A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest.  They were
looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type
managers.  Here are some of the submissions:

1. As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building
using individual security cards.  Pictures will be taken next
Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.
(This was the winning entry; Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in
Redmond, WA)

2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will
encounter.
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff?
(Programming intern, Microsoft IIS Development team)

4. E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data.  It
should be used only for company business.
(Accounting Mgr., Electric Boat Company)

5. This project is so important, we can't let things that are more
important interfere with it.
(Advertising/Mktg. Mgr., UPS)

6. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.  No one
will believe you solved this problem in one day!  We've been working
on it for months.  Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you
know when it's time to tell them.
(R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing /3M Corp.)

7. My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that
only needed corrections.  She claims the disk I gave her was damaged
and she couldn't edit it.  The disk I gave her was write-protected.
(CIO of Dell Computers)

8. Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what 'I'
say."
(Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday.
When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss
work on the busiest day of the year.  He then asked if we could
change her burial to Friday.  He said, "That would be better for me."
(Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)

10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not
going to discuss it with the employees.
(AT&T Long Lines Division)

11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying, "This
is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the
subject mentioned above."
(Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

12. One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him
concerning a project I was working on.  I asked him if tomorrow would
be soon enough.  He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have
waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
(New Business Mgr., Hallmark Cards)

13. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo
reviewing our company's training programs and materials.  In the body
of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach"
used by one of the training manuals.  The day after I routed the memo
to the executive committee, I was called into the HR Director's
office, and was told that the executive VP wanted me out of the
building by lunch.  When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't
stand for "perverts" (pedophiles?) working in her company.  Finally
he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired,
with the word "pedagogical" circled in red.  The H.R. Manager was
fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary
and made a copy of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not
to worry.  He would take care of it.  Two days later a memo to the
entire staff came out, directing us that no words which could not be
found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos.
A month later, I resigned.  In accordance with company policy, I
created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the
Sunday paper.
(Taco Bell Corporation)

14. This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo
from a large communications company: "Lucent Technologies is
endeavouringly determined to promote constant attention on current
procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative
ways to better, if not supersede, the expectations of quality!"