Humor #47
Special thanks to Margaret Cott.
Pillows
Until I obtained good taste, I thought the proper number of pillows for a bed was one per head. It's embarrassing to think how wrong I was. Thanks to the help of a professional decorator, and Pam, my bed now has fifteen pillows. Six of them are big honkers that look very impressive until they are thrown on the floor at night. Four of them are decorative pillows featuring the cheerful faces of various dogs; those go on the floor at night too. One pillow is a log-shaped thing called a bolster; it has no purpose that I can discern. Two are "Bucky(tm)" pillows that support one's neck should that become necessary on an emergency basis. When not in use, they go on the floor with the bolster. And then there are two pillows that can be used for -- of all things -- your head. Those stay on the bed.
The bedspread somehow transmogrified into something Frenchy-sounding, called a duvey or doovay or something like that. It is so heavy that I put a lump of coal under it and I check its progress every few days. You can't actually sleep under it, especially on warm California nights, but it sure is pretty. That goes on the floor too.
Thirteen pillows plus the doovay are strewn around the bedroom floor all day. I fantasize about someday making the bed just to see what it would look like. Or maybe I'll just spend that same energy building a full-scale replica of Stonehenge. I am delighted with my cornucopia of bedding because I know that should those beautiful items somehow find their way from the floor to the bed, the sight would make even the most jaded observer step back and say, "Wow. It must be a pain in the ass to have that many pillows."
Incompetence Pays
A true tale from the field...
My group ordered 14 new workstations for nearly $70,000. The contracts person (Induhvidual) responsible for buying the PCs announced that she was able to negotiate a better price than we had indicated, saving $14,000 on the purchase. As a result of the cost savings, she was granted an award of $7,000, 50% of the cost savings. This $7,000 award came out of my group's budget.
When we received the 14 workstations, we discovered how she had saved the $14,000. She had removed all the monitors from the order. We received 14 computers with no monitors. We were forced to file a new order for the 14 monitors. Since themonitors were not being bought as part of a package, the new price for the monitors came to $19,000, $5,000 more than our original order.
The end result was that the $70,000 worth of workstations actually cost us $82,000, and the Induhvidual was rewarded for her good work.
Looking Busy
Here's an excellent method for getting paid to do nothing, courtesy of a devious DNRC member:
Scatter some papers over your desk as though you are working on them. Open your middle desk drawer (directly over your lap), place your favorite magazine in the drawer and spend the next hour reading it. Put a pen in one hand and keep that hand in the drawer. If someone enters your office, remove the pen from thedrawer and close it in one smooth motion.
Two Dimensional Management
True story: Our senior execs decided they needed to be more "visible" to the unwashed masses. The solution: cardboard cutouts of the VPs and senior VPs in the break rooms
Induhviduals Speak
Here are two recent statements, both from the same Induhvidual, as recorded by a vigilant DNRC member.
"I'm caught between a rock and a stone."
"My son has a huge appetite. He has a bottomless leg."
Here are some more gems, all uttered by another prolific Induhvidual. (I might use some of these myself someday.)
"It's like being a monkey with chickens
on your back!"
"Are you too blind to remember?"
"Anyone could go to that person and say, 'I need a bell on the side of the
elephant.'"
"He has too many fingers in the dike."
"It's like an engineer falling out of a building."
"Smooth as pie."
"I have no idea what that is. Thank goodness we didn't order three!"
"The active part is there, the proactive is not."
"Same crap, different fork."
Lazy Entrepreneur
Did you ever have a great business idea but you were too lazy to do anything about it? It's frustrating because other people don't realize how brilliant you are. To the ignorant observer it appears you are sitting on your couch drinking soda, burping, and eating the remnants of potato chips off your shirt. You look lazy and dim-witted when in truth you are lazy and brilliant. It's totally unfair.
That's why United Media and I created the Lazy Entrepreneur web site. It's a message board where you can post your brilliant and generally impractical ideas. Or make snide remarks about those who do. You'll get all the benefits of displaying your brilliance in a public forum while using no more energy than it takes to type. And no one will see the embarrassed look on your face when a stranger tells you your invention has existed for years and you can buy it at any Target store.
I seeded the Lazy Entrepreneur with a bunch of my own brilliant and impractical ideas. For example, I'd like to see a prescription pill container with a built-in manual dial on the bottom, labeled for each day of the week, so I can use it to remember if I already took a pill that day. If the pill has to be taken twice a day, the dial would have two positions for each day. If I had a pill container like that I could stop worrying whether I took my pill and start worrying whether I remembered to turn the dial. For some reason, that seems better to me.
If you don't want to give away your brilliant ideas, the web site has information on copyrights, patents, trademarks and the like. DNRC members will get an exclusive preview of the Lazy Entrepreneur. It won't be linked from Dilbert.com until next week, but you can join in the beta test by following the link below. http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/lazyentrepreneur/
You'll have first choice of user names, and your feedback will have a big impact on upgrades to the site. (If you find anything that doesn't work, please send the report to lazye_bugs@unitedmedia.com).
Dogbertian Poll
Dogbert might have inspired this idea. Someone recently spammed a bunch of people with a message that asked them to call a 900 number to vote on the issue of whether spam was a good thing or a bad thing. It only cost you $1.50 per minute to complain about spam.
Dogbert Answers My Mail
In this section Dogbert answers the mail that I am too polite to answer myself. These are all based on real e-mail. The names have been changed to make them funnier.
Dear Mr. Adams,
I am studying Social Communication in Argentine. I wonder if you could send by e-mail all the information about people who work in offices, the relationship between them and the work environment and also about office design.
I wish you could send all the information you can get by e-mail otherwise you can send me a list of bibliography to search information about the topics in Spanish. I beg you to answer in a short time, my e-mail.
Romero
Dear Remora,
I'm glad you begged. People in the United States are too proud to get right down on all fours and whimper when they want something. I will send the information you requested right away. If you don't see it within a day, call my 900 number and complain. It is only $1.50 per minute.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
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Dear Mr. Adams,
I THINK YOUR CARTOONS ARE LOUSY, PLEASE STOP SMOKING THAT DAMN CRACK!
Anonymous
Dear Ahmamouse,
Mr. Adams resents that comment. He has been known to erase crack to satisfy editors but he never smokes them.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
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Dear Mr. Adams,
My Latin teacher gives us extra credit if we bring in anything that contains one or more of our 'daily phrases,' such as 'Ad Hoc,''Ante Meridian,' and 'Circa.' I was wondering if you could make me a cartoon including many Latin phrases that would still be used today. This would be a big help.
Abe
Dear Ape,
Latin is what's known as a dead language. It got that way because every time a Latin student asked for a special cartoon he was slain by a hideous monster that lived under his bed. I'm not saying that will happen to you, right away. Anyway, here's a little story that uses your daily phrases.
My poor Irish ante Meridian was broke. So she circa the block in her hometown of Unum until she saw a fish fall from the back of a fish delivery truck. It was a carpe worth ten cents. She thought that that carpe diem would get her out of hock, or at least reduce it, but she used so much gas driving in circa that it turned out to be an ad hoc situation. So she ate a potato and went to visit her niece, Pati O'Furniture who lived in the town of Pluri. She took the E Pluri Bus from Unum.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
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