Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies

Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies is based upon the premise that Dogbert, Dilbert's evil sidekick and sometime management consultant, has written it as a guide to being successful at the workplace. To keep the illusion alive, Adams is merely listed as the "illustrator" rather than the author. Of course, Dogbert gives advice applicable to the classic Dilbert workplace, filled with clueless bosses, lazy or incompetent workers, and wildly out of touch consultants. Dogbert offers advice on how to navigate the jungle of office politics, clarifies why one's budget never makes any sense, why management really doesn't care about employees despite pretending to do so, and offers advice on a myriad of other topics. Although the show more scenarios in the strips are exaggerated somewhat for comic effect, the truly scary thing about the book is that the exaggeration is generally fairly minor. In typical Dilbert fashion, the humor in the strip stems from the bitter reality being satirized.

The only drawback to the book is that the panel size of the cartoon strips has been expanded, and as a result, the book contains fewer comic sequences than it could have. The truly cynical might think that was done so that Adams could squeeze an entire book out of half a book's worth of content. On the other hand, the guidance provided by Dogbert in this book is probably more valuable and useful than the guidance found in most serious books on management or MBA programs, so that seems like a fairly minor quibble. As usual, Adams' insights into the workings of the modern office come in the form of bitterly satirical humor, made all the more painfully funny as a result of the fact that they are, for the most part, so close to being true.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less

This book was my first contact with the man who was to become my business guru, Scott Adams. I regularly quote "Staff are our greatest asset, and like most assets they lose value over time", and some quite senior managers have admitted that it is probably true. Adams has an army of moles passing him stories of everyday madness from the corporate world, which makes his work perhaps the best portrayal of business life in the Western World.

Hilarious and informative. There is no better practical guide to navigating corporate America than Dogbert and this guidebook. I no longer fear spending the next 20 years in a cubicle, for I am totally prepared. Thank you Dogbert, I owe you one.

Hilarious and informative. There is no better practical guide to navigating corporate America than Dogbert and this guidebook. I no longer fear spending the next 20 years in a cubicle, for I am totally prepared. Thank you Dogbert, I owe you one.

Hilarious and informative. There is no better practical guide to navigating corporate America than Dogbert and this guidebook. I no longer fear spending the next 20 years in a cubicle, for I am totally prepared. Thank you Dogbert, I owe you one.

Hilarious and informative. There is no better practical guide to navigating corporate America than Dogbert and this guidebook. I no longer fear spending the next 20 years in a cubicle, for I am totally prepared. Thank you Dogbert, I owe you one.

I love "Dilbert", but this is not a collection of the strips, but an assortment of Dogbert's "helpful hints" for surviving in the business environment. These hints are slightly less satisfying than the strip itself, and I feel shortchanged because the artwork is expanded to the point where this book contains perhaps half the normal complement of cartoons. Adams' art hardly neccessitates a larger panel size, but seems almost a logical consequence of today's smaller panel size. So this book loses a point. Still fine, though.