Dilbert comes to life

I have always read from Scott Adams that his ideas for Dilbert come from either his own experiences working in the corporate business world or from suggestions from readers in that world. Certainly a lot of his comics hit really close to home for me and that is why they are so enjoyable. Recently I had an experience though that was straight from the comic strip!

My company is transitioning a lot of engineers to Linux. As part of the program they set around a large test that would take between 10 and 15 hours to complete to test engineers on their Linux knowledge. The reason to take it was the top 10 people who passed would be sent to Germany at our Linux headquarters for three months to learn even more about Linux and eventually be placed on that team.

Well, I had a buddy here at Novell who took the test and passed it well...he was in the top 10 people in all of Novell (about 4,200 employees worldwide). He was very excited about his new opportunities and ready for the trip. Then, about a week and a half after the news he was laid off.

What?!

Yes, let me repeat that, after he tested to be one of the top 10 Linux kernel hackers in the company, they laid him off. It is almost like people are not thinking. This poor guy goes from the emotional high of making it and preparing his family for him being in Germany for three months and everything that entails to not having a job.

Oh, but it gets better. He was called a week after the layoff and offered a job back at Novell to continue with his trip to Germany. I'm afraid this poor guys' emotions have got to be bouncing all over the place! That is where this story stops now...I wonder if Dilbert will have it shortly?