To think that twenty years ago I was still crawling around and learning to walk, Dilbert was born (and became an adult instantaneously). A little more than a decade later, we crossed paths for the very first time - thanks to The New Paper (TNP).

I started reading TNP when I was in Primary 4, in 1997.  Back then, I read the newspaper from the last page. You guessed it - the sports news. In those days, reading reports describing the rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United was more "important" - and no doubt interesting - than knowing that Mah Bow Tan and his team won the Tampines GRC contest (again) by walkover, or that Bill Clinton won a second term to serve as the President of the United States.

And there's the daily dose of Dilbert's life working under the Pointy Hair Boss (PHB). To be hoenst, I have never understood the meanings conveyed in it until I graduated from secondary school. As I started to soak myself in the atmosphere of business, management, and corporate culture - through a better understanding of the world issues, my diploma programme, and some work experience - I started to appreciate and laugh genuinely at these comic strips.

Ridiculous co-workers, silly managers and lame policies - things that I have either read or experienced, Scott Adam (Dilbert's author) manages to portray them so funnily. In fact, there's this story of Adams, together with a design consultancy, designing the Ultimate Cubicle (notice the emergency shoe polisher on the bottom right):

I couldn't get enough of Dilbert.

In the Army camp, I access Dilbert's website on my mobile phone daily. Periodically, I visit the library (in case you couldn't recall what's that, it's actually a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.) near my house to borrow past Dilbert collection books.

It just doesn't stop there.

Six months ago, while attending a military course, I chanced upon one of Scott Adams's best seller, The Dilbert Principle. Man, that brightened up my days in the military school.

And now, Scott Adam is releasing a mega-collection of Dilbert comic strips, rejection letters, and his personal opinions, packed into a 600-pages, 4kg book. It looks pretty exquisite from the picture posted on Amazon.com.

It is a must-have Dilbert lovers.

And Christmas is coming soon. *wink*

A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert quotes" contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life dilbert-type managers.

Here are the some of the finalists:

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."
   (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA)
2. "What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter.
   (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."
   (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)
4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."
   (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."
   (Plant manager, Delco Corporation)
6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
   (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."(
   Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
   (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
9. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."
   (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
10. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
    (Hallmark Cards Executive)
11. My favourite:
    As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it.Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.

    (Taco Bell Corporation)

Another one:

Boss: Our new slogan is, "Pressure Makes Diamonds."

Wally: "How about, "Pressure Makes Garbage More Compact!"? I wonder if that one is taken.

Wally: "Irritation Makes Pearls." or maybe "Pressure Makes Whine."?

In fact, the character Wally was inspired by a coworker of creator Scott Adams at Pacific Bell. In one of the comic book What Would Wally Do, Adams explained that his co-worker at Pacific Bell wanted to avail himself of the generous severance packages being offered by the company during a period of downsizing (for the bottom 10% only), because he was told there was no future for him at the company; he thus embarked on a mission to get fired.

Adams was inspired by this coworker's serious dedication toward this goal, and the concept of a completely shameless employee with no sense of loyalty became Wally.