I had a VP for a while at Novell who said that someday he needed to write a book. I’m realizing now what he meant.

See, there are things that go on in the corporate workplace that make GREAT narrative. Unfortunately, sharing them outside of the corporate environment often constitutes “leaking secrets” or “destroying competitive advantage” or even “unauthorized communication with members of the press” — all of which may lead to termination.

I’m not saying it’s not great to work for Novell. It is. What I’m saying is that there are stories about work that I’d love to tell you, but that I won’t. At least not yet. And by the time I COULD tell them to you, they’ll have lost relevance, and I’ll have moved on to other things and will not be interested in reliving those events so that I can share them with others.

That VP has left Novell now, and I bet he’s NOT writing his book. He’s got other stuff to do.

For now, you’ll need to content yourselves with the knowledge that my comic strip is inspired at least in part by the things I experience in real life, no small percentage of which are my interactions with people at work. The gaps between the lines are huge, though… reading between them will be an exercise in data fabrication.

–Howard