Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Seven Years of Highly Defective People - Scott Adams

This is a 256 page book filled with hundreds of Dilbert cartoons. As the cover says it's the Scott Adams Guided Tour of the Evolution of Dilbert. For a cartoon strip Dilbert is not easy because Adams does make you think, and more than once I did go back to read the cartoon and found something that I did not find the first time. I am lucky I did not meet Adams in his years at the workplace else he might have added a character as he did with almost all the other characters he has in the strip (including Asok the Indian).

Dilbert's resentment of cubicles, pointless meetings, management decisions and their justifications, his own reactions to management and those of his colleagues are some of the subjects of the cartoons. Dilbert was probably never meant to be funny as in rolling over the floor types (or maybe there are those types who get these jokes better than I do). But I must say that I enjoyed Dilbert a lot.

What Adams is so good at is in showing corporate world that there are really no clothes there. Most things that he says are funny because they are true and there's no escaping it whether you're in USA or India or wherever. The Dogbert, Ratbert and other animal characters add their own set of opinions and demands.

Good stuff Scott. I don't know if it changed anything but it sure did add humor to the workplace. And the world in general.