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 some of the submissions...





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 Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA.)


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


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)


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


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 and Manufacturing/3M
Corp.)


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, Dell
Computers)


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


"How About Friday?" My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled
for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died 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." (Switching Supervisor, AT&T Long 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 Manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)


Speaking the Same Language: 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 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" (pedophilia?) 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 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 memo by pasting
words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)


This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a
large communications company: "(Company name) is endeavorily determined to
promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business
focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supersede, the
expectations of quality!" (Lucent Technologies)