does anybody know who the garbageman is?
is he a God?
some kind of alien?
a robot?
a cyborg?
an ordinary garbageman with superhuman intellect and reasoning?
a figment of Dilbert's imagination?
Dogbert's creation?
just curious...
Just a garbage renaissance man.
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Scott Adams (in "Seven Years of Highly Defective People," I think) said the garbageman is so smart, he chose to be a garbageman. He's the smartest man on the planet -- who are we to question his choices? Or something to that effect.
sharemy theory: he was too smart. he scared everyone else, so they made him be a garbageman, which he has turned almost into a holy mission of his
shareBecause, sadly, this is the mechanism of this world of averageness and mediocrity. I have in fact discussed this with a few fellow members of "The Table" during a meeting, and - while we wished we were not - we were quite unanimous about this...
you might try wrathofachilles's answer.nick
shareTrust me, it's not that hard to believe. A friend of mine is one of these people. He's so smart that he really can't function on the same level as the rest of polite society. So if you can't fully utilize your vast intelligence, it's completely understandable to go into a career that isn't considered important in the grand scheme of things.
"Are you in the army?"
"No man, I just have short hair."
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Ask Will from Good Will Hunting why he was a janitor.
shareMaybe Ben Afflek wanted to see how Matt looked like in a jumpsuit.
"Sir we can't call the ship 'The Enterprise.'
Why Not?"
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I heard garbagemen in New York City earn a hundred dollars an hour. That would excite the f*ck out of me. I probably wouldn't even mind the job because I've done something slightly similar..
shareAccording to the NY Department of Sanitations website: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/html/jobs/jobs.shtml
31,200/yr = $15/hour at 52*40-hour weeks. Not $100.
After 5.5 years, it can go up to a maximum of $67,141.
>>Ask Will from Good Will Hunting why he was a janitor.<<
Because the movie is nothing more than a Matt Damon vanity project.
I once read a strip in wich he explained that he made around 75-80 thousand dollars a year by working extra time, and he spent most of the work time reading magazines. Sometime things like that really happen in real life, the doorman of my cousin`s building was one of the smartest people i ever met, he had a vast general culture, he knew a lot about history, global politcs and economics, biology, auto-mechanics, engineering and technical drawing, etc. He was one of the coolest guys i ever met, after his expedient, me, my cousin and him aways went for a drink, and he told amazing stories about his life. We aways wondered if he was some sort of secret agent or something.
sharethat guy who makes 75-80 thou is the night janitor @ dilbert's workplace. I think the Garbageman is simply a super-intelligent man who works as a garbageman to earn cash for his expirements.
shareThere is a guy who works at the gym I work at that is a complete genius, and all he does is sit at the front desk. He just sits there, reads piles of books about so many different subjects it's unbelieveable, and listens to metal music. I talk to him all the time and I just find it amazing that this guy just sits at a desk part time (he works at a grocery store full time). One minute this guy will be reading George Carlin and listening to Nine Inch Nails, the next he is reading Nietzsche and listening to Cradle of Filth, the next day I go in, he is reading books on physics and listening to Tool. I asked him once why he doesn't go to college, he just told me there are more important things in life. He has the most interesting views on life that will make you rethink all your views on your ow life. Some people have started coming in just to talk to him while working out. I haven't seen this guy work out for months, though. People ask him how he can stand just sitting in one place most of the day, he just tells them that he isn't even there most of the time he is working. I don't completely understand this guy, but he lives a very simple life while being far beyond most of us, just like the garbageman. Last week, I found him reading something in German. I asked him how he learned it, and he just handed me a cd from Rammstein. When he isn't reading at the desk, I find him writing poetry and lyrics for his band. After I saw is band play one night (a death metal band called Autopsy Prophecy), I was completely shocked to see him talking to the audiance and just laughing and having fun while screaming into a mic. The next day I saw him and asked him how he can be so quiet and reserved at work, then go to a show and be so outspoken, he just said "There are several different pieces to all puzzles, here you see put one piece." This guy just seems to have never ending supply of interesting facts, stories, and theories on life and death. It seems that there are a few people like this that lay at the waysides of soceity, like the garbageman and leo's doorman. In fact, I think this guy only has one real friend. He seems to have even become more antisocial since his best friend killed himself.
Nothing fails like prayer.
Well to get back onto the topic about the garbageman in Dilbert, I have my opinion that he is Dilbert's father. Also, if one wants to know why such an inteligent man would take a job as a garbage man, well there was one episode where he states a philosophical statement that ment he knew it was necessary for life not to crash, or somthing like that.
sharethis guy ain't so smart . i knew a guy once who learnt german from just the word rammstein. besides you didn't say that the cd was by johnny rammstein, the famous german teacher. nick
sharei see how smart this guy is. i take it you paid for the drinks. nick
shareIn one of Adam's books he said that the garbage man represented a guy in his life that actually was a garbage man who cobbled broken stuff together and got them operational in no time. To Scott way back when that was genius so now we have the Dilbert garbage man, a true genius.
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The garbage man is as he is, because he is.
Fyi im sober.
"42 Its a happy cult" Kiwi
i think you are right on the money with your first thought, he must be god because he is the only character in the series that dogbert shows some sort of deference to. i'm not sure where that leaves dogbert, maybe some sort of prophet . this being the case then that makes catbert the devil. dear me, i'm going to do the unthinkable and mention an episode without all the details, but i'm sure it is the one where dilbert gets pregnant and dogbert openly mocks dilberts slavish belief in all things scientific...like your precious rocket i believe he says. this bespeaks of a disillusionment with rational explanations and paves the way for the viewer to start thinking about less rational belief systems and dare i say it ( to quote bhb) an underlying belief in a creator which cannot be understood by the feeble attempts of scientists to explain the machinations of him/her or the non sexual form the creator assumes. i am a scientist myself with some unconventional ideas and i think that dilbert is the best closely followed by futurama. look forward to your opinions. nick
shareThe garbageman chose the job for the 'glamour'...
He is so smart, that he sees things no one else does. (For instance, that he is performing a very important function, that gives him plenty of time to think.)
Also, he gets plenty of raw materials, and finds cool stuff in the garbage.
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the garbageman is a homage to Buddist stories of the enlightened appearing in unexpected and often lowly possitions or of christian stories of homeless people or the like being angles in disguise. in that sense he is God, but he is also simply an enlightened person. he's a garbageman because that's just where he is right now, there's no reason for it, he just is. he might someday decide go go wandering and quit his job, later showing up at some other job he took beecause it felt right.
shareIt's called "intellectual giftedness." Gifted people think on a level above the average person. Even the simplest of sensations(emotion, for example) feel more intense, and generally, more unique/beautiful. Gifted people are way above simple-minded jobs like garbageman, right? WRONG. For a multitude of reasons, gifted children/adolescents rarely act as "smart" as they are. First of all, they want to seem normal, to be accepted(anyone who was, is, or ever plans to be a teen can relate)so they don't put their hands up in class, and they don't work hard on tests, and in some cases, don't even do any homework! Also, gifted people NEVER develope well-rounded. A bar graph of their multiple intelligences would look like an amalgam of deep valleys and jagged peaks. As such, many do amazing in all subjects except for(ironically) the most crucial for high-paying jobs, e.g. math, or science. In fact, 40% of gifted individuals have learning disorders! So, unlike the stigma-spewing propaganda machine called modern television, highly intelligent people really don't get the best jobs. Take me for example. I'm 14, I have a learning disability in math/memory,(weakness in visual memory, sequencing) I suffer from recurring clinical depression with psychotic features, I'm a recovering alchoholic, I'm failing my classes, and yet, my i.q. is 164.(1 in 30,000 people) Appearances are friggin deceiving!.
P.s. sorry for all that, just lettin off some steam after a rough day at school
IQ 164 thats impressive. i am only 128 but i excel in the maths and sciences. i suck at everything else known to man, including spelling. anywaysss i think the reason the garbage man is a garbage man is because he is enlightened, like a monk. in the show he says he uses "shortcuts" it was an ep w/ Hawking so i just assumed he ment folding space, kinda as a joke; but now that i think about it it does make sense. wow.
shareIn one of the first garbageman dilbert comics, he walks up to dilbert and notices that dilbert had a quantum physics theory he threw in the trash. The garbageman corrects the figures and hands it back to him. Dilbert asks "If you're so smart, why are you a garbageman?" He responds with "The real question is, why are you an engineer?"
shareI think that he's symbolic, you know, that sometimes the engineers are looking for so complicated answers, that they forget that usually, just common sense is more than enough
share[deleted]
You guys are thinking way too far into this. As was mentioned before on this board (I think quite possibly the only good answer here. sorry, Im a cynic), he is simply because he is. Why not? That is more the question to be answered here.
Staying truthful to the comic, he is simply the smartest man in the world, and simply chose to be a garbageman for the "excitement" or the "glamor" of the job. Why the hell not be a garbageman. Being an engineer closely ties to searching for answers to problems. What happens when you know all the answers, why go through the motions? (the first person to post for the money, i will e-slap, because you obviously are are in-duh-vidual).
Looking at the series, in S01E10, The Knack, he is the substitute doctor for Dilbert when Dilmom brings him in to be checked because he took apart the stereo, and used the components to build a Ham radio. The garbageman (in doctor disguise still) mentions the "EEG" machine is broken, at which point the episode shows Dilbert intuitively fixing the machine, then subsequently turning it into a TV tuner. After the Dilfamily leaves, the garbageman disposes of the disguise, and takes off in the garbage truck. The show paints the garbageman's role as more of an omniscient (all-knowing, for said in-duh-viduals) being, somewhat of a protector of existence, who has taken a particular interest in Dilbert (quite possibly another implicit religious reference, painting Dilbert as some sort of messiah or at least key to the maintenance of existence (again, as seen in The Knack, where he single handedly saves all technology, which he had previously destroyed in the episode, when he lost the Knack).
One way or another, the real existence of the garbageman will most likely never be revealed to any of us, just as the name of Point-Haired-Boss (whose name, quite possibly in similar fashion to the garbageman, has been purposefully omitted to give readers / viewers a closer link to their own boss. All we can really do is draw conclusions about his existence, but until Scott Adams intentionally gives us the garbageman's purpose, we all shall never know the exact truth (hell, he might not know either).