Hi. My name is Tom, and I'm an Idiot.

Boy, it sure feels good to get that off my chest! Whoo! Let me just clarify. When I say that I'm an Idiot, I don't mean in the literal sense, that I have a low I.Q. and am only suitable for doing labour that would tax a monkey or brewery horse. I mean that I'm an Idiot in the way that there's a lot of stuff about the world that I just don't know about. Being a mammal, and thus controlled by my emotional state, I am likely to jump to erroneous conclusions based on limited or biased data. Because I am an emotional being and not a robot, I am likely to interpret the data that I am presented according to how my current world-view is at the time. I am also likely to spew forth subjective opinions based on my conclusions and my current world-view and attempt to present them as facts, like I am a fat, fact-shitting machine. When, actually, I am not.

My sole saving grace in this regard, I suppose, is that if I am confronted with further evidence that is contrary to my original opinions, and if I am capable of acknowledging my original errors in judgment, I can admit that I have made a mistake. Subsequently, once I publicly acknowledge my mistake, I can learn from my mistake, and hopefully refrain from making the same mistake again. In my case, I have found that this takes about three or four times before it sinks into my pink, gooey brain. This is because I'm an Idiot.

I'm bringing this all up because of a couple of odd events recently came up regarding the creator of 'Dilbert', the comic strip much beloved by office monkeys and cubicle drones across the world. The premise of 'Dilbert' is to point out the absurdities and contradictions of office culture for comic effect. Subsequently, Ted from Accounting has a hearty chuckle at the day's offering from Scott Adams, 'Dilbert's' creator, cuts out the strip and puts it on the bulletin board in his cubicle. Occasionally, he will look up and a slight snort of delight will issue from his lips as he recollects Adams' latest bon mot. If the day's offering is particularly trenchant, Ted will white-out a 'Dilbert' character's name, and write in the name of a co-worker, then place the altered strip in question upon the communal bulletin board. Hence, all in the environment will share in Ted's wry observation how that one character is just like Patty in Accounts Receivable, who's always on the darn copy machine. Then they all go back to being replaceable cogs in a vast, uncaring corporate machine.

I'm not a fan of 'Dilbert', obviously. Though to be fair, the office environment is a breeding ground for finding humour in the absurdities of corporate culture, and from the perspective of middle management, finding the funny in both upper management's absurd whims and those lower in the pecking order, like vendors and service personnel' clueless-ness seems to be a prime field for comedy. I imagine it's a survival tactic for the office workers in that position, as well.

Those odd events I referred to earlier were Adams' baiting his blog readers into an argument on Men's Rights issues, writing an adorable misogynist rant comparing women to spoiled children begging for candy. And getting his ass handed to him by readers of his blog, then backpedaling and claiming that he was 'trolling' his readers, and it was all a 'cunning plan' to bring up the absurdities of Men's Rights, and oh, how you silly monkeys Just Don't Get It At All. Or Scott Adams, for that matter. Then earlier this week, Adams was busted for creating a sock-puppet account on various message boards, bravely leaping to Adams' defense when his integrity or intelligence was called into question. Adams was busted, and to no one's surprise, proceeded to write up a 3,000 word justification-not an apology, mind you-about why he created a sock puppet. Who kept bringing up the 'fact' that Adams was a 'Certifiable Genius'.

The impression I'm taking away from all this is that Adams is the type of person who trains professionally for a career in Middle Management. Thus, when he creates a product that is wildly successful, (in this case, the comic strip, 'Dilbert') he assumes that his success is owing to his brilliance as a idea man and a relentless self-promoter. And not because he happened to capture a zeitgeist of documenting the absurdities of corporate culture at the right time and in the right place. Subsequently, while Adams has made mucho banko off his merchandising from 'Dilbert', all his non-'Dilbert' businesses have failed, (Like his meatless 'Dilberto' burrito) or are in the process of failing. (He runs a restaurant in California that is evidently losing money, if the article in the New York Times' Veteran's Day edition is any indication...) The common theme throughout all this is that Adams is either incapable or unwilling to acknowledge his shortcomings and limitations. Hardly the qualifications for a 'Certifiable Genius', I'd say.

You know something? Maybe I'm not such an Idiot, after all.