Dilbert's Laws of Work

Hi everyone,

Here's a real humorous email. I hope you enjoy it, and haven't seen it
before. Forwarded to me by Julie Huang. Take care!

-Josh.

DILBERT'S LAWS OF WORK

If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the butt.

Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be
promoted.

It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've
done and what you're going to do.

After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the
month than you did before.

The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.

You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a
clipboard.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse
will happen to you the rest of the day.

When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never
talking about themselves.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a
damn fool about it.

There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when
the boss asks for a ride home from the office.

Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back.

Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."

Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail
hour.

To err is human, to forgive is not our policy.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he/she is
supposed to be doing.

Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the
mail.

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really
good, you will get out of it.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your
desk.

People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the
number of pens that person is carrying.

When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

Following the rules will not get the job done.

Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.

When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily
by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

No matter how much you do, you never do enough.

The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for
everything that goes wrong.
_______________________________
Subject: Dilbert

I get about 100 e-mail messages a day from readers of my comic strip
"Dilbert." Most are from disgruntled office workers, psychopaths,
stalkers, comic-strip fans -- that sort of person. But a
growing
number are from women who write to say they think Dilbert is sexy.
Some say they've already married a Dilbert and couldn't be happier.
If you're not familiar with Dilbert, he's an electrical
engineer who
spends most of his time with his computer. He's a nice guy
but not exactly Kevin Costner.

Okay, Dilbert is polite, honest, employed and educated. And
he stays home. These are good traits, but they don't exactly explain
the incredible sex appeal. So what's the attraction?

I think it's a Darwinian thing. We're attracted to the people
who have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days
it was important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with
a single blow to the forehead.

But that skill is becoming less important every year.

Now all that matters is if you can install your own Ethernet
card without having to call tech support and confess your inadequacies
to a stranger whose best career option is to work in tech support.

It's obvious that the world has three distinct classes of
people, each with its own evolutionary destiny:

Knowledgeable computer users who will evolve into godlike
non-corporeal beings who rule the universe (except for those
who work in tech support).

Computer owners who try to pass as knowledgeable but secretly
use hand calculators to add totals to their Excel spreadsheets. This
group will gravitate toward jobs as high school principals and
operators of pet crematoriums. Eventually they will become extinct.

Non-computer users who will grow tails, sit in zoos and fling dung at
tourists.

Obviously, if you're a woman and you're trying to decide which
evolutionary track you want your offspring to take, you don't
want to put them on the luge ride to the dung-flinging Olympics. You
want a real man. You want a knowledgeable computer user with
evolution potential.

And women prefer men who listen. Computer users are excellent
listeners because they can look at you for long periods of
time without saying anything. Granted, early in a relationship
it's better if the guy actually talks. But men use up all the stories
they'll ever have after six months. If a woman marries a guy who's
in, let's say, retail sales, she'll get repeat stories starting in the
seventh month and lasting forever. Marry an engineer and she gets a
great listener for the next 70 years.

Plus, with the ozone layer evaporating, it's a good strategy
to mate with somebody who has an indoor hobby. Outdoorsy men are
applying suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet by the age of 30 they
still look like dried chili peppers in pants. Compare that with the
healthy glow of a man who spends 12 hours a day in front of a video
screen.

It's also well established that computer users are better
lovers. I know because I heard an actual anecdote from someone who knew
a woman who married a computer user and they reportedly had sex many
times. I realize this isn't statistically valid, but you have to admit
it's the most persuasive thing I've written so far.

If you still doubt the sexiness of male PC users, consider
their hair. They tend to have either: (1) male pattern baldness -- a
sign of elevated testosterone -- or (2) unkempt jungle hair -- the
kind you see only on people who just finished a frenzied bout of
lovemaking. If this were a trial I think we could reach a verdict on
the strong circumstantial evidence alone.

I realize there are a lot of skeptics out there. They'll
delight in pointing out the number of computer users who wear wrist
braces and suggest it isn't the repetitive use of the keyboard that
causes the problem. That's okay. Someday those skeptics will be
flinging dung at tourists. Then who'll be laughing? (Answer to
rhetorical question: everybody but the tourists.)

Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And
Bill Clinton said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically,
according to the U.S. government, knowledge of computers is the
ultimate aphrodisiac. You could argue with me -- I'm just a cartoonist
-- but it's hard to argue with the government. Remember, they run
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing
or two about satisfying women.

You might think this was enough to convince anyone that men
who use computers are sexy. But look at it from my point of view: I'm
getting paid by the word for this article. I'm not done yet.

In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was
to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy
their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks.

Technology has replaced hot cars as the new symbol of robust
manhood. Men know that unless they get a digital line to the Internet
no woman is going to look at them twice.

It's getting worse. Soon anyone who's not on the World Wide
Web will qualify for a government subsidy for the home-pageless. And
nobody likes a man who takes money from the government, except maybe
Marilyn Monroe, which is why the CIA killed her. And if you think
that's stupid, I've got 100 words to go.

Finally, there's the issue of mood lighting. Nothing looks
sexier than a man in boxer shorts illuminated only by a 15-inch SVGA
monitor. If we agree that this is every woman's dream scenario, then I
think we can also agree that it's best if the guy knows how to use the
computer. Otherwise, he'll just look like a loser sitting in
front of a PC in his underwear.

In summary, it's not that I think non-PC users are less attractive.
It's just that I'm sure they won't read this article