Dilbert, we love you, because you are us. Play cards
with lovable DilbertWe've all had a boss like yours ("If I cut costs enough we'll be profitable without selling any products").
And occasionally, at work, we all think like you ("I wasn't listening ... now I'll have to babble about irrelevant technical things until they lose conciousness").
And now we can play cards with you. You, Dogbert, Ratbert, the pointy-haired manager and all the trolls in accounting.
The Dilbert Corporate Shuffle is the latest marketing tool of Scott Adams, the cartoonist who disses all marketing in his comic strip, "Dilbert" (published on the Star-Bulletin's Hawaii Inc. cover daily).
Local tie-in: Steven Kam, public relations manager (read that: marketing) for the manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast, is a McKinley grad.
Anyway, here, the cards are more important than the game itself. They feature Dilbert characters and classic Dilbert philosophy: "Our policy is to first seek candidates from within the company," says the human resources director. "If none is qualified, you must use a sock puppet."
Further in keeping with the Dilbert philosophy that rank is inversely proportional to a person's value, the best card (CEO) has the lowest number (1).
The game itself loosely follows the traditional card game "Rich Man Poor Man." First player puts down one or more cards with the same number, for example, a pair of eights. The next person must play a pair of sevens or lower. The last person able to make a play wins that round and gets to start the next one. Winner is the first person to use up all his or her cards.
The winner gets to be Big Boss -- followed by Little Boss, and so on down to Junior Intern. On the next hand, the Big Boss gets to take the intern's two best cards. This kind of arbitrary meanness is also classic Dilbert.
"I want you to lick the tar off my Porsche now," says the vice president.
The Dilbert Corporate Shuffle will be available in book, gift and hobby stores next month for about $12.95.
Betty Shimabukuro, Star-Bulletin