Subject: Dilbert Quote Finalists

A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They were  looking
for people to submit quotes from their real life Dilbert-type  managers.


Here are the finalists:

1. "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 quote from Microsoft Corp)

2.  "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will
encounter."
      (Lykes Lines Shipping)

 3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data.  It
     should be used only for company business."
     (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

4.  "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more
       important interfere with it."
      (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."

6. "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, 3M Corp.)

7. "My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that
      only needed corrections. 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)

8. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
    (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday.
    When I told my boss, he said she died on purpose 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)

10. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not
      going to discuss it with the employees."
     (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying:
     "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding
      the memo mentioned above."
     (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

12. 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 replied, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have
     waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
    (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)

13. 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, in one of the sentences, I 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 told that the executive vice president 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 and 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 back to her, he told me not to worry.  He would
take
     care  of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out
directing us
     that  no words that 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 memo by pasting words together from the
      Sunday paper.
           (Taco Bell Corporation).



Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.