Today I'm going to talk about Dilbert and Al Haig. Not obvious bedfellows, I admit, but bear with me.
In one of those Ronald Reagan retrospectives that filled our TV screens last week, I saw the infamous clip of a heavily perspiring Al Haig, then Secretary of State, announcing to a press conference, shortly after Ronald Reagan was shot, "I'm in charge here."
The next day, I laughed out loud at a Dilbert cartoon. The boss admonishes Dilbert for failing to win a bid. Dilbert points out that the boss never submitted the bid: "You got seduced by Irish line-dancing lessons and forgot to mail it!" The boss, utterly unfazed, replies, "I can't believe you're trying to pin the blame on the Irish."
Poor, long-suffering Dilbert, having to put up with such a chumpish boss, one whose only genius involves shucking off responsibility.
But should we really feel sorry for Dilbert? Who's the real chump here?
Dilbert has a choice: to take charge of his own career or to suffer the consequences of not doing so. He chooses the latter. The champion responsibility-shucker is thus the person he looks at every morning in the shaving mirror.
Do you rail against the failings of the company you work for, or the profession you work in, or the boss you report to? Enough already. It's not their job to make you happy. It's yours. If you don't like where you are, explore and move on.
Which brings us back to Al Haig. When he said, "I'm in charge," he was wrong, constitutionally and politically. But in a different context altogether, he was dead right.
Repeat after me, then, the mantra - one that should inspire Dilbert's career, and yours, and mine: "I'm in charge here."
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