Great Throughts Treasury

"Most business plans fail. Obviously, a success is not a realistic goal. But the people responsible for the most spectacular failures get promoted first because of their experience."

"Mission Statement: A long awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly."

"Mission Statement ? If your employees are producing low quality products that no sane person would buy, you can often fix that problem by holding meetings to discuss your Mission Statement. A Mission Statement is defined as "a long awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly". Companies that don't have Mission Statements will often be under the mistaken impression that the objective of the company is to bicker among departments, produce low-quality products and slowly go out of business."

"Money distorts truth like a hippo in a thong."

"Most of the themes in my comic strip Dilbert involve workplace situations. I routinely include bizarre and unworldly elements such as sadistic talking animals, troll-like accountants and employees turning into dishrags after the life-force has been drained from their bodies. And yet the comment I hear most often is "That's just like my company." No matter how absurd I try to make the comic strip I can't stay ahead of what people are experiencing in their own workplaces. Some examples for the so-called real world include: - A major technology company simultaneously rolled out two new programs: (1) a random drug testing program, and (2) an "Individual Dignity Enhancement" program. - A company decided that instead of raises it will give bonuses if 5 of 7 company goals are met. At the end of the year the employees are informed that they have met only 4 of 7 goals, so no bonuses. One of the goals they missed was 'employee morale'."

"Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive."

"Most people think they have perfectly good bullshit detectors. But if that were the case, trial juries would always be unanimous, and we?d all have the same religious beliefs."

"My brain doesn't register it as drawing. The feeling of friction across the glass is different."

"Most people believe they have goals when, in fact, they only have wishes. They might tell you their goal is to get rich without working hard, without making sacrifices or taking risks. That is not a goal, it is a fantasy."

"My favorite thing that politicians say is "The voters aren't dumb." This is something that voters generally believe because they are dumb.... I don't think the government keeps statistics of how many people die from stupidity, but they should. It has to be a big number. I suppose the problem is that it's so subjective and you don't want to make the family members feel any worse."

"My invention can detect human stupidity. It has a very simple interface. All I do is point it at people."

"My laptop computer is locked up. Can you help?" "Remember you have to hold it upside down and shake it to reboot." "Oh, that's right." "...I wonder if he'll ever realize we gave him an 'Etch-a-Sketch'.""

"My old life - no amount of getting used to it would have made it right."

"My pet peeve is that salespeople always steer me to the cheapest items."

"My system of creating something the public wants and reproducing it in large quantities nearly guaranteed a string of failures. By design, all of my efforts were long shots. Had I been goal-oriented instead of system-oriented, I imagine I would have given up after the first several failures. It would have felt like banging my head against a brick wall. But being systems-oriented, I felt myself growing more capable every day, no matter the fate of the project that I happened to be working on. And every day during those years I woke up with the same thought, literally, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and slapped the alarm clock off."

"My training is in business and economics, so my mind gravitates toward the business model,"

"My reality check bounced."

"My philosophy is that every phone conversation has a loser."

"Named after the great romaine emperor, Julius Salad."

"Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If they are not there the first time you need them, chances are you won't be needing them again."

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience."

"Never base your budget requests on realistic assumptions, as this could lead to a decrease in your funding."

"Newsreader: A huge asteroid could destroy Earth! And by coincidence, that's the subject of tonight's miniseries."

"Next up is a program on evolution in which we implicitly mock opposing viewpoints."

"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."

"No cartoonist has ever been hugely successful just on the Web, unless you count "Dilbert" which used its Web success to get into more newspapers. But someday, cartoons will only be on the Web. I just don't know how long that will be."

"Next week, a doctor with a flashlight shows us where sales projections come from."

"No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot."

"No matter where you are, someone is going to be watching you."

"Nonthreatening Employees ? If you make the mistake of hiring competent employees and training them, then your boss can someday replace you with one of your excellent employees. The safest balance as far as your career is concerned is to hire people who look competent (no dopey faces). Dysfunctional employees have another benefit too. You can launch them at projects that are managed by your rivals within the company."

"Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."

"Note to self: Get smarter troll to guard door."

"Nobody Knows Any More Than You Do ? Buzzwords are valuable for intimidating outsiders and making them think you're smarter than you really are. Corollary: People who sound smart are usually bluffing. You can uncover their bluffs by using simple interrogation."

"Noble Rationale ? If something is good for your employees, then there's no reason to make it sound nobler than it really is... The time to get fancy is when you want to save money in some way that ends up screwing your employees... Employees will eventually learn to predict the degree of screwing they're going to get by counting the number of syllables it takes to reassure them everything is ok."

"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."

"Office Politics ? Your boss reached his/her position by being politically astute. Don't turn your back. Corollary: To be a successful manager, you must learn to be insensitive to the needs of your employees."

"Obviously there's not much options when you're a cartoonist - you pretty much either work at home or rent an office I guess, and working at home just seems easier."

"Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge."

"Often all one needs is some form of permission to initiate a change, and it doesn?t always matter what form the permission is in, or if it even makes sense."

"Ohno-second ? That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you?ve just made a BIG mistake."

"Okay, let me explain this in the simplest possible way...you...are...an...idiot."

"Okay, I can accept the idea that God doesn?t have a personality exactly like people. Maybe we just assume God has a personality because it?s easier to talk about it that way. But the important point is that something had to create reality. It?s too well-designed to be an accident."

"One "oh shit" can erase a thousand attaboys."

"On the fourth day of telecommuting, I realized that clothes are totally unnecessary."

"One of the hardest parts of my job is figuring out what other people will think is funny. You?d think that would be easy, but my own sense of humor is far from the mainstream. I can?t assume others will laugh at the same things I find funny."

"One way to compensate for a tiny brain is to pretend to be dead."

"One thing people don't realize is that you take off a lot quicker than you could ever stop. You can get up to 100 in five seconds, but that top speed back to zero, it doesn't brake as well as it accelerates."

"One of the most important tricks for maximizing your productivity involves matching your mental state to the task."

"One of the reasons why you like to do your own drawings is, your style changes over time. And there's something about that that keeps it fresh to the viewer."

"Only the most cunning weasels can survive 30 years of hard time in a cubicle farm. Here are some weasel tips and tricks: Overcommitting ? For every task you plan to do, it's a good idea to have 60 tasks that you've promised to do later if you ever find the time. This gives everyone an impression that you are valiantly battling an avalanche of work and fighting against long odds to make the company successful. Or they might just think you're a worthless, inefficient weasel. Either way, your pay is exactly the same and it cuts down on your workload."