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 top 12 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 at Microsoft Corp. in WA.) 2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will 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, ElectricBoat 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. 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.) 6. My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers) 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 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. We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division) 11. 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!" (New business manager Hallmark Greeting Cards.) 12. 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 (pedophilia?) 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) ---------- A. A few suggestions to ease tensions (or raise questions about your sanity) at the office.... *Run one lap around the office at top speed *Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you *Phone someone in the office that you barely know, leave your name and say 'Just called to say I can't talk right now, Bye' *To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace *When someone hands you a piece of paper, finger it, and whisper huskily,'Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!" *Leave your zipper open for an hour. If anyone points it out, say 'Sorry, but I really prefer it this way' *In the middle of a meeting, suddenly yell out 'YAHTZEE!' *Walk sideways to the photocopier *While riding in the elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open *Say to your boss, 'I like your style', and shoot him/her with double-barreled fingers *Babble incoherently at a fellow employee, then ask 'Did you get all that?, I don't want to have to repeat it' *Page yourself over the intercom (do NOT disguise your voice) *Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle *Shout random numbers while someone is counting *At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself) *Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch off/on 10 times *For an hour, refer to everyone as 'Bob' *Announce to everyone in a meeting that you 'really have to go do a number two' *While an officemate is out, move their chair to the elevator *In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter 'Shut up, darn it, all of you just shut up!' *At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce 'With God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again!' *In a colleague's daytimer, write in 10am: 'See how I look in tights' *Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask 'Do you wanna swap?' *Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: 'Do you hear that?"What?"Never mind, it's gone now' *Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, 'I can't talk about it' *Speak in an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call *Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet paper from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out ---------- B. What the Boss Really Said on Our Review Sheet: PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL TERMS AND THEIR REAL MEANINGS GREAT PRESENTATION SKILLS = Able to bullshit GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS = Spends lots of time on phone AVERAGE EMPLOYEE = Not too bright EXCEPTIONALLY WELL QUALIFIED = No major blunders; yet WORK IS FIRST PRIORITY = Too ugly to get a date ACTIVE SOCIALLY = Drinks a lot FAMILY IS ACTIVE SOCIALLY = Spouse drinks, too INDEPENDENT WORKER = Nobody knows what he/she does QUICK THINKING = Offers plausible excuses CAREFUL THINKER = Won't make a decision AGGRESSIVE = Obnoxious USES LOGIC ON DIFFICULT JOBS = Gets someone else to do it EXPRESSES THEMSELVES WELL = Speaks English METICULOUS ATTENTION TO DETAIL = A nit picker HAS LEADERSHIP QUALITIES = Is tall or has a loud voice EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD JUDGEMENT = Lucky KEEN SENSE OF HUMOUR = Knows a lot of dirty jokes CAREER MINDED = Back Stabber LOYAL = Can't get a job anywhere else!!! ---------- C. A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in modern business, because of the heavy investment factors to be taken into consideration, often other strategies have to be tried with dead horses, including, but not limited to, the following: 1. Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 3. Threatening the horse with termination. 4. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses. 6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 7. Appointing an intervention team to reanimate the dead horse. 8. Creating a training session to increase the rider's load share. 9. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 10. Change the form so that it reads: "This horse is not dead." 11. Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 12. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed. 13. Donate the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost. 14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance. 15. Do a time management study to see if the lighter riders would improve productivity. 16. Purchase an after-market product to make dead horses run faster. 17. Declare that a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better. 18. Form a quality focus group to find profitable uses for dead horses. 19. Rewrite the expected performance requirements for horses. 20. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position. ---------- D. TOP 20 SAYINGS WE'D LIKE TO SEE ON THOSE OFFICE INSPIRATIONAL POSTERS 1. Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them. 2. If you can stay calm, while all around you is chaos, then you probably haven't completely understood the seriousness of the situation. 3. Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security. 4. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. 5. Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity. 6. A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat. 7. Plagiarism saves time. 8. If at first you don't succeed, try management. 9. Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether. 10. TEAMWORK...means never having to take all the blame yourself. 11. The beatings will continue until morale improves. 12. Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups. 13. We waste time, so you don't have to. 14. Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away! 15. Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker. 16. A snooze button is a poor substitute for no alarm clock at all. 17. When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break. 18. INDECISION is the key to FLEXIBILITY. 19. Succeed in spite of management. 20. Aim Low, Reach Your Goals, Avoid Disappointment.
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