Dilbert Newsletter 20.0 ----------------------- To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC) From: Scott Adams Date: June 1998 Highlights: ---------------------------------------- - True Stories of Induhviduals - Dilbert TV Show - DNRC Wise-Ass Comments - Dilbert Stock Indexes - Pippy The Ziphead Back Story ---------------------------------------- DNRC Status Report ------------------ As you know, anyone who subscribes to the Dilbert Newsletter is automatically a member of Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC), and destined to rule the world by Dogbert's side, while all others become our domestic servants. Dogbert's New Ruling Class now claims over ten million members, worldwide. The actual number is 200,000, but there's no law against rounding up to the nearest cool number. And it helps to strike fear in the hearts of the enemies of the DNRC -- both of them: DNRC Enemies ------------- 1. Little Billy from Family Circus 2. The Pillsbury Doughboy Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that they are the same person. Think about it: Same doughy arms and legs. Same perky personality. And what shape is the dough boy's container? Round. What shape is the Family Circus' container? Round. In the next issue I will explore the mystery of whether Conan O'Brien's sidekick, Andy, is part of the conspiracy. Are You An Induhvidual? ----------------------- There are two kinds of people in the world: 1) the highly intelligent and inexplicably sexy members of the DNRC, and 2) the dimwitted, future servants of the DNRC known as Induhviduals. To find out if you are an Induhvidual, get a number two pencil and use it to hunt and peck the answers to the following questions on your keyboard. Test: 1. Do you forward chain e-mail letters because you are sure it will help a dying child, or win free Microsoft software, or save someone from a dangerous e-mail virus? 2. Do you use a speakerphone in your cubicle under the assumption that those around you don't mind a bit? 3. Do you think it is dangerous to buy things over the Internet because that's the easiest way for criminals to get your credit card number? 4. Do you sing along with your favorite songs on the radio under the theory that the other people in the car will enjoy it more that way? To grade your test, hold your answers at chest level in front of a mirror. Now cross your eyes slightly. If you are an Induhvidual, you will see the image of two identical dolts just above the page. Wise-Ass Comments From DNRC Members ----------------------------------- Here are some wise-ass comments submitted by DNRC members. I wouldn't call these "humor" in the classic sense, but rather a unique form of entertainment in their own right. The mark of a truly good wise-ass comment is that it makes perfect sense to the highly intelligent members of the DNRC while baffling the Induhvidual who is the target. --- I was in a bar in San Francisco. A guy was trying very hard to impress me. He told me that he used to be a boxer. I asked him if he had ever chased cars. --- My wife and I recently ordered a Dominoes pizza for pick up. We arrived at the pizza place to find all the employees wearing new "Safe Driving Team" hats. I looked at my wife and said loudly, "Oh, and I suppose everyone on the "Great Cook Team" is out on a delivery!" --- A colleague and I, both in our mid twenties, were discussing Tina Turner's age. My colleague blurted "She could be my mother!" to which I replied, "Don't you know who your mother is?" --- I mentioned to the salesperson that all of their sweaters were made of acrylic. I asked if the material was taken from acrylics that had been sheared, or killed. She said she didn't know, and would "have to ask the manager." She never returned from that meeting. And another thing: My mother was shopping in another high brow establishment, and asked the salesclerk why they had all acrylic sweaters, and no wool sweaters. The clerk responded, "We don't believe in killing sheep just to get the wool." My mother pointed out: "Neither does anyone else!" Old Joke Alert --------------- In the last newsletter I was duped into spreading an urban legend about a tourist entering Australia. The Australian customs official allegedly asked the tourist if he had a criminal record, and the witty but fictional tourist replied, "I didn't know that was a requirement anymore." I have been informed by several hundred people that this is one of the oldest jokes in the world, and my brain is the size of a little tiny pea. The source of the joke has been attributed to several people including Benny Hill, Alexi Sayles, one of the Monty Python guys, and a dozen other comedians. An Australian sent me the following story to even the score. It might be an urban legend already, but if it isn't, it will be: I was in Maine recently, just after the ice storm. I was attempting to buy petrol. The attendant didn't understand the word "petrol." I explained that I was Australian, and that petrol means gas. His reply was, "Australian... cool. Are you guys getting any of this weather down there?" True Tales Of Induhviduals -------------------------- Those Induhviduals continue to amuse and amaze us. Here's the latest batch of reports from DNRC operatives in the field. Tale ---- A while ago I entered a store to buy some envelopes. I noticed that a 100-pack was more expensive than ten 10-packs. I asked why, and got this response: "Because we don't sell so many of the 100-packs." Tale ---- I just attended a "Technical Architecture Course," given by a highly paid consultant. After seeing slides upon slides with words like "prewrote," "summarization," and "stateful," she came to a sequence with "transactionality" scattered throughout. As an aside, she complained, "You know, it's interesting. Microsoft Word doesn't know any of these computer words. It marks them as misspelled." Tale ---- There was some reorganization in my office recently. I ended up exchanging cubicles (and thus phone numbers) with an Induhvidual in my office. A few days later, the Induhvidual calls my name over the cubicle wall. He tells me he has a phone call for me, and asks what my new phone number is so he can transfer it. Tale ---- This story from a student proves that the children are our future Induhviduals: One day I brought a pocket translator to class in order to help with my foreign language studies. Another student was interested in it and wanted to try it. I showed him, using several examples, how to enter an English word and get its translation. Simple enough? Evidently not. He entered "ABC" and complained that it would not give him a translation. I explained that "ABC" was not a word. I told him he had to enter a common English word. So, he tried again. This time he entered "TIM". Again he complained that the translator did not work. I told him that "TIM" was a name, not a common English word. He protested, saying that Tim was his name and his name was English. I am concerned about the future of our species. Tale ------ At the high school I attend one of the sports teams has taken to using an acronym on T-shirts that is supposed to spell out WIN, but unfortunately, they must have missed half of their spelling classes in elementary school. The following is prominently displayed on their backs W | I | N ------------------------------------------- Work | Intensity | No Hard | | Excuses Tale ---- The company where I work services cargo access equipment on ships. After each service job, a report must be filed listing the ship's name, location, and summary of the work performed. One of our service engineers was writing his report on a recent job, but was unsure of the ship's name. His boss told him to read the name off the stern of the ship. The report came back with the ship name listed as "Beware Of Propeller." Tale ---- I was performing tech support over the phone. After ten minutes of helping an Induhvidual through some edits to files to fix a problem, we got to this point: Me: "Locate the 'Oracle Programs for NT' group off the start menu." Induhvidual: "OK" Me: "Do you see the SQL Worksheet program?" Induhvidual: "Yes" Me: "Open it, then enter the user, password and connection string." Induhvidual: "OK" Me: "See the large frame at the bottom? Enter this SQL statement." Induhvidual: "OK" Me: "Now run it and tell me what comes back." Induhvidual: "OK" Me: "So what came back?" Induhvidual: "I don't know." Me: "What do you mean, 'I don't know'? Can't you read what is on the screen?" Induhvidual: "I'm not at the computer." Tale ---- We switched janitorial services in my office building. After the change we frequently ran out of towels before the end of the day. The new janitorial Induhviduals just wouldn't put enough towels in the dispenser. An escalating e-mail campaign finally resulted in management action: an additional paper towel dispenser was installed. The janitorial crew still leaves the same inadequate number of towels; they just split them between the two dispensers. Tale ---- The travel agency in the first floor of the building where I work decided that they would hold a barbeque for employees on Friday afternoon. That morning the boss was told that it was illegal to barbeque outside of an office building, so the boss moved the grill to the company kitchen and proceeded to grill the burgers. The smoke set off the fire alarms and the entire building had to be evacuated. He then argued with the fire fighter about whether or not the fire was "intentional" (Note: During the argument he was wearing an apron that said "I'm the chef" and holding the grill tongs!) Tale ---- My dad is an engineer. This is a true story. I was 12 years old at the time. My little sister spilled juice in the back seat of our car, leaving a large red stain. That weekend, Dad and I went to a car wash that has one of those high-pressure nozzles. He decided to get the stain out by using the nozzle on the upholstery. He crawled into the back seat with the nozzle and started spraying away. Result: A much larger stain, and four inches of water on the floor of the car. He didn't want to get in trouble with his wife for leaving water in the car, so we drove around for a couple of hours, on wet upholstery with our feet in water, until he came up with the perfect solution. We went to an abandoned parking lot. My dad told me to keep my seatbelt on and to hold the passenger side door open with my leg. He did the same with the driver's door. He then drove as fast as he could in a circle, hoping that the centrifugal force would force the water out. (It didn't.) We spent the rest of the day with towels, soaking up water from the floor and wringing them out (and repeating, and repeating...) We never got all the water out of the upholstery, and it got moldy. The smell finally got too bad for my stepmother, and she made him sell the car. Tale ---- I'm a physician. One day in our clinic, a patient passed out. The doctor determined that the patient needed to be transported to the ER, one flight up, for further evaluation. Our clinic just moved into a new facility. We soon discovered that our gurneys do not fit in our elevators. Oops! So we called the paramedics to come transport the patient across the patient parking lot, to an outside door to the ER. The parking attendant would not allow the paramedics to transport the patient until they coughed up the 50-cent parking fee. [Editor's note: How many Induhviduals can you find in that story?] Tale ---- At the grocery store, I asked the store manager about the ecological soundness of the plastic take-out sacks. "Do they break down?" I asked. He replied,"No, they'll hold up to sixty pounds." "No," I said," I mean will they take up space in a landfill." "No," he said, "they'll flatten right out." Tale ---- We had a computer consultant who was hired because he was a friend of somebody in the department. He didn't know much, so he was getting paid considerably less than such people are frequently paid. He tried to fix a problem on a VP's computer, and couldn't figure it out. The VP inquired about him, found out that he was getting paid less than other consultants, and demanded that he be replaced with a more expensive consultant. They signed the same guy up for three times the money. Tale ---- [Editor's note: Some new cars are equipped with a knob that generates income when you turn it, as in this story.] My husband is the service manager at the local automotive shop. A customer came in complaining that the air conditioner on his brand new car was not working and he needed to get it serviced. My husband looked at it for a moment, turned the temperature control off of "heat," charged the man $60 and sent him on his way. Tale ---- There is a store in our office building called "Legs Beautiful." They sell upscale women's hosiery. Last year they extended their hours of operation. To inform people, they placed several signs around the retail area of the building that said: "Legs Beautiful. Now Open Longer." Tale ---- The hotel desk clerk took my credit card, made an impression, handed the card back to me, and put the charge slip in the drawer (unsigned). Trying to be helpful, I asked "Do you want to sign that now." He said, "Oh, yeah." He then took my charge slip out of the drawer, set it on the counter, carefully signed it, and placed it back in the drawer. I'll admit I was too dumbfounded to say anything, but I never got charged for the room. Tale ---- The instructions for a prescription I recently picked up are: INSERT 1 SUPPOSITORY PER RECTUM TWO TIMES A DAY. Tale ---- I work in an international division of my company. When they moved us to our overseas location in Asia, part of the package was a $4,000 payment to handle "other miscellaneous" international moving costs. One of the people who joined our group was moved from Europe. He received a $2,000 payment. When he asked the relocation manager why he got half as much as the Americans, he was told that it was because he already lived international. Tale ------ A co-worker who was travelling on business discovered that she had been assigned a smoking room at the hotel, despite specifying a non-smoking room. So she called down to the front desk to find out what happened. The Induhvidual at the front desk put her on hold for several minutes so she could check. Finally she returned with the following response: "Oh, it's EITHER." My coworker said she was happy to find out it wasn't a mandatory smoking room. Tale ------ One day in Advanced Placement Chemistry, our teacher was lighting rubbing alcohol on fire to prove that it burns quite nicely. When he left to get some more alcohol, one of the brilliant students said that alcohol was what actors used to light themselves on fire. Another student demonstrated by dousing his hand with the alcohol, then applying a lit match. The resulting fire was nice, for about 5 seconds, when the alcohol burned off and started burning his hand. Needless to say, he began running wildly, flaming hand preceding him. [Editor's note: On the scale of Induhviduality, lighting yourself on fire is very near the top.] Tale ------ My company was about to go through some layoffs. The list apparently was finalized and would be released on the following Friday. The final list of downsizees was a well kept secret within the upper echelons of management. However, luckily for the common cubicle workers, some Induhvidual decided that the new phone directory needed to be released on Monday, sans those who would receive the axe on the following Friday. Needless to say, some people received an added bonus of an extra week of vacation before termination. The kicker of this tale is that the person who published the phone list did not appear in the latest release either. Tale ------ A friend of mine recently was given a dockable laptop computer to use in and out of the office. While at work, it's hooked up to a full-size monitor and mouse. One weekend, she took the laptop home to catch up on some correspondence. Monday morning, she forgot to bring the computer back in with her. After about an hour in her office, she called the tech support guy and asked, "Um, how do I turn on my computer without that keyboard thing?" Tale ------ During my years in secondary education I had a teacher who tended to be a bit, well, satisfied with her accomplishments. One day before class she was praising her own teaching style, and couldn't quite find the word to describe it. I offered a word I thought might describe it nicely, or at least its long-term effects. She quickly agreed. Her teaching was, without doubt, "evanescent." Thai Goes To The Runner ----------------------- This report from a DNRC operative in Thailand is exactly the reason I never leave my house: I was walking down the street in Pattaya Beach, Thailand, one day, wearing my Dilbert t-shirt. Suddenly the sky went dark and something landed on top of me. A large umbrella with a steel frame had descended from a second story patio bar and flattened me. (I was told later that it had blown off but I think it was tossed.) So there I was lying on the sidewalk under a large umbrella as a horde of Thais emerged from nearby doorways. They lifted the umbrella off of me and picked me up and dusted me off. I don't understand much Thai, but I did hear the word "Dilbert" several times. I suspect that they were trying to kill me for my Dilbert t-shirt. The Dilbert Stock Indexes ------------------------- For the past few months we have been tracking four Dilbert themed stock indexes on the Dilbert Zone Web site at http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/financial/. The Dilbert Index (DILBX) is made up of companies who bear the closest resemblance to Dilbert's own company, according to my e-mail. The Pointy Haired Boss Index (TPHBX) is comprised of companies who allegedly block internet access to the Dilbert Zone web pages. The Dogbert Index (DOGBX) includes companies that are likely to be the last ten on earth after they absorb or crush all the others. The Ratbert Index (RATBX) is those companies who are directly in the crosshairs of dominant companies such as Microsoft, CISCO, Intel, and Oracle. Which of those indexes do you think beat the S&P 500 Index for the past four months? Pippy The Ziphead - The Real Story ---------------------------------- Many people wrote to express shock and dismay at the recent Dilbert series where Dogbert created his own comic strip called Pippy The Ziphead. People berated me for a thinly veiled and unseemly attack on another cartoonist. Most of those critics explained that they were huge fans of Zippy The Pinhead and my attacks were cruel and unprovoked. Worse yet, my attempts at social commentary were clumsy and unfunny, especially in comparison to the day-in day-out genius which is Zippy. I try to learn from criticism. What I learned in this case is that the fans of Zippy The Pinhead don't actually read his strip. If they did, they would know that the Dilbert strip has been a target of Zippy's biting social commentary several times. So the Dogbert series wasn't exactly "unprovoked." It was, however, cruel, clumsy, and unfunny to many people --like almost everything else I do. I'm not sure why anyone felt the need to tell me that, but it's always nice to be reminded. I've never met Bill Griffith, the cartoonist who does Zippy, so it's nothing personal. I thought his mentions of Dilbert were funny. But I also think it makes Zippy fair game. I recently read an article that quoted Griffith as saying that Dilbert is, "less a comic strip than a marketing concept." I did a web search to confirm the quote, but all I could find was a streaming video clip of a TV interview where Griffith was plugging his upcoming animated Zippy TV show. As Zippy might say, "Are we marketing yet?" Speaking of which... Next Dilbert Book - The Joy Of Work ----------------------------------- The newest hardcover Dilbert book will be out in September, from HarperBusiness. It's full of tips and strategies for finding workplace joy at the expense of your co-workers, your boss, and best of all -- those lazy stockholders. Many witty and devious DNRC members contributed to it, and I thank you all sincerely. The back of the book also has my top secret tricks for writing humor. If you have friends who think they are very funny, but aren't, this is an excellent gift. The paperback version of The Dilbert Future will be out at the same time, with some updated information about "the weird chapter 14." Dilbert Animated TV Show ------------------------ We're in full production for the January 1999 release of the Dilbert animated series. It'll be on UPN, in primetime. I'll give you the details as we get closer. Several shows have been written and voice-recorded already. There's an eight month process of storyboarding and animating in Korea. That means that sometime in August we'll be juggling 13 separate episodes all in different stages of production. This will not be the summer I get the tan I always wanted. The scariest part of the process was casting for the voices. We needed to find people who had not only the acting and comedic skills, but the voices that fit the characters. Any one of those filters will empty a room pretty quickly. Finding all three seemed impossible. I'm delighted to say that after a LONG search, we found actors with all of those qualities and more. Dilbert: Daniel Stern Dogbert: Chris Elliot Boss: Larry Miller Alice: Kathy Griffin Wally: Gordon Hunt (yes, Helen Hunt's dad) Dilbert Product Information --------------------------- If you'd like information on any other Dilbert-related products that are available, send an e-mail message in the following format: Address: Dilbert_Products@listserv.unitedmedia.com Subject Line: Products Message: Products You won't be put on any additional mailing lists if you do that. You'll receive an e-mail listing the licensee for each Dilbert product, with phone numbers to call if you need more information. Or check out The Dilbert Zone Web site. http://www.dilbert.com You can order selected Dilbert products directly from The Dilbert Store, at http://www.umstore.com/dilbert/. New products include pointy-haired boss wigs, at http://www.umstore.com/dilbert/dsearch.htx?cat=search&category=GIN,and ceramic Dilbert pen holders with digital clocks, at http://www.umstore.com/dilbert/dsearch.htx?cat=search&category=APP&Searc h=clock Also check your local bookstores, and office and computer supply stores. How to Subscribe Automatically ------------------------------ You can sign up for the free Dilbert Newsletter automatically. Send an e-mail message using this address and format: Address: listserv@listserv.unitedmedia.com Subject line: newsletter Message: subscribe Dilbert_News Firstname Lastname Don't include any other information. Your e-mail address will be picked up automatically. You can also subscribe on the Web by visiting The Dilbert Zone at http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/dnrc/. Unsubscribing ------------- To unsubscribe automatically, send a message with this address and format: Address: listserv@listserv.unitedmedia.com Subject line: newsletter Message: unsubscribe Dilbert_News (note: Don't include your name in the message) Problems Signing up for the Newsletter -------------------------------------- If the automatic method doesn't work for you, simply send a message to newsletter@unitedmedia.com and you will be added manually. This method is much slower than the automatic method so please be patient. Scott Adams scottadams@aol.com