With the New Year now upon us, I got to open up my new 2022 Dilbert day-by-day calendar that I recently got for Christmas.  I have actually had a Dilbert day-by-day calendar each year for the past several years.  Over this time, I have saved some of the best ones to put on my refrigerator.  Of course, I only have so much room on my refrigerator, so there is a continual evaluation process of which new hilarious comics to put on there, and which ones finally have to be taken off.  Today, I would like to share with you some of the best Dilbert comics I have read from my calendar over the years, many of which I have saved on my refrigerator.

For context, Dilbert is a comic strip created by Scott Adams, and made its debut in 1989.  For 33 years now, Dilbert has entertained readers with humor focused mostly on the workplace.  I’ve always found it funny ever since I started reading it when it appeared in our local newspaper – I think while I was in high school.  Then when I was in college in the late 90s, I remember spending some time playing Dilbert’s Desktop Games on my old Gateway computer.  Then there was also the Dilbert cartoon TV show, which ran for two seasons from 1999-2000 on UPN.  (Anyone remember that channel?)  I recently watched these seasons on DVD.  Not nearly as good as the actual comic strip, but still not bad.  But although I had become a fan of the Dilbert comic strip well before entering office life, ever since I started working in an office, some of their comics resonate with me even more.  Not because of any personal experience in dealing with office dysfunction, but because it captures certain aspects of office life through a comical lens that practically everyone who works in an office can relate to.

Before the pandemic started and I was actually working in the office 100% of the time, I had my Dilbert calendar on my desk at work, and several of my co-workers also got a good laugh at some of the daily comics.  Now it sits on my desk at home where I am currently working most of the time.  It still provides a source of daily entertainment, although I’m sure some of my co-workers miss seeing it on my desk at the office.

For the record, I am not comparing my own workplace to the office dysfunction portrayed in Dilbert.  My workplace and co-workers are amazing, so this is not to be interpreted as any sort of personal commentary.  I am just sharing some funny comics I have collected over the years.

Here are 25 of my favorites, in mostly chronological order.  (All comics created by Scott Adams and available online at www.dilbert.com.)

1. Project Update. (From 1994, this one pre-dates my calendar collection by quite a bit, and is the very first Dilbert comic I ever remember reading.)

2. Passionate Employees

3. Christmas Gifts

4. Christmas Party

5. Work Smarter, Not Harder

6. Honest Feedback

7. Learning From Our Mistakes

8. Sink Water

9. Money

10. Texting Paul

11. Training

12. Business Dorky

13. Garfield

14. Birthday Cake

15. The Sales Call

16. Quality Assurance

17. Spaceship to Mars

18. Eating Garbage

19. Politeness Policy

20. Car Problem

21. Stress Balls

22. Back From Vacation

23. The Network Is Down

24. Working From Home (This one has not yet appeared on a calendar, but was published during the early days of the pandemic.)

25. New Year’s Resolutions

Dilbert has had so many great comics over the years that could have gone on this list, but for the sake of time, I narrowed it down to 25.  That last one was on my calendar just yesterday.  I saved it for last, in honor of New Year’s.  I like Dilbert’s philosophy of not making major life decisions based on random calendar dates.  But since a new year is now upon us, it does at least mean 365 more days of new Dilbert calendar comics, and future decisions about which ones will be refrigerator-worthy.

Happy New Year!