Spin the Charts Cartoon

Sometimes people get your cartoon and they laugh. Sometimes people look at your cartoon and they scratch their head.

And sometimes people look at your cartoon and they find something horrible wrong about it.

Here's a cartoon that was published last week. I got a couple of emails about it the day it appeared.

One fellow -- actually the first of many to catch the mistake that I had unwittingly made in the cartoon noted that the cartoon:

" ... stated that if they rotate the charts 180 degrees that
would allow them to get out by 5 o'clock. If you rotate the charts 180
degrees they would look the same. You need to rotate them 90 degrees
counter clockwise in order make them look like they are increasing.

"I don't know why I decided to take the time to send you this note but for
some reason I did.

"Let me know if I am the only person that is so anal to have pointed this
out to you."

I wrote back:

"OK, you caught me.

"Looks like you are a savvy reader. Perhaps executives can use this
cartoon as a screening tool for potential management."

Actually, I was withholding the truth. I thought the cartoon was valid.

Like any good son, I went to my Dad for an explanation. He replied:

"Draw a slanting line on a scrap of paper and rotate it!"

After finally doing this, I had my "Aha!" moment.

My thanks to all the readers who wrote in, and for my Dad, the PhD, for pointing out how wrong the idea behind the cartoon was. The laugh, and the egg on my face, is on me.