Wally (Dilbert character)
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Wally is a character from the Dilbert comic strip. Inspired by a coworker of creator Scott Adams at Pacific Bell, he is a lazy employee always trying to work the system, although he is very capable at his occupation. In Seven Years of Highly Defective People and What Would Wally Do, Adams explained that his co-worker at Pacific Bell wanted to avail himself of the generous severance packages being offered by the company during a period of downsizing, because he was told there was no future for him at the company; he thus embarked on a mission to get fired. Adams was inspired by this co-worker's serious dedication towards this goal, and the concept of a completely shameless employee with no sense of loyalty became Wally. Another story from Adams have him based on a co-worker who made some sort of error, not huge enough to get him fired, but huge enough to wreck any chance of ever advancing in the company. Without any incentive to work hard, he began to do as little work as he could, and succesfully managed to stay with the company for years.
In the animated series, we discover that Wally was once a great programmer. He is used later in the episode to solve the Y2K bug while being hypnotized.
Due to his obsession with coffee, Wally's idea of "work" is simply carrying around a cup of the beverage, of which he drinks hundreds of cups a day. He also has a notable lack of hygiene. There is, in fact, a group of people that look like him, which led to Wally once being arrested for impersonating a dead man (and, since he gave the police a fake name, also caused Asok's career to go down the tube). Wally has no fingerprints, pulse, DNA, body heat, or the like. He reveals that his ancestors selectively bred to leave no such means of identification, and cites their reason as being "we prefer to ask why not" [as opposed to asking why]. Wally has no feelings for other people around him, so to him, it's okay to irritate people, ask poor Asok for frivolous things during budget requests, and do things at work that are forbidden by policy. For example, he got rid of Dilbert's monitor when company policy asked the employees to get rid of office equipment they never used, and once turned his cubicle into a pool. However, he does have a mentor-student relationship with Asok, and once told him that the reason he enjoys talking to him is that he is there.
Wally enjoys viewing pornographic web sites, as indicated in a couple of strips. He was married at least four times but is now single (his wives all filed for divorce due to the boss forcing Wally to work several hours of overtime) and has no children (his last attempt at reproduction was at the cellular level). His personal life is a bit odd; for example, he has a veterinarian for a doctor, and he once started taking "Yoda" classes in the belief that they were yoga classes.
Look-alikes of Wally appeared in innumerable early strips, but like the later "Ted the Generic Guy", he was initially used as only a random co-worker of Dilbert's. In early strips, he was called (among many other names) Les (Short Version), Norman, Bruce (Cheater Version), and Bud. He was first referred to as Wally in the December 10, 1992 strip, and has been ever since.
[edit] External links
| Dilbert | |
|---|---|
| Characters: | Alice • Asok • Carol • Catbert • Dilbert • Dogbert • Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light • Pointy-Haired Boss • Ratbert • Wally • Minor characters |
| In other media: | Animated series • Books • Plop: The Hairless Elbonian |
| Terms: | Cow-orker • Imaginary productivity |
| Other: | Scott Adams • Dogbert's New Ruling Class • Elbonia • Dilberito |
