Scott - you once opined that the number of options affects a person's feeling of control (I'm paraphrasing to the point of complete fabrication, but still...) Meaning, having a few choices and options gives a sense of control, but having a lot of options feels the same as not being in control.

I wanted to buy Catbert t-shirts for myself and a few office buddies. I envisioned clicking on the shirt and ordering a few of each size. Easy and done. Then there were choices.

4 messages! Hmmm. Would everyone want different quotes on their shirts? Probably. Who would fit each quote best? And how should I match colors? I don't want Bob to get brown and secretly envy Steve's navy blue. And what if Sally thinks "Evil by design" is funnier than "99% Evil". And Jill is kinda goody-goody. She might take offense to evil references. And woe unto the fool who orders a "large" for Cathy, even though it's clearly the correct size.

So I gave up. It saved me about $150, but I still can't feel good about it.

I do think the best sale's power goes to "Evil by Design"

I liked the "Your efforts and your rewards are no longer related" in Brown.

I can't believe that nobody, including me, has voted this up yet.

My reaction is along the lines of: "There is no one in HR that I'd shell out $20 bucks for."

If a T-shirt is essentially a greeting card and whether anyone will wear it shouldn't be a consideration, then it makes more sense to get a greeting card with the same design that costs a tenth as much.

(What I'm saying is, your post makes a terrible argument.)

To be honest, these look to be the Dilberito of T-shirts.

Shouldn't it be 99 and 44/100% evil?

I like the 99% Evil and the Evil by Design the best. The other two, while expressing the current feelings of the working world just aren't as good. The Evil ones are good no matter what the situation is so they have the longevity factor built in.

When I click thru to the catbert shirt page, I see a sea of white with a small column of info in the center. In the center of this small column of info are even smaller thumbnails of the designs. But you don't just show the designs, you show the designs small in a sea of white t-shirt. The effect is that I can barely make out that there is writing under the design, and can't actually read what the shirt says. Then you give each shirt a title, which contains part (but not all) of the text on the shirt. The overall effect leaves me underwhelmed with your desire to have me look at or purchase any of these shirts. If you want to make it easier for people to buy the shirts, make the page more useful - less white, closer view of the images on the shirt, and include the actual text. Even better, when the text is IN TEXT on the page this improves the page's SEO, making it easier for people to wander across your catbert shirts when searching using any of the terms you used in the text.

Efforts & Rewards, definitely. Not only because it appeals to me intrinsically, but also because it's uncannily apropos of the recent situation in my department.

And did you just delete a feedback message? I could have sworn when I last looked at this page there were 11 messages. After I logged in and came back to the blog page, there were only 10...

Favorite: Catbert Efforts and Rewards T-Shirt

'Effort and reward' just sneeks it for me over 'It only looks like a coincidence'.
On an unrelated note, who used the line, "I'm not saying it's your fault: I'm just blaming you"?

It only looks like a coincidence. Funniest. It has a vague message, and just think of the passer bys staring at the shirt, trying to discern its meaning. If I had the money, I'd buy one for all of management. What are they going to do? Then again, I don't want to know.

I am in HR and I like the "Your efforts and rewards are no longer related" one if anyone wants to gift it to me.

I would get printed on the back, "Actually, they never were related it was just an illusion"

Most places that I know of do a lousy job of Reward and Recognition so I find it apt.

Even though i don't think it's been used in Dilbert, I'd like one referencing the old joke about when the HR Manager dies and has the choice to go to either heaven or hell. The punchline is "Yesterday we were recruiting you. Today you're staff"

Catbert could deliver that line perfectly.

"In order to conserve, you'll have to use half your cubicle space for storage, and the other half you'll have to share with the new guy"

"In order to cut down on the amount of unnecessary breaks, I've installed a lock timer on each of your cubicles so that you have the opportunity to take breaks at designated time periods, but only if you happen to correctly guess the number between 1-100 that I am thinking in my head"

"In order to increase productivity, I've given each of you a shock collar to wear while on the clock, it takes a screenshot every 3 minutes and zaps you if there are no changes in the text or if the image is constant or if a game shows up."

"Your efforts and your rewards are no longer related." I like that it has meaning even to someone who has never heard of Catbert.

I like "Your efforts and your rewards are no longer related" because it rings the most true these days...