Here is a sample of the hundreds of e-mails I have received. Note that a few of these individuals seem to believe that I make mission statements for a living, and that my Mission Statement Generator is a serious attempt to automate this process.

So as to not get anyone in trouble, names and contact information has been left out and/or replaced with *'s. Otherwise, these messages have not been altered (as the spelling will show you).


David,

I love the mission statement generator. Thanks for making it available to the Dilbert Zone.

Scott Adams


It's sad that this creation of yours so closely resembles real life marketing and/or management Mission Statements. I, however, view it as a complete source of entertainment. Gee, I hope that is what you intended. Wouldn't it be a real hoot if you were serious about these Mission Statements?


Once again "art mirrors reality". I received the URL with this message:

from a coworker: For those of us who've been with Steve long enough to remember Career Goal Generation Day, it appears that the Dilbert website has automated the process. Check out "Dogbert's Mission Statement Generator" at:

Thanks! It's great!


David--

As one who has written countless mission statements, I urge you to add "effectuate" to your Dogbert list of vocables for pre-written mission statements. Covers every possibility. Also, I like to work "global" and "world-class" into my mission statements. There's nothing like ironic metaphysical sweep to describe the activities of stumbling middle-aged white guys.


Hi!
I read the credits for the Dogbert Mission Statement Generator and I had to write to tell you how frighteningly close its output is to the Mission Statement of AT&T when I worked there. Scary.

Good job!!!!


can i have your children?


I work in PR and now I can produce releases in a matter of minutes thanks to your mission statement generator. I don't know if I can thank you enough.


Kewl. Does the Evil Empire know about this?


Thanks a lot man!! I just laughed so hard that my spleen came flying out though my nose and my brain exploded spewing neuroslime all over the place!

*** *****
Senior Systems Engineer
DCS Corporation
Formerly, Customer Satisfaction Engineer with another company. I kid you not.


I'll bet you got the vocabulary at work. Couldn't help noticing the .gov extension.


I love Dogbert's Mission Statement Generator. But, I was sad to see that my favorite phrase was left out from the "nouns" vocabulary:

'customer space'

. . . it sounds important, but means absolutely nothing.

Once again, nice work & tell Dogbert I said hello.


Hi,

Thought you might like to see another version of your calculus...

http://tesla.csuhayward.edu/cgi-bin/speak.cgi


Hi,

I wanted to let you know that I thought you Mission Statement generator is excellent. I haven't seen so many great words thrown together since I left LANL a few years ago after undergoing several reorgs in 2 years and 4 funding cuts.

Thanks for making my day :)


I love the mission Statement Generator - I spotted a document at work with a mission statement on the front page which looked exactly like it had come from dogbert but closer examination revealed that it was in fact aimed at high level management and completely serious!


Mr Youd and Mr Adams,

I have to thank you for the mission statement generator on your web page. It truly came in handy during the last round of military performance reports I had to write. I'm sure as you were developing it, you had no idea as to its wide applicability across the commercial sector and the US Government. I just hope you aren't offended when I say I can not pay you for using your product since it was used in an official military capacity. However, we will be forced to increase your taxes due to your business expansion. Thank you.

**** ********, 1Lt, USAF Supreme Allied Commander of the DNRC


I like your mission statement generator - it's funny as hell!!! If you got a bunch of real mission statements from actual companies, it would be entertaining to make a little quiz game where you get shown a mission statement and you have to guess whether it's real or made up by the mission statement generator.

Thanks for the laughs...


What an excellent tool!

I randomly selected 10 mission statements, changed the wording slightly, and had my 1997 Performance Review written in no time!

Keep up the good work.


Dear David:

As a recovering strategic planner, I commend you for this valuable application! I will refer all my former colleagues, whose lives I made miserable with demands for mission statements, annual objectives, priorities, etc., to this page in the Dilbert Zone. Brilliant!


I hope you got paid!!!


We will immediately institute this program at our company. We estimate that with over 200,000 businesses currently writing business statements, devoting two hours per week for a five person committee, totaling 200,000 hours of labor at $50 per hour, you have saved $1 billion for the American people. You are a great patriot!!!


Knew it had to be from something like ornl (oak ridge national laboratory).


Oh Dear

Have I become a sad person or what. I think I could use this Mission Statement in my company in Southern Germany (they make expensive cars) and get away with it. What does this say about my personal skills in the matter of career choice, discernment etc


Fantastic. I swear, I am going to get one of these accepted in my company.


thank you for taking the time to mock what I believe are rediculous exercises in self importance...so called Mission Statements. Who started this absurd trend anyway?


Thanks! It's saved hours--days--of committee meetings.


.gov and you are coding mission statement generators?
is this a conspiracy?
what is your job description?
U.S. Department of Energy?


To: Mr. David Youd Date: 27 March 1998

Dear Mr. Youd

I am working with one of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in India, that is currently planning to start a new speciality division to promote products to medical specialists, particularly to leading consultants in the country.

I have been assigned with the task of preparing The Mission Statement,The Vission Statement and Core Value Statement for this new division.

Please contact me at the following address for a chat along with few examples of Mission & Vision Statements that you have worked for other companies.

My e-mail address is as follows;

1. **********@hotmail.com
2. *****@****.****.net.in

Looking forward to your early contact.

Thanking you & regards,


given that you have a .gov domain address, you must get a lot of flack for not having enough "real" work to do :-)


I plan to slip one of these in next time I find myself condemmed to another useless task force.

Thanks


David,

Thanks for your mission statement generator. Yesterday, it entertained a Strategic Planning workshop in Colorado Springs for the Colorado Boys and Girls Clubs executives.

Best,


I was whacking away at our division's mission and vision statements when an airman came in and suggested I check out your site. It's fabulous. Thanks!

**** ******, Major, USAF
Chief, Systems Integration and Support
Directorate of Departmental Publishing
Office of the Secretary of the Air Force


David, You would be fired from any company for creating mission statements with split infinitives in them. "...to synergistically create?" You never use the word 'to,' then put the adverb between it and the verb. You place the adverb after the noun. For instance: "...to create solutions synergistically."

I'll be the first to admit that IBM has used some very self-inlfated wording in the past. But most mission statements are, by nature, self-inflated thought. It is you who are writing these "pretentious" lines for a living. To fail grammatically (split infinitive - hint, hint !!) means failure in the career path, Huh Dave?

**** *. ******
IBM Global Services
Rapid Business Solutions Design


Congratulations on your helpfully Mission Statement software. I just proposed to my company's owner to use it to improve our own statement.
I hope he doesn't fire me today


the mission statement generator kicks ass.


We've adopted a manual translation scheme that works well:
Substitute "Warfighter" for "customer" or "business", or add "for the warfighter" when neither of those codewords exist in the mission statement. It works quite well here in the Pentagon...
Thanks for producing this useful tool!


Subject: You Imbicile!

Dear Sir,
You created a "Mission Statement Generator 1.0" for the website of the Dilbert comic strip.
While a laudable endeavor and a great idea, your execution of this project was doltish in the extreme.
Any Mission Statement generated by your little whatsit will have two split infinitives. Even one split infinitive would earn it the displeasure of English teachers and other people like me the world over. Two is, to put it mildly, simply unpardonable.
If you want a safe excuse, feel free to tell the world that you are simply poking fun at the poor grammar skills of middle managers. This may even be true.
In any case, I urge you to correct this serious fault. And by the way, I'm sorry I called you an imbicile. I really do like the program thing, except for that one thing with the split infinitives. You do know what a split infinitive is, right? I've actually come across some people who didn't, which is why they used them. An infinitive is a verb written in the form with a "to" before it, e.g. "to swim" or "to eat" or "to go." A split infinitive is when the verb and the word "to" are separated, or split, by another word or words, as in "to boldly go."
That's bad.
Happy typing!

NOTE: The Author of this complaint spelled imbecile incorrectly twice.