My thoughts on Working Daze is that it works best when it touches on the aspects of geek life, fantasy and how these all interact or clash with the working world or for that matter the world in general.
For instance I think the series we are running now where Rita learns that anything she touches turns to dirt is a fun one. Rita decides to take her new found talent and make the best of it.
Your thoughts?
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Even tho she's a terrible manager, you have to admit that she has spunk and is always looking on the lighter side of life. If she can find a way to make the best of turning things to dirt, more power to her!
That's exactly the way I interpreted Rita when I read the first gags I was to draw. I didn't want to show her as being a one dimensional 'evil' character who was trying to make workers suffer. I thought that she really believes she's OK, she's just totally out of touch.
Well she isn't a pointy haired boss ala Dilbert, but it has always been my experience that the managers who haven't done the work that they manage are prone to composting the output of the professionals. So in that respect it's quite an apt concept. If she would only touch her dress...;-P
Just my opinion, but I've always felt that Dilbert makes too much of the 'pointy haired' boss business. Sure,I know they represent horns, like a devil, but it gets kind of silly. I've worked in a lot of places and known a lot of bad bosses, but they weren't bad because they had pointy hair. Pointy heads, perhaps.
And, as I say, most of them aren't trying to be evil. They're trying to be important and protect their jobs, which, at some level, even they know they aren't remotely qualified for.
So, in that way, turning things to dirt at their touch is an apt metaphor.
I agree that in many cases Dilbert gets quite silly. But it is after all a caricature of cubical life. Some of the perception depends on ones own experience, and I have found 2 definite types of bosses. There are those who know next to nothing and surround themselves with yes-men who will follow their orders right into oblivion, and there are the bosses who know that that aren't omniscient and thereby hire qualified people who they can depend on to do the right thing the right way at the right time. Mistakes will always happen, after all Murphy was an optimist, but a good boss will turn them into learning experiences and benefit from them, while a bad boss will point fingers and assign blame and stumble blindly on to the next big mess. I have worked for both and I would happily work any job with the second type. When I discover I am working for the first type I quickly change vocations or locations. Sadly they are the higher population in the working world.
There are also the coprtards but they are really a subset of the first type.
Another subset is the incompetent boss whom no one wants to support, therefore no yes-men, but the higher ups don't want to replace because they would have to admit that they made an error in appointing him/her. So as long as the damage doesn't show too badly, these bosses allowed to continue down their dark path, and their department becomes a pit that no one wants to transfer to. If workers complain to upper management, the very best they can hope for is a "Yes, we know." with no action to follow. It's like driving with a crumpled fender and choosing to ignore it. The car still runs, so why draw attention to the problem?
Is low employee morale any mystery? Only to the CEO, who expects low paid workers to be grateful just for having a job. You're supposed to be happy, but not to smile, because then it looks as if you're not working.
Who was it that said, "Competence has it's limits, but incompetence is limitless."?
Oh no poor Rita did herself in because she forgot Dana. Think that may prove her blondness.
You can't not love Rita...she is just misunderstood...Great job John for making a character that fits into my category of "interesting". The turning into dirt is hilarious, much better than the medusa-into-stone thing. One question though...how in the world do they turn back to um...people?
As a Geekette in middle age, and having been both a geekee and a manager both, I love the mingling of the worlds in this strip.
I laugh at the petty officiousness of the manger who is out of touch with all but her own qualifications and bottom line, for I have seen them of both genders. And I laughed also when roy and his girlfriend got their credit card out at the dealers room at the con.
Geeks are all around us! And while I love Dilbert, referred to often here, I find it limited in scope much of the time. And while I love Dork Tower tremendously, I have to admit that it, too, is specialized.
This comic blends the way fantasy works in the real world, in our heads, our minds, our pocketbooks. Not just the geek-sci-fi-ren-fair-techie sort of stuff either, but the way our imaginations get fired up in the real world, when we want to put a snarky LOL caption on some idiot employee we work with who would be much more productive as a pile of dust.
And I also have to admit, I love a comic written by someone who is a scientist, an artist, and watches the same modern geeky soaps I do (heroes, Dr. Who)
I was so surprised when it showed up in "mainstream" comics recently in Yahoocomics. I felt that Gen X Geeks had finally made the big-time when a geek-work comic made it to the pages with the likes of Doonesbury, For Better or Worse, and Foxtrot.
That said, let's have a Huzzah for Geek Life-- both in the mundane world, the head of the geek, and the geek-enclaves!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
I am glad you add fantasy to the comic strip. I have to deal with reality daily and it is refreshing to sit down and relax and escape reality for a while. I love the Working Daze comic!
I wish things could turn into...gold.
But dirt is kind of funny.
Thank you for sharing your humor with us!
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