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
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 Redmond, 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, 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." (Attribution withheld to not besmirch the
company name)
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. "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)
8. Quote from the
Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Marketing executive,
Citrix Corporation)
9. 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)
10. "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)
11. We recently
received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to inform you that
a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above."
(Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
12. 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.)
13. 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)