eal-life Dilbert quotes
A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They wanted people to
submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. Here are some
of the submissions:
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As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building
using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday
and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (This was the
winning entry; Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA)
-
What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.
(Lykes Lines Shipping)
-
How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff?
(Programming intern, Microsoft IIS Development team)
-
E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be
used only for company business. (Accounting Mgr., Electric Boat Company)
-
This project is so important, we can't let things that are more
important interfere with it. (Advertising/Mktg. Mgr., UPS)
-
Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. 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. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining &
Manufacturing/3MCorp.)
-
My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only
needed editing. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she
couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell
Computers)
-
Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what 'I' say."
(Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)
-
My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday.
When I told my boss, he said she died only so that I would have to miss
work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her
burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping
Executive, FTD Florists)
-
We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going
to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Lone Lines Division)
-
We recently received a memo from senior management saying, "This is
to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject
mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
-
One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a
project I was
working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I
wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
(New Business Mgr., Hallmark Cards)
-
As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo
reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of
the memo one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used
by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the
executive committee, I was called into the HR Director's office, and was
told that the executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch. When
I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for "perverts"
(pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of
the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word "pedagogical"
circled in red. The HR Manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked
the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send
to my boss, he told me not to worry - he would take care of it. Two days
later, a memo to the entire staff came out, directing that no words which
could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company
memos. A month later I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I
created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday
paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)
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This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo
from a large communications company: "Lucent Technologies is endeavorily
determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of
transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if
not supercede, the expectations of quality!"