Millions of office workers who inhabit cubicle farms worldwide believe their bosses are weasels, according to Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.
Legions of them suspect Scott Adams' comic strip is custom-drawn for them on a daily basis. It is photocopied, pinned-up, downloaded, faxed and e-mailed around the world. Many suspect that Adams secretly works for their company.
Adams says he feels an affinity for cubicle dwellers. He spent 16 years dwelling among them before he discovered he could turn his experiences and their angst into a real job.
His masterpiece, Dilbert And The Way Of The Weasel, (HarperCollins, $24.95) his first hardcover book in four years, introduces the theory that most people are "huge stinking weasels."
"Intelligence can be measured in several ways," he explained in an interview with this reporter. "There's the standard IQ, then there is the newer EQ (emotional quotient), but the most important indicator is the WQ (weasel quotient), a measure of your weasel abilities."
The book explores the Weasel Zone, that gray area between good moral behavior and outright criminal activities, and the rules governing it. Adams believes that weasels have infested everything from the courthouse to the White House.
To maneuver among weasels it is necessary to understand some weasel terms including:
- Weasel math: The process of replacing small embarrassing numbers with huge impressive numbers. Example: If you are the manager of a radio station, don't say it has six listeners on a good day; say it's available to more than 5 million listeners.
To put weasel math into use, the new breed of weasel should never lie about your company's past performance.
"When you lie about your company's past performance, that's fraud, and you should avoid doing it. But there's no penalty for lying about the future; that's called optimism and it's considered a virtue . . . you might even be called a visionary." - Weasel knowledge: Derived from the combination of ignorance and massive amounts of PowerPoint slides. It's like regular knowledge without the knowledge.
- Business analysis: The word analysis is formed by the root word anal and ancient Greek word "ysis" , meaning "to pull numbers from."
He cites National Weasel Day as a prime example of weasel analysis.
"We had our National Weasel Day this spring, sort of like bosses day and Groundhog Day put together."
The organizers placed a live weasel in an enclosure that was part office cubicle and part cage. "We predicted that if the weasel went into the cubicle there would be good economic growth. He did indeed go in there, and as you can see the economy is slowly beginning to turn around."
Several days later Adams appeared on CNN Moneyline hosted by Lou Dobbs. Just before Adams appearance, three leading economists predicted on Dobbs show that the economy would slowly improve.
"I don't know what kind of econometric model they were using, but I got the same results with a weasel," Adams said.
For years he has been claiming incompetence is the reason he failed at every job he ever tried except cartooning.
"I was bragging then," Adams told aroundcentralflorica.com during a telephone interview. "I am kind of incompetent at cartooning, too."
Not only can he recognize weasels on sight, he admits that he is also a weasel. And he claims he proved it by detailing a typical week's work.
"If you look at what I am dong this week: I am marketing my books. I am hoping people will spend more time reading Dilbert books and less time with their families. There is no way you can feel good about that."
"I think people are born weasels. There are babies who cry to get what they want. The only thing that changes as we age, is you get more clever at it.
Everyone seems to love Dilbert, but he has managed to dig up a few detractor's on the road to success.
Norman Solomon's book, The Trouble With Dilbert Common Courage Press says Dilbert is just another corporate shill. Solomon, a well-known media critic, also claims Dilbert is a fraud to boot.
Adams sounds a bit puzzled when asked about Solomon's criticism. "He took Dilbert out of context and therefore Dilbert must be a capitalist tool."
The Adams believes that Dilbert helps people laugh at their own plight. He says Solomon's view claims that people will stop and see the humor but fail to do anything about their plight at the hands of capitalist managers.
Solomon declined to comment about his differences with Adams, suggesting that people read his book and draw their own conclusions.
"Capitalism works very well," Adams said. "The whole system only works because it is infected with weasels."
His own success as a cartoonist is a mixture of capitalism, being an entrepreneur and a little dumb luck. He has a rather serious view of his success:
"As far as I can tell, all entrepreneurs' success is based on luck. That does not mean you can't manage it and make it better.
"People's perceptions are often wrong. Everybody said you can't be a cartoonist. It seems like the odds are 2,000 to 1. I saw that the competition was terrible," the engineer-turned-cartoonist said.
Adams said he submitted his cartoons to a syndicate the same way anyone else would.
Then luck entered the picture. The cartoon reviewer was married to an engineer who though Dilbert was genuinely funny.
"That was complete luck." the cartoonist said.
Quotes in the article are excerpts from a telephone interview by the author with Scott Adams.
