- Brian Mendonca
When Scott Adams (1957-2026) passed on last week the corporate world lost its most trenchant commentator. Scott was more than a cartoonist. He was a satirist putting his finger on some of the most banal moments in an everyday office situation and giving it a human touch. How long has the middle-level manager wanted the room at the corner with the window? How often has one gone to sleep during a meeting? In how many ways does animosity seep into conversation?
Scott's canvas was the corporate cubicle. Through it he presented - often with acerbic humour - what passes for normalcy between 9 to 5. What he seemed to say was that we are all unique but we are dumbed down to pass mediocrity for performance. He exposed the sham culture of the corridors of power and lent a touch of humanism to an otherwise arid office space.
Often he exposed the humiliation which executives, young and not-so-young, face the brunt off in the guise of of corporate compliance. This was best epitomized in the bespectacled Dilbert with his truant tie and foggy look on his face. The dehumanized environment in which workers have to work for their salary at the end of the month forces them to endure this ignominy inspite of everything.
In one of his cartoon strips Dilbert has to motivate himself to work after getting into his lonely cubicle. So he prefaces what looks like a ritual with the words, 'It is time for the sacred dance of the cubicle.' In the next frame he performs what looks like a tribal dance - so out of place in a hushed corporate corridor, yet true to his primal roots. The strip shows the disconnect between what we are and what we are expected to be.
At the end of day workers have to make sense of the mindless tasks they seem to be doing. This is a comment not only on the corporate world but in any working space where workers are not valued and the work is demeaning.
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Cartoon courtesy: Comiclopedia at https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/adams_scott.htm Updated 19/1/26.
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