Dilbert

Dilbert is a popular American comic strip. Written and drawn by Scott Adams, the comic is known for its heavily satirical humor about a micromanaged office, featuring an engineer as the title character. The strip has run in newspapers since April 16, 1989, spawning several books, an animated television series, a computer game, and hundreds of Dilbert-themed merchandise items.

Dilbert in popular culture

The popularity of the comic strip within the corporate sector has led to the character of Dilbert being used in many business magazines and publications (he has made several appearances on the cover of Fortune).

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The Toronto Star, Montreal's La Presse, the Indianapolis Star, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Brisbane Courier Mail and San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications, run the comic in the business section, separate from other comics, which together have their own section. This is done in much the same manner that Doonesbury is now often carried only in the editorial section due to its pointed commentary.

Related Topics:
Toronto Star - La Presse - Indianapolis Star - Washington Post - Los Angeles Times - Courier Mail - San Francisco Chronicle - Doonesbury

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It is the basis of a popular (though unproven) theory suggesting that the morale at a given workplace is the inverse of the number of Dilbert comic strips taped and posted at various desks and cubicles. A larger number of Dilbert comic strips reflects general frustration with the bureaucratic administration at the company, whereas a generally satisfied workforce sees less identification with the character of Dilbert, and consequently fewer Dilbert comic strips are displayed as mementoes. An office with no Dilbert strips, however, does not necessarily have high morale; rather, it may indicate that a truly authoritarian administration has prohibited employees from displaying them.

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Criticism

The adoption of Dilbert as an icon for corporate America has led to Scott Adams being criticized, in some circles, for allowing his creation to be adopted and embraced by the very same corporate world his strip satirizes.

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Dilbert's irony admits few serious alternatives to the corporate lifestyle, as if Adams anticipated criticism but planned through irony to disarm the critics. Norman Solomon believes the strip is insufficiently critical of CEOs and disrespectful of ordinary working people (The Trouble with Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh, Common Courage Press, 1997). The idea that white collar people might be in need of more respect contrasts with a common belief that white collar career is a free choice, but downsizing and some of the pressures on Dilbert have been predicted in the 1970s by Harry Braverman (Labor and Monopoly Capital, Monthly Review Press, 1998 being the most recent reissue). Dealing with those pressures would require Dilbert to be more blue-collar in terms of struggle over his work process, but in Dilbert the boss can be lampooned but has to be obeyed.

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David Noble (Forces of Production, Oxford 1986) narrated a cyberstruggle of the 1950s over control of the programming of then-new computerized machine tools with a clear beginning (management introduces tools programmed by back-office Dilberts ignorant of shop floor requirements), middle (union men stand and watch the improperly programmed tools create "scrap at high speed") and end (management agrees that the union guys should do the programming). Solomon seems humor-challenged in his own book, but the irony in Dilbert, he feels, is a good way of avoiding serious confrontation over the best allocation of workplace control.

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Peter Drucker and C. Wright Mills both pointed out the paradox on which the strip is based but does not address: Dilbert, Wally, Alice and the rest of the gang are at one and the same time supposed to compete with each other, and produce a collective product. The strip satirizes the victims of this double bind. Solomon's concern is that it reconciles people to their fate, and doesn't show them a way out.

Related Topics:
Peter Drucker - C. Wright Mills

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The possible flaw in all these criticisms is the assumption on the part of their authors that people would use Dilbert as a role model, as opposed to merely finding it a one or two minute "funny" on a daily basis.

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Language

Terms invented by Adams in relation to the strip, and sometimes used by fans in describing their own office environments, include "Induhvidual." This term is based on an American English expression "duh!". The conscious misspelling of individual as induhvidual is a pejorative term for people who are not in the DNRC (Dogbert's New Ruling Class). Its coining is explained in Dilbert Newsletter #6.

Related Topics:
American English - Dogbert's New Ruling Class

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The strip has also popularized the usage of the terms "cow-orker" and PHB. The word "frooglepoopillion" is now occasionally used to describe an extremely large number, after a strip which revealed that the company for which Dilbert worked owed so much money that no name existed to describe the number, so the marketing department was promptly set to work on it, coining "frooglepoopillion".

Related Topics:
Cow-orker - PHB

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Some fans have used "Dilbertian" to analogize situations in real life to those in the comic strip.

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Management

In 1997 Scott Adams masqueraded as a management consultant to Logitech executives (as Ray Mebert), with the cooperation of the company's vice-chairman. He acted in much the way he portrays management consultants in the comic strip, with an arrogant manner and bizarre suggestions, such as comparing mission statements to broccoli soup. He convinced the executives to replace their existing mission statement for their New Ventures Group, "to provide Logitech with profitable growth and related new business areas", with "to scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings".

Related Topics:
Logitech - Mission statement - Broccoli - Soup

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In order to demonstrate what can be achieved with the most mundane objects if planned correctly and imaginatively, Adams has worked with companies to develop "dream" products for Dilbert and company. In 2001 he collaborated with IDEO, a design company, to come up with the "perfect cubicle", a fitting creation since many of the Dilbert strips make fun of the standard cubicle desk and the environment it creates. The result was both whimsical and practical.

Related Topics:
IDEO - Cubicle desk

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This project was followed in 2004 with designs for Dilbert's Ultimate House (abbreviated as DUH). An energy-efficient building resulted, designed to prevent many of the little niggles which seem to creep into a normal building. For instance, to spare time from having to buy and decorate a Christmas tree every year, the house has a large yet inapparent closet adjacent to the living room where the tree can be stored for later holiday seasons.

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