' cartoons on the office bulletin board or staff-room refrigerator door. In America's fastest-growing comic strip (700 newspapers and counting), Adams regularly and delightfully lampoons and lambastes incompetent bosses--and the subject matter of just about every business book reviewed in these pages during the last several years. Sometimes too true to be funny, Adams' observations strike a chord with anyone "just trying to do his or her job." More than a compilation of past strips--though over 100 do appear--this book includes new essays on all aspects of corporate life and culture, and each one is on target and deliciously sardonic! David Rouse

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper-Collins
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887307876
• ISBN 13: 9780887307874
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336