‘Dilbert’ Creator Knows The Ropes
The comics page might seem a strange place to look for depictions of the workplace that ring true.
But fans of “Dilbert” - published in more than 500 papers reaching 35 million readers - have come to consider cartoonist Scott Adams something of an expert on corporate reality. So who better to ask about lessons learned in the world of work?
“One of the things I found is that sometimes your level of respect at your job and even your promotions will be based on the perceived quantity of the work you’re doing - specifically the number of hours,” said Adams in a phone interview. “And probably the thing that surprised me the most when I entered the work force is how people manage that perception.”
His advice? “In every conversation, in every meeting, you should take the opportunity to insert something about how long you work, how hard you work, how many assignments you’ve got and specifically how you’re up to your (rear) in alligators and putting out fires all day long.”
Arriving one minute before your boss gets to work or leaving one minute after he or she leaves is always a good idea, said Adams.
Is it true that making one’s boss happy is always a person’s real job?
“Well, your boss - being a human being in most cases - is saying to himself or herself ‘How do I look today?’ and ‘How hard am I working?’ So you really have two tasks if you want to impress your boss and get promoted. And those are, of course, to make sure they look good and to make sure that you personally are not a burden on their time.
“That’s the thing I first learned. If you can learn the trick of going into your boss saying not ‘Here’s an issue - you deal with it’ but ‘I have this problem, two ways to deal with it, I’m choosing this one - yes or no?’ Suddenly you will seem like you are the smartest, wisest, best employee they’ve ever had, and they will want to spend time with you as opposed to other people.”
Why does that work? “All bosses want to find ways to minimize their work, as all humans do. And you have control over that. There’s no reason you can’t make the decision for them. They want you to do that.”
Adams, who earlier this year was laid off from his day job as a $70,000-a-year engineer at Pacific Bell in California, is finishing a book tentatively called “The Dilbert Principle.” It will be marketed as a business publication.
He has come a long way since the days when he was a young new-hire working in a big bank and fired off a long list of suggestions to a senior executive. “Apparently he had such a good laugh over them that he asked for a meeting with me … I think there was something about the amazingly fresh cluelessness and audacity that I would think to suggest how we should run things that it was literally amusing to him.”
Anything else they don’t teach you in school? “One thing you don’t realize is that there are not infinite resources to work on every little problem.”
, DataTimes MEMO: See related story under the headline: Real-world advice