Great Throughts Treasury

"Our guys know they are about to play the toughest game on our schedule. We know what is ahead of us with seeding and the playoffs. But all that is in the hands of our leaders and veterans. If they want to go out and win these games, then they can."

"Ooops Weasel ? An Oops Weasel creates situations in which something is likely to go wrong, and when it does, the Oops Weasel benefits. It's a powerful technique in the workplace because so many things go wrong naturally that no one will notice a few extra. For example, if an Oops Weasel wants to avoid a meeting, he'll suggest inviting a coworker who's notoriously busy. That will create a scheduling challenge for the meeting organizer and push the meeting several weeks into the future... Calls centers are breeding ground for Oops Weasels. They're full of people who 'accidentally' disconnect your phone after you ask a difficult and time-consuming question."

"Our salmon sandwiches are so good you?ll want to swim upstream to our kitchen and spawn. But please don?t."

"Our arrogance causes us to imagine special value in this temporary collection of molecules. Why do we perceive more spiritual value in the sum of our body parts than on any individual cell in our body? Why don?t we hold funerals when skin cells die?"

"Passion feels very democratic. It is the people?s talent, available to all. It?s also mostly bullshit."

"People are idiots."

"People are so conditioned to take sides that a balanced analysis looks to them like hatred."

"Our system requires a continuous supply of highly capable people who are so disgruntled with their jobs that they are willing to chew off their own arms to escape their bosses."

"Our scallops are so delicious your mouth will thank you, which is creepy because your mouth can actually talk."

"People enter the marketing profession after they realize that they have grown up without any particular skills. [Dogbert's guide to understanding marketing people]"

"People who do affirmations will have the sensation that they are causing the environment to conform to their will. This is an immensely enjoyable feeling because the illusion of control is one of the best illusions you can have."

"People need permission to be funny in social or business settings because there?s always a risk that comes with humor. You will do people a big favor when you remove some of that risk by going first."

"People will judge you by the company you keep, especially during lunch. Never eat lunch with a person of lower salary ? exceptions: your boss's secretary (indirect sucking up)."

"Pessimism and Job Experience ? An optimist is simply a pessimist with no job experience."

"Performance Reviews ? Your boss will ask you to document your accomplishments as input for your Performance Review. To the unprepared employee, this might seem like being forced to dig one's own grave... The key to your manager's strategy is tricking you into confessing your shortcomings. Your boss will latch on to those shortcomings like a pit bull on a trespasser's buttocks. Once documented, your 'flaws' will be passed on to each new boss you ever have, serving as justification for low rates for the rest of your life... But performance reviews can be like a big bag of uncounted rubies. It doesn't matter how many rubies were originally in the bag; what matters is the number you report to your boss. Follow that simply philosophy when describing your accomplishments."

"Phone Calls ? When you work for a big company, the only way to succeed is by begging dozens of people to do the one thing they hate above all else i.e. their jobs... People have learned to avoid answering the phone because it's always someone asking them to do work. Incoming calls rarely involve people volunteering to help you. Nothing good can come from answering the phone."

"Pointy-Haired Boss [to Tina]: "Tina, we need a few minor edits on our product brochure. We've discovered our product causes hallucinations and sterility. See if you can put a positive spin on that.""

"Pick the Right Company ? If you company sells a product people need, there's almost nothing you can do to stop them from trying to give you money. That's a very liberating though. Try to work for companies that make essential things like electricity and clean water and cable television and phone service. If you work in one of those places, you don't even have to pretend you care about your customers."

"Perks: Business Lunches ? When using the company's money to pay for a meal, it is expected that you will order the most expensive items on the menu."

"Please return to your normal state of semi-comatose clockwatching."

"Positivity is far more than a mental preference. It changes your brain, literally, and it changes the people around you. It?s the nearest thing we have to magic."

"Political Weasels ? The goal of every political campaign is to discourage voter turnout to the point where the candidate with the largest family wins. This is known as the Kennedy Strategy."

"Practicality rules our perceptions. To survive, our tiny brains need to tame the blizzard of delusion generator information that threatens to overwhelm us. Our perceptions are wondrously flexible, transforming our worldview automatically and continuously until we find safe harbor in a comfortable delusion."

"Prairie Dogging ? When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people?s heads pop up over the walls to see what?s going on."

"Presentations To Management ? Your company is doomed if your primary product is overhead transparencies. A typical company has just enough resources to do one of the following: (1) Accomplish something; (2) Prepare elaborate presentations that lie about how much is being accomplished. The rational employee will divert all available resources away from accomplishing things and toward the more highly compensated process of lying about accomplishments. It's the same amount of work, but only one has a payoff."

"Priorities are the things you need to get right so the things you love can thrive."

"Recapping my skill set: I have poor art skills, mediocre business skills, good but not great writing talent, and an early knowledge of the Internet. And I have a good but not great sense of humor. I?m like one big mediocre soup. None of my skills are world-class, but when my mediocre skills are combined, they become a powerful market force."

"Reality is always controlled by the people who are the most insane."

"Recent court rulings have proven false memory is just as good as the real thing. Maybe better."

"Risk ? Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something. Examples of Bad Press for Engineers: Hindenburg; Space Shuttle Challenger; Hubble space telescope; Apoll 13; Titanic; Corvair. The risk\reward calculation for engineers looks something like this: Risk:- Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people. Reward:- A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame. Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the engineer will fall back on a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much." The quickest way to make a project uneconomical is by doubling the resources needed and using a cover story that you need to prevent failures."

"Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes you look smart."

"Retail Sales Weasels ? There are two types of retail weasels: Unscrupulous (paid on commission); Lazy (paid by the hour). Unscrupulous employees, who are paid on commission, have to screw their customers and coworkers to make money. The lazy ones only screw their employer. If you have a choice, try to get a job as a lazy employees because, as the name implies, it's easier."

"Reporters are faced with the daily choice of painstakingly researching stories or writing whatever people tell them. Both approaches pay the same."

"Ruling the Dilbert ... You can't take a vacation. For 11 years, I've done nothing more than go to a wedding for a day, or something like that."

"Self-weaseling ? We self-weasel, i.e. delude ourselves into thinking whatever we're doing is okay... Commuters are a group that do a heroic job of self-weaseling... Commuting is the ultimate revenge of the inner-city folks. They're saying, in their own inimitable way, "You can have a great job and a great house, but if you put them near each other, we'll kill you." As a general rule, most criminals are located between your workplace and your house. That's why you need to transport yourself inside a metal container of some sort, i.e. a car, SUV, train, subway or armored bodysuit."

"Sick Days ? Vacation days for weasels. Weasels have an uncanny ability to get sick for exactly the number of days their companies allow as sick days per year. "Sick" is a highly subjective concept. If you're like a normal human, there's almost always something wrong with you... The trick to sounding sick on the phone is to leave a voice mail for your boss within 30 seconds of waking up. If you're like me, you routinely have the following symptoms each and every time you wake up in the morning: Aching muscles, pounding headache, no energy, funky voice and depression. After two sips of coffee I'd feeling fine. But that first 30 seconds is indistinguishable from the last moment before dying of black plague. If you make the call during that period, your boss will actually thank you for staying home. The main risk in taking sick days is that whatever weasel schemes you have cooking at work might require your presence to keep them bubbling along."

"Signaling Your Lack of Importance ? You can tell what rank you hold in the corporation by how people react to you when you enter their office and find them on the phone. If He or She... (a) Greets you immediately, apologizes to the caller, and ends phone call. (b) Gives you the "just one minute" finger signal and finishes call in a leisurely fashion. (c) Asks for your pena dn then throws it in the hallway, and after you retrieve it you discover that the door has been closed and locked. Then You Are... (a) Very important. (b) Important. (c) Not important."

"Simple molecules combine to make powerful chemicals. Simple cells combine to make powerful life-forms. Simple electronics combine to make powerful computers. Logically, all things are created by a combination of simpler, less capable components. Therefore, a supreme being must be in our future, not our origin. What if "God" is the consciousness that will be created when enough of us are connected by the Internet?!!"

"Random Acts of Management."

"Simplicity is not proof of truth. But since we can never understand true reality, if two models both explain the same facts, it is more rational to use the simpler one. It is a matter of convenience."

"Science is a good thing. News reporters are good things too. But it's never a good idea to put them in the same room."

"Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that energy companies will place huge hamster wheels outside of convenience stores and offer free lottery tickets to people who spend five minutes running in them. The hamster wheels will be connected to power generators."

"Scientists often invent words to fill the holes in their understanding. These words are meant as conveniences until real understanding can be found. ... Words such as dimension and field and infinity ... are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean."

"Selective Truth ? The best way to mislead people without lying is to avoid volunteering unpleasant truths. Technically, that's not lying. Don't feel bad about 'non-full disclosure'. It's a public service. If people knew what they were buying or eating or whom they were hiring, then no one would do anything, the economy would disintegrate, and we'd all starve to death."

"Seagull Manager ? A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves."

"So casual clothes don't lower our stock value. But only if worn on Fridays. Unless somebody else sees us... got it?" "I think I'm insane.""

"Since you won't go away, I'll make you an intern." "Great! What's an intern?" "You'll spend your day in a high-traffic cube trying to look busy. Your main function is to make the rest of us glad we're not you." "...How did people ever look busy before computers?""

"Six Sigma ? When I heard that GE and Motorola were using Six Sigma, I knew it must be the sort of virus that prefers a large bureaucratic host ? the kind of place where it's unwise to be the one to identify a 'problem' with the current way of doing things... Once you have your Six Sigma program in place, you can take credit for any lucky things that happens in the industry"

"Simplicity transforms ordinary into amazing."

"Skeptics, he said, suffer from the skeptics? disease?the problem of being right too often."