I'm Not Anti-Business, I'm Anti-Idiot: A Dilbert Book

Dilbert #11

by Scott Adams

The eleventh collection in the classic cartoon series that has transformed the daily drudgery of the workplace into a fresh, comic commentary on life.

This volume of cartoons, which ran in newspapers from November 20, 1995, through August 31, 1996, brings you more of the bizarre fun of the eternally devious, frustrated, and clueless. In addition to the antics of Dilbert, the Boss, Alice, Wally, and Dogbert, you'll marvel at the escapades of Antina the non-stereotypical woman, who takes apart the office coffee machine "just for fun." You'll witness Ratbert hired as vice president of marketing, with his only experience being a week spent in a dumpster at Procter & Gamble. And you'll recoil from Camping Carl, the office's annoyingly nonstop complainer, whom Dilbert manages to evade only by taking to his cubicle escape tunnel.

"Confined to their cubicles in a company run by idiot bosses, Dilbert and his white-collar colleagues make the dronelike world of Kafka seem congenial." --The New York Times

"Once every decade, America is gifted with an angst-ridden anti-hero, a Nietzschean nebbish, an us-against-the-universe everyperson around whom our insecurities collect like iron shavings to a magnet. Charlie Chaplin. Dagwood Bumstead. Charlie Brown. Cathy. Now, Dilbert." --The Miami Herald

Genres: Humor, Comics, Fiction, Comic Strips, Cartoon, Comedy, Business

128 pages, ebook

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Scott Adams was a defining voice of the American white-collar experience who transitioned from a prominent cartoonist into a polarizing political commentator. After earning an MBA from UC Berkeley and spending years in management at Pacific Bell, Adams launched the comic strip Dilbert in 1989. The strip’s sharp satire of corporate bureaucracy and the "Dilbert Principle"—the idea that incompetent employees are promoted to management to minimize their damage—resonated globally, eventually appearing in 2,000 newspapers and winning the prestigious Reuben Award. Beyond the funny pages, Adams explored philosophy and persuasion in works like God's Debris and Win Bigly, the latter of which analyzed Donald Trump’s rhetorical strategies during the 2016 election. His career took a dramatic turn during the mid-2010s as he shifted focus to his daily "Real Coffee" livestream, where he combined his background in hypnosis and corporate strategy to comment on the "culture wars." This period of independent commentary culminated in 2023 when he reacted to a poll regarding racial tensions with a series of inflammatory remarks. Labeling Black Americans a "hate group" and advocating for racial segregation, Adams faced immediate and widespread repercussions; hundreds of newspapers dropped his strip, and his publisher canceled his upcoming projects. Undeterred, he moved his work to the subscription-based platform Locals, rebranding his comic as Dilbert Reborn. In his final years, he faced severe health challenges, including stage IV prostate cancer and vocal cord issues, yet he remained a prolific presence on social media. He eventually announced the end of his hand-drawn work due to focal dystonia but continued to direct the strip's vision. Adams’s legacy remains a complex study in the power of branding, the evolution of digital influence, and the volatile intersection of creative genius and political provocation in the modern era.

Reviews

[Anna M.]

2016 Genre Challenge: graphic

Not for me. I'm usually good with any humor and "if I dare say so myself" quick on the take.... The humor in this book is practically nonexistent.... And the artwork is as if it was taken out of 80's newspapers.

[Sally]

The adventures of Dilbert, Alice, and Wally, as Catbert, Dogbert, and Ratbert are always amusing, although in a collection like this the themes are pretty repetitious. We know the boss is a corrupt ignoramus and has no idea how to manage, and that’s repeated over and over.

[Joe Tripp]

Refreshing and frustrating.

[Hannah Belyea]

Seeing as their Pointy-Haired Boss knows less about the business than a desk, Dilbert and his fellow employees must brave his...whatever his degree is, with sarcastic motivation and positively ironic reinforcement - if only for their own sakes. Adams will keep any and all employees chuckling with another entertaining collection of comics, full of his trademark wit and tack, or lack thereof. How much damage can a not engineer do if the engineers do nothing?

[Steven]

More painfully funny because its true office humor with Dilbert

[Jess Wilson]

I love these comics

I agree with the author about being anti-IDIOT because I see so much of the company I work for in these comics. The same can be true of our political leaders. One of the comics really hit home with the manager's idea to save money. How can we work if they take away the very software we need to do the work? Again amazing comics and amazing that some people are in leadership making these decisions in real life. I loved it when my manager read one and then found it online to send to his manager who loved it saying, ‘What dolt would do this..’ not realizing they were doing it themselves!

[SKP]

I think most folks who have worked in an office environment of any sort, can relate at least in part to the Dilbert universe. While reading many of the books, you tend to repeat from book to book, this had quite a few that I hadn’t run across yet. I especially love Dogbert and Catbert, but all of the other characters have many a great moment. The pointy-haired boss tends to remind me of about 4 or 5 people I’ve worked for all rolled into one.

[Sarah Ehinger]

I enjoy the full comic books. I used to purchase the daily calendars, but I would forget to flip them and then read through them in batches, so this is a similar process. Some of the comics are spot on and some miss the mark for me, but entertaining.

[DOUGLAS J BERRY]

The higher a monkey climbs up a tree, the better view you have of his bottom.

Black and white strips. Mainly about how dumb managers can be. Remember that a boss who is directly over you exposes every flaw in his thinking, and emotional problems.

[Giovanni Linke Casalucci]

Il bello delle strisce di Dilbert è che fanno sorridere, a volte ridere, ma poi c'è LA BATTUTA, quella che è santa, illuminante, stupenda e vera.

Allora ti deprimi e vorresti morire, ma la striscia dopo ti fa sorridere, a volte ridere e te ne dimentichi.

[Ewelina]

Niektóre śmieszne, nieliczne. Reszta mnie jakoś nie bawi, a nawet smuci, bo sprawia, że myślę o absurdach w korporacjach, myślę o pracy. Czytam głównie dla przyjemności, więc dla mnie książki nie powinny wywoływać myślenia o pracy.

[Phil Whittall]

Sometimes I get the impression that Adams had totally run out of ideas for Dilbert & co. There are definitely some hits, but not as many laugh out loud moments as in the earlier books. Some characters develop, these I think diminished over time.

[Monique]

OFFICE HUMOR!!

Gotta love Dilbert for the wacky office politics! This provided me some much needed humor and a quick getaway from all the daily intense headlines in the world today.

[Omar El-Mohri]

The book is kind of business insider with what corporates work is hiding

[Xavfro]

a bit dated but scary how un-dated it is sometimes.

[Scott Martin]

Old school Dilbert. The flipped-tie with the short-sleeve button up and the pocket protector will always be the Dilbert look. While these comics are late-1990s, some of the themes still apply.

[Jeff J.]

Reading Dilbert helps with enjoying retirement.

[Ryan Barretto]

Another satirical and sarcastic view of the corporate world.

Please definitely read it. You may understand your boss a little better.

[Elizabeth]

I'm Not Anti-Business, I'm Anti-Idiot (Dilbert #11) by Scott Adams - Once you join the workforce, Dilbert gets funnier! Happy Reading!

[Jonathan Waugh]

120+ pages of good Dilbert comic strips, highly entertaining to read.

[MJ Ryan]

Sometimes I get Scott Adams humor, other times I don't. All in all it's a good comic strip.

[Giuseppe Barbone]

Raccolta di strisce del '95, molte delle quali risultano attuali. Sarebbe interessante leggerle nella lingua originale per cogliere alcuni giochi di parole, che nella traduzione vengono a perdersi.

[Shauna]

Who knew this would connect to my current position as an implementation manager at a library so well. 😆

[Kenneth]

According to the greetings card I found in between this book (“I’m not Anti-Business, I’m Anti-Idiot”), it is a Father’s Day present to me from about twenty years ago. I assume that I read it at that time and picked it up now for a re-read. I have worked most of my career as a business lawyer and have now been retired for six years. Considering that the original book was published twenty-seven years ago, it is astonishing how little the mumbo-jumbo of business language and practices have changed over the years. The business clichés this book ridicules still seem so familiar. It is obvious that since ancient times the buffoon has told us the truth and continues to do so. The only change in offices since the publication of this book I found was that those cubicles in offices, at least in Finland, have vanished and been replaced by open landscape offices. I would love to see Scott Adams’ perception of this type of office. Lots of material there for good jokes too.

FINNISH – Oivallinen käännös Pasi Janhuselta ja Kirsi Leppäseltä. Tässä toteutuu hyvän käännöksen ensimmäinen ja tärkein tunnusmerkki eli lukiessaan ei tunnista lukevansa käännöstä.

[Valerie]

For the record, I AM anti-business. And I don't care about idiots, who (BY DEFINITION) have no social interactions. We've gotten too enmeshed in pointless busyness, and forgotten what we're trying to DO with all this 'work'.

This collection contains enough classic strips to make it worth buying, even if you've been following the strip in the newspaper, and clipping out your favorites. Those get a little frayed and faded with time--best to have a backup.

[Sharakael]

This book contains older strips - it even has a strip where Asok is introduced as an intern. The book is in black and white, and the digital copy I borrowed from the library seemed to have some wacky pagination as it cut off some of these strips across two pages... but thankfully they're still readable.

The scary part is how the situations inside holds true, regardless of when this book good published...

[Little Timmy]

We all might have started out like Calvin with a great view of life. But after hitting the workforce we all somewhat become Dilbert. Everyone knows someone like one of the characters in the strips. Highly recommended

[Valerie]

Aren't we all?

[Jessica]

Always funny, Dilbert is.

[Audrey]

For anyone who has done redundant paperwork or sat through meaningless meetings, this one's for you!