Confessions of Scott Adams

Dilbert is a comic strip character that signifies the cubicle generation. And the man behind it, Scott Adams, first started drawing it as a doodle. In an interview with Vivek Kaul, Adams reveals how he came up with the character, and how he gets his ideas

How did you come up with the concept of Dilbert? 
Dilbert is a composite image of my co-workers from the time I first worked at a large bank. It started out as a doodle. Then, I used him in my presentations at work. Eventually I submitted Dilbert for syndication.

What is it that makes it so popular?
I think people like having their work frustrations voiced in a way that can’t get them fired.

How do you get your ideas? 
Most of my ideas come from my own experience or are suggested by readers who keep sending e-mails.

How did the Indian character of Asok come about. Is it based on someone you used to work with?
I worked with a guy named Asok, and didn’t know that the more common spelling is Ashok. It seemed natural to have an Indian engineer in the mix. That mirrored the reality in which I worked.

Have you ever been to India? 
No. I don’t get out much.

What do you understand of India from what you read and the emails you get in response to your comic strip?
I get the sense that India is a lot of countries rolled into one. But one slice of that country, which is the office and the technical professionals, is exactly like that segment in the United States.

Do you think Indians are taking over US jobs?
Only where they are more qualified than the locals. And that happens often.

But there is often the issue of wage arbitrage. Just as we shop around for the cheapest goods, it makes sense for employers to shop around for cheaper labour. Your comments? 
Wage arbitrage only applies when the supply of qualified employees is high. If you are hiring for a high-tech job you don’t want the cheapest engineer. You want the cheapest who is also qualified. Soon enough, you always run out of local candidates.

Would you say that the popularity of Dilbert goes up during times when the economy isn’t doing well? The US now seems to be getting into a recession. So, has the fan mail increased? 
Yes, the worst times for Dilbert are when the economy is doing well. These are boom times for Dilbert’s popularity.

Do you think that the US economy will turn around any time soon? 
I think a robust recovery is unlikely. It seems more like we will limp along and lose ground to other countries for decades. But that’s just a hunch.

Do you still feel that most people are idiots? 
Everyone is an idiot some of the time and about some topics. No one is universally smart.

Is Dilbert’s biggest problem his bosses, who prevent him from getting his work done? 
The biggest issue for Dilbert is his lack of control over his situation. His boss can cause his failure and then blame him for it.

Does he also suffer from the existential angst of a ‘knowledge worker’? How much of this angst is a reflection of companies you worked for?
Dilbert shares the feeling that nothing he does at work amounts to anything important.
But he enjoys playing with technology, and that takes the pain out of it.

Marx talked of worker alienation and so do your cartoons. Were you influenced by his thinking?
I haven’t paid much attention to Marx. The only similarity I am aware of is that neither of us draw particularly well.

Apart from humour, is there anything an office apparatchik can do to feel more in control of his life?
The best way to feel in control of your life at work is to be the boss or have an affair with the boss.

What is the number one complaint you get from people at the work place? 
The biggest complaint is about co-workers and supervisors who are sociopaths and idiots doing a bad job of pretending to be normal.

What is the most humourous/weird email you have ever got? 
My favourite is the boss who insisted his employees vary their paths down hallways so as not to wear out the carpet in the middle.

Why do you hate cubicles? Is it because you spent 17 years working in them? 
People are influenced by the beauty, or lack thereof, of their environments. Nothing is more oppressive than a fabric-covered box.

What do you think is the role of a manager?
A manager’s role is allocating resources and making sure the employees don’t get any more than what it takes to motivate them to do acceptable work. 

These days you are even referred to as a management guru. How does that feel? 
Ironic.

In your book The Joy of Work, you come up with ‘the Economic Theory of the Nineties’, which said "Anything that makes employees unhappy makes the stock price go up." Comment.
Stock prices are determined by misinformation.

One interesting thing that you wrote in the ‘Dilbert Principle’ was “the best balance of the morale for employee productivity can be described this way: Happy but with low self esteem.” Employee morale is a risky thing. Would you still agree with that? 
Happiness is a form of compensation. Companies can allow happiness if it lets them pay lower salaries and not lose staff.

Do you feel that people have taken to heart the suggestions you’ve made in the Dilbert column? Has Dilbert had any impact?
I do hear about Dilbert comics being used to mock bad ideas out of existence. A good idea is impossible to mock, so if you see something in Dilbert about your workplace that is hilarious, something probably needs a change.

You make the world laugh, what makes you laugh? 
Cartoonists and humourists are notorious for having dark senses of humour. I’m no exception. The more wrong it is, the more I like it.

You are a licensed hypnotist and a trained economist, how does that help?
You can’t understand human beings without knowing something about hypnosis and economics. Hypnosis explains the irrational part. Economics explains the rest.

Which is your favourite Dilbert comic strip?
 My favourite Dilbert comic features Asok complaining about his salary, compared to the CEO’s riches. Asok says, “I make my own underpants out of sandwich bags.”

How did the God’s Debris and The Religion War come about? 
Those books are the result of years of strange thoughts that accumulated and forced themselves out of my head and onto the page. While I love humor, most of my thinking goes to the nature of reality and our place in it. And I thought I had a new take that was worth publishing.
 k_vivek@dnaindia.net