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With more than one million copies in print and months on the New York Times best-seller list, The Dilbert Principle has become one of the most talked about business books of all time. Author Scott Adams draws upon his nine years in Pacific Bell's cubicle 4S700R to create Dilbert, corporate America's potato-shaped, abuse-loving poster boy. Now-with advice from the daily comic strip, and e-mail submissions sent in by actual readers-Adams demonstrates how even the lowliest cubicle-dwelling show more workers can learn the secret that has kept them from empowering their careers. With chapters titled "Pretending to Work" and "Swearing: The Key to Success for Women," this audiobook contains a wealth of career-building information. At turns delightfully impudent, caustically sarcastic, and devilishly funny, The Dilbert Principle is always dead on target as it lampoons the real-and often absurd-American workplace. Narrator Norman Dietz's wry voice is the perfect vehicle for this wildly entertaining book. show lessTags
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I pulled this off the shelf thinking it was merely a compendium of Dilbert cartoons. It is a much more involved exegesis of the The Dilbert Principle in action and the apathy and rage when "companies tend to systematically promote their least competent employees to management (generally middle management), to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing." Bolstered by anonymized emails from the field, it is at times as saddening and painful as it is funny. This stuff is all too true. Unfortunately, many of the strips are reproduced too small to be easily read.
The hopeless monotony of cubicle life deserves, nay, demands levity. Laughter is a cure-all and Scott Adams’ anti-hero, Dilbert, provides a bellyful for cubicle dwellers everywhere.
Scott Adams is one of my favorite humorists. His incisive, perceptive observations skewer the world of corporate America and beyond. He manages to accomplish this without being too abrasive or mean - no small feat, there. By holding up the mirror to the foibles that plague the business world, Adams offers some means of improvement.
I knew that Scott Adams has long running hilarious Dilbert comic series. I also knew, from his blog, that he can think quite differently from most people, and that he can amazing breadth and depth on varieties of idea. Having read this book, I can also confirm that he can write a long satire very well. This book, as name says, is humourous look at corporate bureaucracy. Those who can recognize corporate culture as such will finds themselves nodding in agreement often. Those who don't, will probably succeed better in the corporate world. As satires go, this caricatures certain things to laugh at them, but for most part book is quite realistic. His writings is self-deprecating and self-lauding at times, which works well for his writing show more style. Book is 30% text, 50% cartoons, and 20% real-life letters. Overall a fun read! show less
This book was a nice read for me since I'm recently back in the corporate world. It's amusing with practical advice for office workers mixed into the humor and sarcasm. I've learned a few things, I admit. And it makes me thankful I don't work for a huge company, when I see what some employees have to tolerate.
As a professional manager, I see Dilbert and Dogbert as strong role models. I certainly read this with interest - and took fiendish delight in implementing some of the recommended strategies!
In the introduction, Scott Adams (the cartoonist) says "Most of the themes involve workplace situations. I routinely include bizarre and other worldly elements such as sadistic talking animals, troll-like accountants, and employees turning into dishrags as the life-force drains from their bodies. And yet the comment I most often hear is 'That's just like where I work'. No matter how absurd I try to make it, I can't stay ahead of what people experience in their own workplaces."
Got that one right!!!!!
In the introduction, Scott Adams (the cartoonist) says "Most of the themes involve workplace situations. I routinely include bizarre and other worldly elements such as sadistic talking animals, troll-like accountants, and employees turning into dishrags as the life-force drains from their bodies. And yet the comment I most often hear is 'That's just like where I work'. No matter how absurd I try to make it, I can't stay ahead of what people experience in their own workplaces."
Got that one right!!!!!
A must-read for every management-type. Alas, most won't read and wouldn't understand if they did. This is probably the truest book about business that's ever been written -- which makes it hilarious and scary at the same time. -1997
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199+ Works 34,778 Members
Scott Adams, Cartoonist Scott Adams was born and raised in Windham, New York in the Catskill Mountains. He received a B.A. in economics from Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a certified hypnotist. Adams worked in a bank for eight years and, while a bank teller, was robbed twice at show more gunpoint. He also worked for Pacific Bell for nine years and describes both jobs as "humiliating and low paying jobs." It was during this time, that Adams created the character Dilbert. He was entertaining himself during meetings by drawing insulting cartoons of his co-workers and bosses. In 1988, he mailed some sample comic strips featuring Dilbert to some major cartoon syndicates. He was offered a contract and Dilbert was launched in approximately fifty papers in 1989. Adams began working on Dilbert full time as well as speaking, writing, doing interviews, and designing artwork for licensed products. Dilbert is published in over 1,200 newspapers and has a hard cover business book called "The Dilbert Principle." (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Dilbert Principle
- Original title
- The Dilbert Principle : A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions
- Original publication date
- 1996
- People/Characters
- Dilbert
- Dedication
- For Pam
- First words
- These days it seems like any idiot with a laptop computer can churn out a business book and make a few bucks. (Foreword)
Most of the themes in my comic strip "Dilbert" involve workplace situations. - Quotations
- We're a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by a few thousand amazingly smart deviants.
People are idiots. Including me. Everyone is an idiot, not just the people with the low SAT scores. The only difference is that we're idiots about different things at different times. No matter how smart you are, you spend mu... (show all)ch of your day being an idiot.
It is a wondrous human characteristic to be able to slip into and out of idiocy many times a day without noticing the change or accidentally killing innocent bystanders in the process. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Next time I put in an expense report, at the bottom I wrote, “Now find the umbrella!”
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 650.13
Classifications
- Genres
- Business, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels & Comics
- DDC/MDS
- 650.13 — Applied Science & Technology Management & public relations Business Skills & Management Personal success in business Success in business relationships
- LCC
- HD31 .A294 — Social sciences Industries. Land use. Labor Industries. Land use. Labor Management. Industrial management
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 4,231
- Popularity
- 3,575
- Reviews
- 43
- Rating
- (3.85)
- Languages
- 18 — Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 51
- ASINs
- 14