LAYOFFS FOR LAUGHS

A CARTOON CALLED DILBERT UPLIFTS THE DOWNSIZED

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Some might consider such humor crude; but some have not been downsized. Says Hoak, the New York accountant: "It was cathartic to watch the incompetent boss in the strip and know that the incompetent boss who let me go wasn't fooling everyone." Indeed, in a forthcoming book, his seventh, Adams will put forward the "Dilbert Principle" to supplant the outmoded Peter Principle. It is no longer true, he argues, that people are promoted until they reach the level of their incompetence. These days they ascend directly to management without passing through the competent phase, promoted precisely because they fail at everything else.

Adams says roughly 80% of his material comes from readers, which is a good thing, since he cleared out his own cubicle last June. He swears he was not downsized--"I had told my bosses that my energies were with the cartoon, and they just had to ask me and I would go peacefully." But the Internet, where his Web page, the Dilbert Zone https://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/ dilbert), draws 55,000 visitors a day, was abuzz with concern. Truth to tell, his fans needn't worry--about him. The comic is earning more than ever, and the sad fact is it will probably have ample grist for a long time to come.

--Reported by Lisa McLaughlin/New York

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