Wally (Dilbert character)
Encyclopedia
Wally is a character from the Dilbert
comic strip, a lazy employee always trying to work the system.
at Pacific Bell. In Seven Years of Highly Defective People and What Would Wally Do, Adams explained that his co-worker at Pacific Bell
had made a judgment call gone bad, so management froze him at his position and pay scale rather than fire him. Then Pacific Bell started offering a generous severance package for the lowest ten-percent of workers, so the coworker, knowing he was pretty much hinted to leave the company and knowing it was better to leave the company with money than without, was given an incentive to become a low performing worker. Adams was inspired by this co-worker's serious dedication toward this goal, and the concept of a completely shameless employee with no sense of loyalty
became Wally.
Another co-worker of Adams provided the inspiration for the "Wally Report" (see below).
In early strips, there were characters who resembled Wally in appearance and had bit parts, not unlike Ted the Generic Guy. Some of the more memorable ones include Bud, a cynical engineer who broke the spirit of a newcomer; Les, a short-tempered, short man who clashed with Dilbert and other co-workers; Johnson, who failed a drug test by testing positive for Diet Pepsi
and Cheetos
; and Norman, who was "snorted" by a woman with a huge nose. This was referenced in a comic where the company's biggest customer was killed, and the PHB announced a plan to have one of the employees impersonate him, when the Boss held up a picture of him, he was revealed to be identical to Wally, who recognized and identified him as "Willy from the club of people who look exactly like me". The true Wally did not appear until October 21, 1991, when Adams wrote in the co-worker's story of attempting to get fired. By that moment, his name was "Bruce".
while hypnotized
. When the hypnosis wears off, Wally claims he is more "soiled" than usual and asks if he had been working.
Wally drinks numerous cups of coffee. He does little work and avoids situations in which he has to work. Since he does not feel loyalty to the company, he annoys other people by asking frivolous things during budget requests, disregarding rules, hanging around others' cubicles (especially Alice's), and turning his cubicle into a pool. He has often been criticized for a lack of hygiene, particularly chronic flatulence
. In the TV series he constantly needles Alice with sexist jokes, which usually are met with violent retaliation from her.
However, Adams notes that Wally is "effective in his own way." Despite (or perhaps because of) his laziness, he often finds creative means of solving problems, such as getting Alice to bend a metal rod for Dilbert's computer project by telling her it's an award "for being male". Less constructively, he uses his laziness to get others to do his work for him, and has many creative excuses for avoiding work (such as "imagining what it would be like to be a fly").
On a personal level, Wally has been married at least three times; his last wife divorced him because of his long work hours. He appears to have a crush on Tina the Tech Writer (although the feeling is far from mutual), and has dated several times since, even gaining a trophy wife when he became "cool" by growing his hair long and tying it in a ponytail.
Wally is the outcome of thousands of generations of selective breeding, designed to produce no Biometric impression: No pulse
, no fingerprints, no DNA
.
Wally has a mentor-student relationship with Asok, and once told him that the reason he enjoys talking to him is that he is there.
Occasionally at staff meetings, he gives the PHB the "Wally Report": an over-dramatic, story-like report detailing his weekly "accomplishments" which are always trivial if not nonexistent. Some of these include:
1. Copying 'over 800,000 bits of data to a disaster backup facility'(copying his resume to a diskette)
2. Stating that 'he had so much work, his happiness was in extreme jeopardy. So instead of doing his work, he wrote the Wally Report instead.'
Dilbert
Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
comic strip, a lazy employee always trying to work the system.
Inspiration
Wally was inspired by a coworker of creator Scott AdamsScott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation....
at Pacific Bell. In Seven Years of Highly Defective People and What Would Wally Do, Adams explained that his co-worker at Pacific Bell
Pacific Bell
The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company was the name of the Bell System's telephone operations in California. It gained in size by acquiring smaller telephone companies along the Pacific coast, such as Sunset Telephone & Telegraph in 1917...
had made a judgment call gone bad, so management froze him at his position and pay scale rather than fire him. Then Pacific Bell started offering a generous severance package for the lowest ten-percent of workers, so the coworker, knowing he was pretty much hinted to leave the company and knowing it was better to leave the company with money than without, was given an incentive to become a low performing worker. Adams was inspired by this co-worker's serious dedication toward this goal, and the concept of a completely shameless employee with no sense of loyalty
Loyalty
Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause There are many aspects to...
became Wally.
Another co-worker of Adams provided the inspiration for the "Wally Report" (see below).
In early strips, there were characters who resembled Wally in appearance and had bit parts, not unlike Ted the Generic Guy. Some of the more memorable ones include Bud, a cynical engineer who broke the spirit of a newcomer; Les, a short-tempered, short man who clashed with Dilbert and other co-workers; Johnson, who failed a drug test by testing positive for Diet Pepsi
Diet Pepsi
Diet Pepsi is a no-calorie carbonated cola soft drink produced by PepsiCo, introduced in 1964 as a variant of Pepsi-Cola with no sugar. First test marketed in 1963 under the name Patio Diet Cola, it was re-branded as Diet Pepsi the following year, becoming the first diet cola to be distributed on a...
and Cheetos
Cheetos
Cheetos is a brand of cheese-flavored cornmeal snack made by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin invented Cheetos in 1948, and began national distribution in the U.S. The initial success of Cheetos was a contributing factor to the merger between The Frito Company...
; and Norman, who was "snorted" by a woman with a huge nose. This was referenced in a comic where the company's biggest customer was killed, and the PHB announced a plan to have one of the employees impersonate him, when the Boss held up a picture of him, he was revealed to be identical to Wally, who recognized and identified him as "Willy from the club of people who look exactly like me". The true Wally did not appear until October 21, 1991, when Adams wrote in the co-worker's story of attempting to get fired. By that moment, his name was "Bruce".
Characteristics
The animated series portrays Wally as the "shell" of a long gone great programmer. As described by a female employee in a flashback "He just programmed an entire database from scratch!" He is used later in the episode to solve the Y2K bugYear 2000 problem
The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...
while hypnotized
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
. When the hypnosis wears off, Wally claims he is more "soiled" than usual and asks if he had been working.
Wally drinks numerous cups of coffee. He does little work and avoids situations in which he has to work. Since he does not feel loyalty to the company, he annoys other people by asking frivolous things during budget requests, disregarding rules, hanging around others' cubicles (especially Alice's), and turning his cubicle into a pool. He has often been criticized for a lack of hygiene, particularly chronic flatulence
Flatulence
Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...
. In the TV series he constantly needles Alice with sexist jokes, which usually are met with violent retaliation from her.
However, Adams notes that Wally is "effective in his own way." Despite (or perhaps because of) his laziness, he often finds creative means of solving problems, such as getting Alice to bend a metal rod for Dilbert's computer project by telling her it's an award "for being male". Less constructively, he uses his laziness to get others to do his work for him, and has many creative excuses for avoiding work (such as "imagining what it would be like to be a fly").
On a personal level, Wally has been married at least three times; his last wife divorced him because of his long work hours. He appears to have a crush on Tina the Tech Writer (although the feeling is far from mutual), and has dated several times since, even gaining a trophy wife when he became "cool" by growing his hair long and tying it in a ponytail.
Wally is the outcome of thousands of generations of selective breeding, designed to produce no Biometric impression: No pulse
Pulse
In medicine, one's pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed against a bone, such as at the neck , at the wrist , behind the knee , on the inside of the elbow , and near the...
, no fingerprints, no DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
.
Wally has a mentor-student relationship with Asok, and once told him that the reason he enjoys talking to him is that he is there.
Occasionally at staff meetings, he gives the PHB the "Wally Report": an over-dramatic, story-like report detailing his weekly "accomplishments" which are always trivial if not nonexistent. Some of these include:
1. Copying 'over 800,000 bits of data to a disaster backup facility'(copying his resume to a diskette)
2. Stating that 'he had so much work, his happiness was in extreme jeopardy. So instead of doing his work, he wrote the Wally Report instead.'