Dilbert Takes Control

Summer 1998

This looks like a harmless t-shirt. But it has a terrifying story behind it.

First, the logo is a new one Broderbund came up with in an effort to reinvent its hard-won image.

By 1998 most of the inspirational leadership was gone from Parsons Technology. Broderbund had also lost all its veterans and had brought in an executive team from outside the software industry. In an effort to pump life into sagging morale, someone came up with the idea of taking the acronym from our marketing strategy ("direct to consumer" or "DTC") and creating a program called "dazzle the customer".

The idea was to gather suggestions from the whole company on how we could dazzle or delight our customers. Every departments was involved, from marketing to maintenance. There were cash incentives and weekly status meetings.

For those of us born with at least an average IQ and especially for those who had read even a week's worth of Dilbert cartoons, the handwriting was on the wall from the beginning. Eventually the Marketing department took over this effort and changed the acronym to "dedicated to customers" or some equally bland slogan. We had a big meeting for all the managers where we were forced to learn a chant and cheer. (Honest!)

Everyone was obligated to come up with three ideas of how they would achieve the goals of DTC. When you turned your goals in to your manager you received one of these shirts.

We met exactly once to reward the best ideas. All the ideas were stupid. We were forced by Human Resource to choose the least stupid idea and not only give somebody several hundred dollars for coming up with this gem, but then it had to be implemented so none of the troops would know the management team thought all the ideas were lame.

I'm not making this up. This was by far the stupidest experience of my life (with only one exception, and that involved hugging three other men while confessing that I don't always treat people the way I should -- remind me to tell you about that sometime!). I told my department not to worry about turning in their goals. Me and Jeff Wheeler found the shirt stash and stole a couple boxes for our people.

I never wore this shirt.