The Joy of Work: Dilbert's Guide to Finding Happiness at the Expense of Your Co-Workers - Hardcover

Adams, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0887308716 ISBN 13: 9780887308710

Publisher: Harper Business, 1998

Synopsis

"I cried because I did not have an office with a door, until I met a man who had no cubicle."
-- Dilbert

A message from Scott Adams:

I think the next wave of office design will focus on eliminating the only remaining obstacle to office productivity: your happiness. Happiness isn't a physical thing, like walls and doors. But it's closely related. Managers know that if they can eliminate all traces of happiness, the employees won't be so picky about their physical surroundings. Once you're hopelessly unhappy, you won't bother to complain if your boss rolls you up in a tight ball and crams you into a cardboard box.

As soon as I noticed this disturbing threat to workplace happiness, I did some investigative work and discovered it wasn't confined to the issue of office design. Companies were making a direct frontal assault on employee happiness in every possible way! I knew there was only one thing that could stop the horror.

It was time for another Dilbert book.

It might sound corny, but I felt an obligation to society. People told me it was time for me to "give something back to the community." This scared me, until I realized that no one knows I furnished my house with street signs and park benches. So I interpreted the "give something back to the community" message as a plea for me to write this book and then charge the community to read it.

In the first part of this book I will tell you how to find happiness at the expense of your co-workers, managers, customers, and--best of all--those lazy stockholders. The second part of the book teaches you my top-secret methods for mining humor out of ordinary situations, thus making it easier to mock the people around you. The third part of the book is made entirely of invisible pages. If the book seems heavier than it looks, that's why.

Office Prank #44: Sounds That Drive Co-workers Crazy

You can produce sounds in the office that will drive your co-workers insane. That can be very entertaining. Every co-worker is different, so you might have to experiment to find the sounds that are most annoying to your cubicle neighbor. It's worth the effort.

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.

Reviews

Dilbert devotees should enjoy Adams's compendium of advice on office life, subterfuge and pranks. Take his grid that identifies boss types along the axes of capable/incompetent and harmless/evil: with a boss who is both capable and harmless, be sure to delegate upward. Other handy tips: don't return phone calls (if you do, you'll seem accessible and underworked); present overly complicated diagrams with made-up letters (explain when asked: "Some ideas are too big for the alphabet"). Loyal readers have contributed some Adams's suggested office pranks, as well as choice bits like the coinage of the term "multishirking," or doing two nonwork activities at once. Sure, some bits are too silly to be funny (start a phone-sex biz from your cubicle?), and others could use some Dave Barry-style zing. But this book shines with Adams's real advice on creating humor and his hilarious tale of appearing as an expert consultant (aka Mebert) who convinced his clients to put their mission statement to music. As usual, this fourth Dilbert book?timed to arrive with the UPN animated series this fall?is punctuated throughout by hilarious and apropos Dilbert strips. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Adams is obviously unconcerned about the possibility that Dilbert, his cartoon creation, is at great risk of becoming overexposed; this is his fourth book in the Dilbert series. And besides the Dilbert dolls and computer games, an animated television program is in the works, Dilbert will have his own Ben and Jerry's ice-cream flavor ("World--Totally Nuts!"), and he is now the "spokesperson" for Office Depot. The cartoon that gave rise to all of this remains (along with "Garfield") the most popular comic strip in the country's major newspapers. After taking a look at the world outside in The Dilbert Future (1997), Adams and Dilbert redirect their cynicism back to the workplace. Relying on cartoon strip "re-runs" and e-mailed tips from fans, Adams offers advice on managing your boss, reverse telecommuting (bringing personal work to the office), pranks and humor in the workplace ("laughter at the expense of others"), and surviving meetings. His suggestions run the gamut from the very funny to the just plain mean-spirited. Adams concludes with a section on handling criticism. Here he includes a response to Norman Solomon's Trouble with Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh (1997). He effectively deflates much of Solomon's critique, but Adams cannot seem to resist getting in a personal dig or two. It seems Solomon's real flaw, much like that of Dilbert's boss, is his funny-looking hair. David Rouse

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887308716
• ISBN 13: 9780887308710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272