Dilbert's creator says you shouldn't have a career plan

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/12/13/dilberts-creator-says-you-shouldnt-have-a-career-plan/

by hansy • 13 years ago

58 36 13 years ago

plax5123• 13 years ago

It's dangerous business for him to be saying stuff like this. I mean, are we all going to go out and be lucky enough to have a successful comic strip? No, it's a fluke. It worked for him, great, but shut up and take your success. Don't tell others what they should do.

gress• 13 years ago

Why is his opinion to be muzzled, rather than those who suggest having a career plan? How do we know a career plan is good advice for everyone?

plax5123• 13 years ago

nothing is perfect for every single person, which is what I'm saying

was_hellbanned• 13 years ago

Career plans are wonderful for those whose career goes according to plan. ;-)

Nzen• 13 years ago

Clearly a case of tl;dr. Adams did a bunch of foolish stuff before becoming successful. Most of it was in pursuit of goals like 'get rich quick' (via a patent). He recommends adopting a system of principles that allow for a more flexible focus. Don't tell others what they should do. eyeroll

plax5123• 13 years ago

what are you saying?

SimHacker5• 13 years ago

Foolish stuff like posing as his biggest fan on message boards to say how brilliant he is and how stupid everyone else is for not seeing that? "If an idiot and a genius disagree, the idiot generally thinks the genius is wrong. He also has lots of idiot reasons to back his idiot belief. That's how the idiot mind is wired. It's fair to say you disagree with Adams. But you can't rule out the hypothesis that you're too dumb to understand what he's saying. And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'."

Foolish stuff like saying things like "Women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone"?

Should I go on? I could go on and on and on, quoting him making a total douchbag of himself. He never stops, he just keeps digging deeper.

krstck• 13 years ago

The title is sensationalist. The point is that even the best laid plans require an element of luck, so it's better to develop systems of successful habits rather than attaching your hopes and dreams towards a specific "goal". He's not talking about how you, too, can be a comic book artist, he's saying that you need to learn as many useful skills as you can. In his book he devoted considerable time to detailing just how serendipitous the success of Dilbert was. I enjoyed it.

y0ink• 13 years ago

"Fat doesn't make you fat." Mr. Adams has seen the light.

iwaffles• 13 years ago

"Starting a business that fails makes the comic better."

mikeash2• 13 years ago

Why do we care what Scott Adams says about any topic other than creating a successful and amusing comic strip?

ACow_Adonis• 13 years ago

I'm guessing because of the correlation between comedians/humourists and intelligence/accurate observation.

Plus generally just being open curious human beings.

I don't think we should generally take carte-blanch the advice of anyone.

There's even grounds for not listening to those who are rich/wealthy/successful businesses when trying to analyse their own condition. There's an ego element there which means they'll want to apportion success to themselves relative to luck/chance/birth/others, and they're hardly going to come out and say "you know what, it was all a fluke" or "I ripped off bob/society..go me!".

Most of us humans are all too good at ascribing to large amounts of randomness some element in an attempt to explain outcomes post-fact.

I'll listen to Mr Adams. He seems to nail a lot of other things on the head.

ryan332• 13 years ago

His point is to not have an overly specific plan, rather have a system where you are constantly learning things and meeting people that will be helpful to you in the future. He's also a former computer programmer and has a startup for easily sharing schedules among groups.

His interview on Tavis Smiley's show was awesome- http://video.pbs.org/video/2365115829/

SimHacker5• 13 years ago

Are you another one of Scott Adam's sock puppets? http://jezebel.com/5792583/dilbert-creator-pretends-to-be-hi...

SimHacker5• 13 years ago

His sock puppets seem to care a lot about what he has to say about all forms of douchbaggery.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/17/the-saga-o...

Scott Adams is up to his old obliviously obtuse act again. You may recall that the creator of Dilbert is an apologist for creationism, a pathetic anti-atheist wanker, and a narcissistic sock puppeteer, but did you know he’s also an obnoxist sexist pig? Oh, right, you did already know that. OK, but now he’s revising his personal history and making up stories about being a poor oppressed man, crushed by the matriarchy.

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe...

http://amptoons.com/blog/2011/06/16/scott-adams-still-a-douc...

http://www.rickworley.com/2012/06/20/scott-adams-douchebags-...

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-scott-adams-d...

http://bbs.boingboing.net/t/incredibly-interesting-authors-0...

http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creato...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/21/987473/-Scott-Adams...

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/04/18/the-guy-...

...and so on...

rfnslyr3• 13 years ago

There are better causes to devote yourself to than spreading your hatred for one man.

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

Add this one to your list: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/07/jezebel_proves_scott_...

It takes down media feminists and sexually inadequate cartoonists, so you get to feel doubly superior after reading it.

sergiosgc• 13 years ago

Scott Adams is obviously very intelligent. Most people are taken aback by his confrontational net-persona. However, if you try to look at this persona as something constructed, as a fun project, and as a tool to drive traffic to his blog, you can see the brilliance.

Yes, he has covered just about any extreme position you can imagine. He's gone to anti-feminism caves, to anti-religion deserts, to abortion hell and recently dived into the "I viscerally hate anti-euthanasia people". So what? He raises valid points, and he raises them in a fashion that drives traffic to his blog, therefore maximizing the probability of discussion. As a side effect, he weeds out from the discussion those people who are not rational enough to see his extremist position as fabricated, and who respond emotionally. Win-win.

He's a dialectic genius.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

Reading some of the stuff that got him in trouble, it's not particularly offensive (to me) but neither is it insightful or funny. Scott Adams was a good, even great, newspaper cartoon strip writer for several years, but he's been repeating himself for twenty and outrun hos talent.

mikeash2• 13 years ago

Is he, actually, obviously very intelligent?

He seems reasonably smart in some ways. But he also seems to have no idea of the boundaries of his knowledge, which leads him to say a lot of stupid things. That doesn't qualify as "very intelligent" to me.

JamesArgo• 13 years ago

Selection effects, the bane of almost all dreamers.

theg22• 13 years ago

I love my job. It's interesting, difficult at times for various reasons, pays well enough that I can live a good life, and has ideals that I can agree with. People always looking for the next larger paycheck bother me sometimes and I think that's at the core of what Scott Adams is saying.

Too many times we get caught up in our jobs because its something we feel we should do or because it pays more and more money but loving what you do is the real meaning behind his message.

klochner• 13 years ago

I understand your sentiment, but you misinterpreted this example - he meant that the job-hopper was smart in having a system (continually get a better job) rather than a specific goal (get XX job).

Despite having landed a job with high satisfaction, Scott Adams is highly pragmatic and ambitious.

marcosdumay• 13 years ago

but loving what you do is the real meaning behind his message.

And his second advice is "Passion is bullshit" (and no, you won't get what he meant just from the title, again). Maybe you should read the article.

theg22• 13 years ago

Sorry for the late reply but you either mis-understood what I wrote or what Adams wrote. He's saying that people often sit in a job waiting to be inspired or suddenly become passionate about it. You seem to be implying that idealism is a mistake and a poor reason for staying at job.

ChristianMarks• 13 years ago

Agreed that "passion is bullsh*t." Talk of passion suggests one can articulate motivations that are largely beyond human control and understanding as if one had control over them. "Passion" in this sense is ersatz. More than this: the assumption seems to me that one is willing to openly discuss what I would consider intimate aspects of one's internal life with strangers. This is game-theoretically weak. I say instead that I don't experience "passions" as such, which strike me as mercurial. Instead, I find myself driven. Driven by forces largely beyond my control, by biophysical processes that I do not comprehend.

SkyMarshal• 13 years ago

Best one-sentence advice I've seen on this topic was here on HN: Don't try to micromanage your career, just focus on doing whatever has the most impact, and your career will take care of itself.

copiga• 13 years ago

heres mine:

    finish college

    get job

    pay taxes

    work until i can afford a van, petrol, food, passport and visas

    get van

    travel world

    die

of course only two of these are certain...

Dilbert's creator says you shouldn't have a career plan

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