How to Get Someone to Do Their Job

I had an office job at one point. I was well and truly the lowest person on the org chart, so much so that they would have needed an extra piece of paper tacked onto the bottom of the chart to accurately reflect my position.

That said, one of my daily duties was to make sure that everyone used the time-tracking software every day to record their billable hours. It was one of my favorite parts of the job, because I got to browbeat people who made much more money and had much more power than me. The people I harassed were fine with it, because they got to ignore me without any fear. Our communal boss got to blame everyone but himself for the fact that the hours weren’t getting recorded the way he wanted.

In a way, it was a perfect system.

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How to Hide Your Achilles Heel

When it comes to giving directions, there are two kinds of people: street name people and landmark people.

Street name people base their direction on street names. “Turn right on Spruce, go about a mile, then hang a left on Main.”

Landmark people base their directions on landmarks. ““Turn right after the Best Buy, go about a mile, then hang a left at the Trader Joe’s.”

I once witnessed an argument between someone offering landmark-based directions, and someone who wanted street name-based directions. The directions involved turning at a Denny’s.

The person receiving the directions asked, “What if I don’t see the Denny’s?”

The guy giving the directions said, “A Denny’s is a hell of a lot bigger than a street sign.”

The logic was impeccable.

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How to Be a Good Parent

The idea for this comic sprang into my head almost fully formed. I worked at a resort hotel where the children’s entertainment program featured a pirate cruise and a princess tea party, both of which were held at the same time. I watched the pirate pontoon boat sailing off, leaving the bejeweled princesses back on shore and I thought, “What kind of pirates are you?”

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How to Figure Out "Who's That For?!"

The first time I accidentally hit the insert key on my computer, it messed me up for something like an hour. I thought I was going to need a new computer, or at least to reinstall the OS to fix it.

My third car was the first one I ever owned that wouldn’t start unless you pressed in the clutch. For days I was convinced that there was something wrong with the car, because sometimes it just wouldn’t start. The clutch situation was eventually explained to me by a mechanic. He was not particularly nice about it.

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How to Plan Your Halloween Costume

Apparently, during the filming of Dune, the men who wore the stillsuits put them on as often as they could and kept them on for as long as possible. It turns out the stillsuits were really flattering, and made the men wearing them feel great about themselves. They’d stand around in the middle of the desert wearing what amounted to a black wetsuit, and they didn’t want to take them off because they looked so studly.

There’s a word I haven’t used in a long time. “Studly.” I think there may be nothing less studly than using the word studly.

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How to Have Nice Things

Our home used to be mostly carpet with a little tile. It was not a surprise that the cats usually threw up on the carpet.

Now our home is about 50/50 tile and carpet. The cats still mostly throw up on the carpet.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something about carpet that makes cats sick.

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How to Make a Crass Generalization

I’m not exaggerating about the Kingdome. It was a brutalist wart on the face of Seattle. (And please note, I am using the term brutalist properly.) The men’s rooms were exactly as described in this comic, and the only thing that kept 50% of the people who came in from guessing wrong as to which trough they should start with was the fact that there was always a long line of dead-eyed men cycling through, demonstrating which trough was being used for what that day.

At that point in history, the Seattle teams that played in the Kingdome didn’t give their fans a lot of reason for joy or hope.

I don’t know what the ladies’ rooms were like.

Actually, I’m not sure there were any.

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How to Handle a Deadline

In a weird way, I used to view making the comic—and still see writing my novels—as a video game, or at least an excuse to “play” with my computer. It’s less action packed than video games, but this way I have something I can point to that I made when I’m done.

When I was a kid, I had a toy typewriter and a toy safe. I used to put the safe on top of the typewriter and pretend it was a computer.

. . .

Is that normal? A toy typewriter and a toy safe? Were my parents trying to prepare me for life as a Notary Public or something? Come to think of it, I had rubber stamps too.

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How to Develop an Idea

I would never advocate the plan I lay out in panel four, but it does have a certain logic to it. Over time, we would eliminate our least competent young people, and our angriest and most delusional elderly. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound good.

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How to Explain Your Marginal Beliefs

Ric is not what you’d call smooth, in that he has a talent for saying the exact wrong thing. One example I’ve given before is the time we were in a room with his daughter and I saw a big spider near him. I tapped Ric on the shoulder, and pointed to the spider, hoping he could “deal with it” before she saw it.

Instead of “dealing with” the spider, Ric said, in a loud, clear voice, “Don’t let her see it. She’s terrified of spiders.”

I also, am not smooth, in that I am literally covered with hair. I firmly believe that physically I am a step or two closer to our simian ancestors than most people.

My lack of smoothness and Ric’s collided several years ago, when I was working at Walt Disney World. He brought his daughter to Florida to hang out and enjoy the parks. She wanted to go to one of the Disney water parks. I went along.

At one point, it became clear that I would have to take off my shirt in front of people, including Ric and his daughter. I turned my back on them, as I always do, because stunned silence is easier to deal with than a look of shock and revulsion. I took off my shirt, the customary stunned silence ensued, but this time the silence was broken by Ric saying, “Yes. I know.”

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