August 27, 2004 3:03 PM

Who came first -The Dilbert or The Cubicle?
Posted by at 3:03 PM

Although Dilbert might protest, Bob Propst knows because after all, he is the creator of the cubicle.

Propst has created a monster. The modern American office he envisioned as a place where productivity, if not happiness, would thrive has become exactly the kind of environment loathed by those who wear suits and collect regular paychecks. But Propst wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He does not accept the blame for the nightmare that his grand idea has evolved into. "I don't even feel faintly guilty about Dilbert," Propst says from his suburban home near Redmond, Washington. "The things expressed in that comic are the very things we were trying to relieve and move beyond. It was a Dilbert world even back then. Everything we worked toward tries to express something more interesting."