I am not quite fond of reading management books or self-building books. There are only a handful of such books which I have read completely. I picked up a lot of other books after hearing good comments about them and at times after knowing that they are best sellers with millions of copies sold worldwide. Whenever I am reading any book which does not directly deal with the technical aspects of my job, I usually tend to leave it after reading a few pages to pick up a technical book. Moreover, many of these books do not convince, at times I find them increasing my problems rather than giving solutions. A typical category is the category of positive-thinking books which tell you a real life problem of a person and then say that he prayed and got it solved. I believe a lot in God. No book can make me believe more than this. So I expect books to tell something beyond what is quite obvious to a normal mind.

A book series, which reversed my approach is the Dilbert series of books. This blog post is not a review of the book series, rather an acknowledgment of the change which I see in myself after reading it. This series also is a bestseller with millions of copies sold worldwide. I can not speak about those million copies and opinions of the people who bought them. I can speak just for the copy that reached my bookshelf! No management book or self-building stuff moved me so much as this book series. Thanks Scott Adams!

I have read three books of the series namely “The Dilbert Principle”, “Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel” & “The Dilbert Future”.

I confess that if I had just seen the Dilbert cartoons, they could not always have made sense, but these books brought me closer to the author’s thought process while cartooning Dilbert. I just love the characters which he has created. His cartooning style is simple but impressive, stress can be seen rather on the contents. They are not just joke cartoons, they picture the current corporate world with an amazing satire. When I used to do theater activities, my guide always told me that audience is moved when you say something which they think they could have said exactly in a similar situation or things that they could have never ever thought of. The Dilbert series took me through both these extremes.

I can recollect just a few writings of equal quality of satire, that I read and that I know of –

In my opinion, the best satire is the one which makes you laugh at yourself, makes you realize that you need to improve certain aspects of your personality and at times, makes you laugh at the helplessness you are into. I am Dilbertized!

I encourage you to visit the Dilbert website and buy the books mentioned herein.

Rahul Verma.

Site Admin, Testing Perspective