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Dilbert

An Unlucky Everydude who would be the Only Sane Employee if he hadn't stopped caring about his work years ago. Failure Is the Only Option when it comes to his attempts at dating.

Allegedly Dateless: He actually does get out on a date now and then, even post-Liz. But he's still portrayed as useless with women.
Arbitrary Skepticism: In the TV series, he holds the scientific line of the world we're familiar with despite inhabiting a Mundane Fantastic setting. It borders on Flat-Earth Atheist at times.
Back from the Dead: During a very early story arc, he was killed by Mother Nature and wild deer before being cloned back to life by Dogbert.
Brutal Honesty: He's very straightforward with the Pointy-Haired Boss.
Bungling Inventor: Especially in earlier strips, but this attribute occasionally shows up later on as well.
Casanova Wannabe: In a strip, a girl calls just to tell him she'll never go out with him, even though they never met!
Cloning Gambit: Shortly after he gets Killed Off for Real by a deer ordered by Mother Nature, Dogbert inherits Dilbert's cloning machine. With the garbage man's help, Dilbert is cloned back to life from his own garbage.
Disappeared Dad: Subverted. He and Dilmom know where he is - he just hasn't had enough to eat at the "All You Can Eat" restaurant. Which he's been living in since December of 1992.
The Eeyore: His main characteristic is to point out how bad everything is and how every effort is doomed to failure. In fairness, he's usually right.
Expressive Accessory: His tie normally just levitates, but it sometimes changes according to his mood. It stands up straight when he's scared or surprised, goes limp when he's feeling weak or faints, and goes stiff or flat when he's... "excited".
Forced Transformation: He once got turned into a sheep.
Insufferable Genius: Convinced that he's always right about everything and not shy about letting everyone else know it.
Pointy-Haired Boss: I'm getting reports that you're being arrogant in meetings.
Dilbert: That's because I have a deep understanding of technology and a moral obligation to keep simpletons from ruining the world.
Pointy-Haired Boss: Maybe you could tone it down.
Dilbert: There's no kill switch on awesome.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As insensitive as he can be, he is shown to be sincere and understanding towards others.

Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Dilbert has killed about half a dozen people, and crushed a microscopic inhabited planet, all by accident.
Mr. Fixit: The TV episode "The Knack" depicts him as having been this from a young age, and shows what happens when he temporarily loses the ability.
No Mouth: Though the cartoon establishes that his mouth appears only when he's using it (and it has made an appearance in the occasional strip as well).
Only One Name: His last name (if he has one) is never revealed. Scott Adams says that the lack of a last name is part of a psychological trick to help readers feel as if Dilbert works at your company.
Only Sane Employee: Downplayed. While he's aware of the madness around him and not afraid to respond with biting sarcasm, he doesn't care enough to actually try to make things work, and he wouldn't be able to control the situation if he tried.
Only Sane Man: He's the everyman who knows exactly how crazy everything is, both on and off the job.
Opaque Nerd Glasses: We never see his eyes.
Science-Related Memetic Disorder: The TV series diagnoses him with The Knack, "a rare condition characterized by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical...and utter social ineptitude."

White Collar Worker: Along with all the other characters who work at his company.

Dogbert

Voiced by: Chris Elliott

Dilbert's anthropomorphic dog and foil. An Evil Genius, Heroic Comedic Sociopath and The Barnum who constantly exploits everyone with consummate ease. He is bent on Taking Over The World and succeeded a few times, but relinquished his power because Victory Is Boring.

Apathetic Pet: Frequently pushes Dilbert around and shows contempt towards him (and by extension, humans in general). When the situation calls for it, though, Dogbert will bail Dilbert out.
Author Avatar: In one series of comics, Dilbert realizes that he is actually living in a simulation and that there is a comic strip about him called "Dilbert". Dogbert then admits to being one of these, an avatar that allows the simulation's creator to interact with it. Dilbert refuses to believe it.
Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Scott Adams: "Ultimately, Dogbert will always rescue Dilbert."
The Barnum: As far as he's concerned, people are there for his amusement and idiots are there for his profit.
Been There, Shaped History: According to a book publisher in the cartoon, he was Deep Throat.
The Caligula: Whenever he takes over the world or becomes CEO of Dilbert's company, his guiding leadership principle is For the Evulz.
Characterization Marches On: He was originally explicitly Dilbert's pet, complete with walks, attempts at getting him to fetch things, and games of Frisbee. Today, he is officially referred to as Dilbert's "roommate" and Adams remarks that he can't imagine trying to write Dogbert as a pet now.

Deadpan Snarker: Has the driest wit of anyone in the strip, and that's saying a lot.
Demoted to Extra: Downplayed. Dogbert started out as the strip's secondary lead, alongside Dilbert. While he still appears frequently, he has to share the spotlight with Dilbert's co-workers more than in the strip's early days.
Even Evil Has Standards: Even Dogbert won't lie for a Dot-Com founder.
Expert Consultant: Dogbert is periodically hired as a consultant of some kind by Dilbert’s employers. He frequently gives deliberately terrible advice, masked by appropriate buzzwords, for his own amusement.

Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Even named as such by Scott Adams, himself.
Informed Species: Dogbert barely looks like a dog. There are a few small, white, and fluffy breeds he could be, but his general shape resembles a Cephalothorax, and it's easy to forget his nose isn't actually his mouth.
Insult Backfire: If you call him "cynical", "superficial", etc.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He regularly acts apathetic towards Dilbert, and often trolls and insults him out of boredom, though Scott Adams punctuates Dogbert will always bail Dilbert out when things are at their very worst. In the cartoon especially, many of Dilbert's problems are started and then resolved by Dogbert.
Karma Houdini: He is prone to ruthless power plays at worst and moments of petty Comedic Sociopathy at best, almost none of which are met with any retaliation. In some cases he seems to voluntarily relent just from how boring it becomes.

No Mouth: Much like Dilbert, his mouth is usually invisible, outside talking in the cartoon.

Odd Job Gods: Thor showed up to give him the position of God of Velcro in an early strip, although he hasn't actually done anything with the title since.
Older Than They Look: In the cartoon- if he really was Deep Throat, it makes you wonder how old he actually is...
Only Sane Man: Just as cynical as Dilbert, but with any lack of morality, is usually the only one to ever get things done.
Opaque Lenses: Like Dilbert, we never see his eyes.
The Operators Must Be Crazy: Dogbert often works as tech support. The best advice you can hope for from him is Have You Tried Rebooting?, since he mostly uses the job to amuse himself by abusing his callers.
Other Me Annoys Me: Dogbert founds a consulting firm staffed by clones of himself. He has to dissolve it when every single one of them embezzles from him, and he notes it as the end of his "journey of self-discovery".
Psycho Sidekick: He frequently manipulates things behind the scenes to help Dilbert.
Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He has gotten off lightly for various crimes, including murder, due to his wealth.
The Tell: Whenever Dogbert is successfully cheating someone, his tail wags.
Uncatty Resemblance: To Dilbert, his identical glasses and No Mouth giving him the same vacant look.
Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Dilbert regularly quip at each other, but they remain friends. Dogbert likes to mess with Dilbert on the regular, but if Dilbert ever gets into deep trouble, Dogbert will always be there to bail him out.

Ratbert

Voiced by: Tom Kenny

A rat adopted by Dilbert who just wants to be loved. Demoted to Extra after the strip started focusing on Dilbert's workplace.

Ascended Extra: A rare case of a character being both Ascended Extra and Demoted to Extra. Ratbert was originally intended for only one storyline, involving a laboratory experiment. The character grew on creator Scott Adams, to the point where Dilbert welcomed him to the family. When the strip later became almost entirely about Dilbert's workplace, Ratbert faded into the background, but then ascended yet again (albeit relatively briefly) when the animated series came around.
Butt-Monkey: As a literal lab rat he has been subjected to numerous comedic indignities, to say nothing of his role in Dilbert's "family".
The Caligula: When he was briefly CEO of Dilbert's company. He was fired for dipping employees in varnish and using them as furniture.
The Ditz: While generally well-meaning, Ratbert is also pretty dumb, no thanks to the experiments performed on him during his time as a lab rat.
Extreme Doormat: According to one of the scientists from his lab, he was specifically bred to have no willpower.
I Just Want to Be Loved: His main motivator. He desperately wants Dilbert to love him as he does Dogbert, but initially met with little success due to being a rat. Eventually, Dilbert accepted him into the family and he became more The Friend Nobody Likes.
Informed Species: He looks more like a kangaroo.
Love Makes You Stupid: After being sweet-talked back to the lab he escaped from by the scientist who used to experiment on him, he was presented as scientific proof of this truth and wound up on the cover of TIME magazine.
The Pollyanna: Ratbert usually tries to stay positive, even when it doesn't work out for him. This trait was more present in his earlier appearances, when he was attempting to get Dilbert to accept him into the family.
Took a Level in Jerkass: He's a lot nastier when working at Dilbert's company than he is at home. Some examples include beating a deformed salesman with a wooden spoon to motivate him, and his The Caligula tendencies mentioned above.
Under Strange Management: At one point, he managed to become the CEO of the company Dilbert works at after the previous CEO died. The power quickly went to his head and he became The Caligula, and he got fired after just a week on the job for abuses like dipping employees in varnish and using them as furniture.
You Dirty Rat!: Very much an aversion, but other characters still treat him as such.

Bob, Dawn and Rex

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bob_dawn_rex_0.png

L-R: Dawn, Rex, Bob

Bob the Dinosaur is The Artifact from before the strip began devoting itself to office humor. He used to have a mate named Dawn and a son named Rex, but they fell prey to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.

The dinosaurs in general

Artistic License – Paleontology: Constant. For instance, Bob and Dawn's size (only somewhat larger than a human) is attributed to the fact that dinosaurs really weren't all that big and hid giant fake bones as a gag.
Cannot Tell a Lie: Apparently, dinosaurs are almost incapable of lying, though Bob and Dawn have taught themselves some "simple lies" as a survival strategy ("I've never been tempted to read the National Enquirer").
Cult Defector: Bob and Dawn joined Dogbert's cult but decided to defect after he ordered them to kill each other. When they announced their resignation Dogbert informed them that he was kicking them out, causing them to beg to be taken back.
Dumb Dinos: They are not the brightest, especially Bob due to his walnut-sized brain.
Miss Conception: Bob and Dawn don't know how dinosaurs have eggs and have to call the library for instructions.
Bob: [on phone] I have this… er… friend… who was wondering how dinosaurs have eggs. Uh-huh… [to Dawn with a squeamish expression] It's gross.

Bob

The Artifact: There's little place for him in the office environment. He briefly worked at Dilbert's company, in procurement, but this hasn't been mentioned in a while.
Bumbling Dad: In relation to his son, Rex. He didn't even know that his egg was supposed to hatch!
Laser-Guided Karma: His job at the office is to give people wedgies. Sometimes, they really deserve it.
The One Who Wears Shoes: He's the only animal character who wears shoes — a pair of sneakers. They were originally a joke about how he could have been stealthy enough to be hiding in Dilbert's house.

Dawn

Inconsistent Coloring: In some colored strips, Dawn is brown, she's orange with yellow spikes in others, and in still others she's green or gray.
Whateversaurus: Dawn is a "Nobodysaurus".
Women Are Wiser: While still dumb, Dawn is smarter than Bob.

Rex

Meaningful Name: His name sounds like "wrecks" and was given after he kept wrecking Dilbert's things.
Strong Family Resemblance: He looks just like a tiny version of Bob.

Dilmom

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eeeeeeee.PNG

Voiced by: Jackie Hoffman

Dilbert's mother.

Mama Bear: Try to get Dilbert executed, end up in a shallow grave.
Never Mess with Granny: Not a grandmother yet/ever due to her son's terrible love life but nevertheless.
Offing the Offspring: Considered doing this to Dilbert after he was sent to assassinate her but decided against it.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is never revealed.

Dilbert's company

Pointy-Haired Boss

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phb.png

Voiced by: Larry Miller

His own namesake trope sums it up. Dilbert's nameless boss is dumb, sometimes descending to ditz levels, and utterly sociopathic.

Characterization Marches On:
- For the first two or three years he was a typical Mean Boss, mean and uncaring but not exactly stupid. It took him awhile for his familiar personality to emerge.
- Reviewers note that as Scott himself grows older and more conservative, PHB is shown in a more positive light, and Dilbert is friendlier towards him.
The Cuckoolander Was Right: Sometimes, his stupid questions on potential problems actually turn out to be the right thing to ask. For example, he correctly guesses that their new software will hunt down their payroll data across the internet and delete it.
Damned By a Fool's Praise: Any idea he likes will be seen as stupid. He's also a fan of Barney the Dinosaur.
Delusions of Eloquence: He uses buzzwords without having a clue what they mean, and comes out sounding like a puppet who ate a dictionary.
The Ditz: One episode of the animated series shows him losing a game of chess...to a pineapple.
Dumbass Has a Point: He's only an idiot when managing his subordinates. When dealing with other departments and upper management he's actually the straight man undermined by Dilbert's social ineptitude and bluntness.
- In fact, here, he seems perfectly friendly and sane with Dilbert, because the CEO is also apparently a moron.
Expository Hairstyle Change: He didn't have pointy hair in his original appearances, and this strip depicts his haircut change as time passes on.
The Main Characters Do Everything: As part of his role as generic "manager" he can be anything from a bottom level manager with three direct reports, head of the department (although sometimes those three-six people are presented as the entire engineering department), on the Board of Directors, or the de-facto CEO in different strips.
Mean Boss: Mostly in earlier strips and the TV series. Adams says that in the strip, PHB has become "more noncaring than overtly mean".
Never My Fault: Is utterly incapable of realizing or admitting he actually might be wrong. Even in instances where Alice has pointed out that he has done something wrong, he'll claim she misheard him.
No Listening Skills: He is legendary in-universe for selective hearing. This can both frustrate his underlings, or in some cases, they can exploit this flaw.
Nominal Coauthor: In-Universe. In more than one strip, the Pointy-Haired Boss insists that Dilbert add his name to the patent application, since the program was written while Dilbert is an employee.
No Name Given: In the cartoon, he tends to go under many names, most probably fake ones, whenever it serves his purposes. Scott Adams reveals he has no name intentionally so readers can picture him as their boss.
Oblivious to His Own Description: His employees will mention a certain idiot that has been getting in the way of their work, and he usually doesn't notice that they are referring to him.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Mainly used to prevent his subordinates from getting healthy raises or promotions, which are prohibited by the company.
Pointy-Haired Boss: The Trope Namer. He has pointy hair like a devil's horns and is symbolic of the idea that incompetents get Kicked Upstairs.
Reconstruction: One doesn't become boss without understanding office politics. He may be dumb in managing his subordinates and understanding technology, but he's surprisingly insightful when dealing with other departments and upper management.
Sarcasm-Blind: He frequently doesn't notice his employees insulting him with sarcasm, and has occasionally made them implement their own sarcastic suggestions too.
Too Dumb to Fool: Dogbert tries to con him into thinking he will help fix the year 2000 problem, a bug in which some programs will mistake the year 2000 for the year 0, except Dogbert's guarantee will end before the year 2000 arrives. The boss doesn't care because the year 0 is before he was born, and Dogbert notes how amazing it is that he would actually have to be smarter to do something stupid.
Took a Level in Dumbass: Started out relatively intelligent, but now he's pretty much a complete idiot.
Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed. While he's not as mean as he was in the strip's earlier years, this has more to do with his previous cruelty being dulled by apathy than actually becoming a nicer person.
Turing Test: He has failed at least three of them.
Ultimate Job Security: Thanks to the Dilbert principle: companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing. Explained by Dogbert in a 1995 strip, and then fully explored in Scott Adam's book of the same name.
Unbuilt Trope: While he's one of the most famous and influential examples of the trope he named, the strip shows how somebody like him can become a manager, demonstrating that, in spite of being clueless about his subordinates' work, he's actually very good at navigating office politics. In fact, there are some strips where he and Dilbert have to deal with executives or other managers; in these strips, he plays the Straight Man who gets undermined by Dilbert's lack of social skills and ignorance of the company's inner workings, especially regarding other departments and higher levels of management. Tellingly, when Dilbert gets promoted to management, he finds himself completely out of his depth. This means the PHB is in the odd position of being a reconstruction of a trope he helped popularize in the first place.

Wally

Voiced by: Gordon Hunt

The poster child for Dismotivation, Wally is The Slacker and happily exploits his Ultimate Job Security to the fullest extent.

Acquired Poison Immunity: In one strip, he develops immunity from drinking too much coffee and asks a doctor to tell him a higher grade, side-effects be damned.
Ascended Extra: Wally - or at least, his physical appearance - originally started out as a model for generic employees (akin to Ted, or perhaps Barney Calhoun), and several of Dilbert's co-workers in the early years of the strip bore his appearance. Slowly, however, the individual character emerged, eventually giving form to Wally. This is Lampshaded in one strip, where the PHB mentions that he's fired 3 people that week just because he thought they were Wally. The all-time total is at least 9. There's also a strip where Wally discusses a "society of people who look like me."
Boss's Unfavorite Employee: One of the more understandable examples, as Wally goes out of his way to avoid doing anything even resembling productive work.
Brilliant, but Lazy: His schemes to get out of doing work are sometimes convoluted enough to qualify him for Magnificent Bastard consideration... he's obviously a very intelligent guy, just not very motivated.
Cynical Mentor: To Asok.
Dismotivation: Employees fired for incompetence receive a very generous severance package, so Wally's life is devoted to actively being as terrible an employee as possible in order to qualify.
Establishing Character Moment: This strip.
Gasshole: If there's a flatulence joke, he's the source.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: In an episode of the TV series, Wally appeared with hair in a flashback to his days as a young engineer.
Insistent Terminology: Will occasionally remind people that he's "useless, not lazy"- he will frequently go to extra lengths to not do work, sabotage someone's efforts, or convince people not to try to make him do things.
Jaded Professional: The TV series characterizes him this way, with flashbacks in the episode "Y2K" showing him as an enthusiastic, hardworking and competent young engineer.
Laborious Laziness: He goes to extreme lengths to avoid work on occasion. When someone questions him on the fact that he puts actual research into his excuses, he replies:
"I'm not lazy, I'm useless. There's a big difference."
Must Have Caffeine: Was once forced to cut back to 40 cups of coffee a day.
"Not double digits!"
Opaque Lenses: His glasses don't show his eyes.
Prematurely Bald: He's implied to be around the same age as Dilbert, but has long since gone bald - the few strands on the back of his head are all he has left.
Professional Slacker: Self-described as such. Since the benefits package is so good, he doesn't even care if he gets fired, yet he rarely ever does. The result is Wally is completely useless at his job. Not that he minds.
The Sociopath: Has described himself as one on one occasion, and certainly has no qualms about causing other people problems for his own laziness or entertainment.
Turing Test: Once wrote a bot program that would respond to his emails for him while he was allegedly telecommuting. It took four months for management to figure out that they were talking to a machine because the responses the program gave were just as useless as the ones Wally himself produced.
Ultimate Job Security: And he knows it. Because Wally knows he can't get fired, he puts in only the bare minimum of effort to his job, if that. And yet, for all his slacking, the Pointy-Haired Boss never even threatens to fire him, let alone actually do it. In the series, he's been at the company for almost thirty years and is the only one who knows how their legacy mainframe works, along with being the only COBOL programmer.

Alice

Voiced by: Kathy Griffin

Workaholic who responds to the hopelessly clueless of the workplace with her "Fist of Death".

Ascended Extra: Much like Wally, Alice started off as a generic employee. Her name fluctuated for a few years.
Black Bead Eyes: Her eyes are black dots.
Catchphrase: Must Control FIST OF DEATH!
Deadpan Snarker: She does not mince words.
Pointy-Haired Boss: Alice, people are uncomfortable with your communication style.
Alice: Did someone complain?
Pointy-Haired Boss: No, I'm picking it up in their body language.
Alice: So...people have bad posture and that means I don't say things right?
Pointy-Haired Boss: Call it a gut feeling.
Alice: Ohhhh, that sounds rational. Let's toss some feng shui into the equation and maybe get a psychic to contact the dead to see what they say about me. OR MAYBE EVERYONE COULD STOP BEING WHINY BABIES! ...Oh, wait, I see it now.
Dude, Where's My Respect?: Just wants recognition for all her hard work.
Hair-Trigger Temper: It doesn't take much to trigger a Fist of Death from her.
Honor Before Reason: Alice largely refuses to game the system like Dilbert and Wally despite the utter futility of actually trying to do their jobs.
Improbable Hairstyle: Her hair is curly and triangle-shaped.
I Resemble That Remark!: Acknowledging her Hair-Trigger Temper will make her respond in a way that proves the point.
Pointy-Haired Boss: Thanks, Hun.
Alice: "Hon"?! YOU SEXIST %!*%! I WILL BURN YOUR VILLAGE AND MAKE SLAVES OF YOUR CHILDREN!
Pointy-Haired Boss: It's short for Attila the Hun. Everyone calls you that.
Alice: That seems harsh.
Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: She likes to refer to her fist as her "Fist of Death".
Megaton Punch: Her Fist of Death can punch holes through people.
Monster Fangirl: In the TV show, she's not only wildly attracted to Card-Carrying Villain and all-around sleazeball Bob Bastard but trolls prisons for boyfriends and has married at least two death row inmates moments before they got the chair. When one was found to be innocent and had his death sentence revoked, she completely lost interest in him.
Reality Warper: On occasion, she's managed to break reality through sheer rage, once snapping a man's suspenders so hard he was thrown into the next Tuesday. She also once slapped a man so hard he traveled back in time. Another occasion had her punch another man so hard, it hurt every other person who had the same degree as him.
Sir Swears-a-Lot: Although we don't get to see her exact language, we know it's strong enough to do physical damage to everyone in earshot.
Took a Level in Jerkass: According to the PHB in one strip, Alice used to be friendly and earnest when she started working, but developed a serious temper after only two weeks of working under him. Of course, he's the only one clueless as to the reason why.
Weapons-Grade Vocabulary:
Pointy-Haired Boss: How did you learn to swear like that?
Alice: I used to date a one-eyed carpenter.
Workaholic: Possibly the only employee in the company who actually wants to do her job.
Yank the Dog's Chain: She regards a rare compliment as making everything worthwhile. Then the PHB said he was going to put her work in the back-up material...

Asok

Voiced by: Tom Kenny

An intern from India, Asok is The Pollyanna and a Bollywood Nerd. He has genius-level IQ (and psychic powers), but is naïve when it comes to the company's bureaucracy and incompetence.

Bollywood Nerd: An Indian man with a genius-level IQ and lots of technical proficiency. Possibly the Trope Codifier, at least for American audiences.
Butt-Monkey: Asok always gets passed over for promotions, and several strips show him becoming the victim of a massive workload or cruel pranks and abuse by the senior employees. His introductory arc sets the tone by having him get tossed around like a tool, then tricked into climbing into the air vent.
Cloning Gambit: When he was going into space in a spaceship built by his company, if he died, he was going to reincarnate into his clone. He did and it succeeded.
Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Played for Laughs on two occasions: once when he had his preferences altered by an optogenetic device used by the marketing department (who had intended to make him like the color gray), and again when Scott Adams explicitly made the character gay to protest the criminalization of homosexuality in India:
Dogbert: Okay, we're done here.
Asok: Good, because I have a lot of gay stuff to do.
Improbably High I.Q.: Claims 240.
Inappropriate Role Model: A common gag is for him to idolize and receive mentorship from awful people, most commonly Wally.
The Intern: He entered the strip as a skilled, but naive and gullible newcomer to the company. He remained in this position despite becoming more experienced, as the company just refuses to promote him.
Limited Advancement Opportunities: It's been mentioned a few times that he's been doing the job of a senior engineer for years, the company just refuses to promote him.
Naïve Newcomer: His introduction had him as the new transferee being broken in by Dilbert and company. Eventually he'd existed in the strip long enough that Adams dropped this aspect.
The Pollyanna: He always struggles to be an optimist in the Crapsack World he lives in.
Psychic Powers: In the Noughties a Running Gag developed that his time at "the" Indian Institute of Technology^notethere are actually several had left him with telekinesis and the ability to make people's heads explode by thinking about it.
Straight Gay: He's explicitly gay, but he displays no stereotypes.
Token Minority: Adams has said Asok was an attempt at an aversion - he worried that adding any ethnic minority character would provoke backlash because all his characters have amusing flaws and people might regard those flaws as being a stereotype - so Asok's defining flaw was 'inexperience', which was obviously temporary. Naturally, he was still blasted as a negative stereotype to start with.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Asok seems to think he works at a normal company.

Catbert

Voiced by: Jason Alexander

The evil Director of Human Resources.

Arch-Enemy: Catbert greatly enjoys firing people, but since Wally actually wants to be fired, the two of them are locked in a life-and-death struggle.
Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: He has red fur.
Ascended Extra: Was originally supposed to be a one-off character, but fan reception was so strong that Adams decided to keep him.
Bondage Is Bad: To emphasize how depraved Catbert is, in the cartoon, he's shown engaging in what can only be described as G-Rated BDSM.
Card-Carrying Villain: Proudly rationalizes his HR decisions as For the Evulz. "Evil Director of Human Resources" seems to be his real job title, and in the series, "Evil Director" is actually on the nameplate of his office door.
Cats Are Mean: The reason Adams put him in HR — a cat would toy with you before downsizing you.
Cute Is Evil: His cuteness is actually one of the reasons he was hired.
Evil Versus Evil: He once attacked Mordac for messing with his stuff, saving Dilbert from having his gadgets taken.
Faux Affably Evil: Dogbert hired him because he "needed someone who acts like a friend but secretly delights in the misery of all people."
For the Evulz:
Alice: How many of your policies are designed solely to satisfy your own sadistic tendencies?
Catbert: All of them. Some are just more obvious than others.
Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He gets glasses once he becomes HR Director.
Inhuman Resources: His job title is literally "Evil Director of Human Resources". He takes a sick delight in making the employees' lives as miserable as possible.
Non-Indicative Name: After featuring an unnamed cat in a single story arc, Adams made him a recurring character after fans dubbed him "Catbert", following from "Dogbert" and "Ratbert." Unlike them, he's not a member of Dilbert's Quirky Household and has no relationship to Dilbert except as the HR Director at his company.
Obviously Evil: He's always called "the evil H.R. director" by everybody.
Opaque Lenses: We never see his eyes through his glasses.
Pragmatic Villainy: When the PHB suggests killing the entire software testing team and replacing them with one medium, Catbert points out that if the dead people lie, they won't be able to punish them.
Schmuck Bait: Delights in it. Like a real cat, be very careful if he lets you scratch his tummy...
Catbert: HAHAHA! It's a health benefit! Now I'll cut everyone's salary!
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Jason Alexander's purring delivery on the TV show.
Troll: Catbert frequently abuses his powers as HR director to make the employees suffer for his own amusement. This can range from the minor, such as making employees tape brooms to their buttocks, to the major, such as making up a form and telling Wally he forgot to fill it out to make him lose his vacation time.

Carol

Voiced by: Tress MacNeille

Not so much a Sassy Secretary as a Bitter Secretary Who Hates The World, Everyone In It And The PHB In Particular. Constantly messes with the PHB, sometimes plotting to kill him, while doing her job in the most haphazard way possible.

Demoted to Extra: In the animated series.
Nietzsche Wannabe: Nearly every sane person in the strip is this (it's justified), but Carol is the most outstanding example.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Whenever an employee asks her for anything, she will be as unhelpful as possible out of pure spite. How dare they ask her to do her job! Can't they see she's busy wasting time?
- Her Obstructive Bureaucrat status was lampshaded right from the get-go... in earlier strips, before she was given the name Carol, characters referred to her as "Miss Cerberus".

Sassy Secretary: She's constantly snarking at the other characters, especially the PHB.
Ultimate Job Security: Justified. She's the only one who knows how to fill out termination paperwork, so the PHB can't fire her without her help. She can't get promoted, either; in one strip she gets her MBA, but the boss informs her that the stigma of having worked as a secretary means the company won't employ her as anything else.
Yank the Dog's Chain: When she gets her MBA and the Pointy Haired Boss congratulates her, Carol actually finds herself sincerely content and proud of her work for once. Unfortunately it all crashes down when she finds out the boss' reward (a free coffee for herself every time she gets his), leading her to fly into a rage.
Alice: Next time you have coffee, we'd like to watch.

Loud Howard

Voiced by: Jim Wise

A minor character appearing in a few strips, but he became an Ascended Extra in the TV Show. His main distinguishing feature was that he was extremely loud.

Ascended Extra: He only had a few appearances in the comic strip, but became a recurring character in the TV adaptation.
Composite Character: They also borrowed from fellow minor character appearing in a few strips, Nervous Ted — the TV version spends a lot of time shouting about trivial and frequently downright bizarre worries.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: His sole distinguishing characteristic is that he is extremely loud.
Gale-Force Sound: The sound of his voice is strong enough to blow people's hair back. At one point, he even knocks over Alice by screaming at her.
Hypocritical Humor: When he reappeared for the first time in the comic strip, he was shown shouting at the top of his lungs about there being a reorg, and how he wasn't supposed to tell anyone. He then immediately threatened to shush Asok when the latter quietly asked about the reorg.
No Indoor Voice: The reason why he's called Loud Howard.
Volumetric Mouth: He talks like this.

Tina

A tech writer at Dilbert's company. Introduced as a Straw Feminist (her introductory strips literally dared readers to become as offended as possible), she is now mostly played as a foil to Alice.

Black Bead Eyes: Her eyes are black dots.
Dumbass Has a Point: Tina is portrayed as unreasonable when she's interacting with Dilbert, Wally, or Alice. When she interacts with the PHB, however, Tina is played as the sane one.
Foil: For Alice. Both of them have a Hair-Trigger Temper, but Tina's stems from her brittleness and Straw Feminist nature, while Alice's is more a result of years of annoyance from her incompetent co-workers. Additionally, Tina's rage rarely results in anything changing, while Alice's temper tends to result in the use of her Fist of Doom.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Her main schtick, especially in earlier strips.
Indubitably Uninteresting Individual: Tina is sometimes shown talking to other employees about subjects which only interest herself. For example, one story arc has Dilbert need to yawn really hard to get someone out of his ear canal, and his response is to head to Tina, who immediately and gladly starts talking about her porcelain frog collection when asked.
Insistent Terminology: Tina will tell anyone who regards her as an Office Lady (that's everyone, by the way) that she's an "experienced technical writer".
Never My Fault: Anything and everything wrong with her life can be blamed on misogyny. She has to actively ignore that Alice makes more money than her.
Only Sane Man: When assigned to do the employee newsletter, she points out her co-workers are Asok and Ratbert, and there's no way the assignment will succeed. It doesn't.
Straw Feminist: Although not the stereotypical man-hater type. Instead, Tina is an illogical hypocrite who uses sexism as a scapegoat. Although this was her original defining character trait, it has since mostly fallen by the wayside. In the commentary for these strips Adams claims he wasn't even aware this was a stereotype at the time; the joke was supposed to be that she had a brittle personality in general. Adams then made "Antina" (anti-Tina) as a response to people who thought Tina was a swipe at feminism. Antina was everything Tina was not - which immediately drew complaints, since many people interpreted Antina's butch personality as a swipe at lesbians. It's interesting to note that Antina's introduction was one of the very, very few times Dilbert's tie drooped downward.

Ted the Generic Guy

Ted The Generic Guy

A personality-less employee used in situations which would otherwise require a one-off character. Has thus been fired and killed a number of times, but it never sticks. Scott Adams has joked that there must be more than one Ted in the company.

Bob from Accounting: He represents a generic coworker.
The Generic Guy: He has no distinctive traits.
The Nondescript: He's so generic and unmemorable that people who've known him for years have trouble describing him.
They Killed Kenny Again: While he's died multiple times, he never stays dead.

The CEO

A guy with a tall bald head who makes the PHB seem like a kind person in comparison. There have been several different CEOs in the series with the same appearance and personality, making him an upper-management version of Ted.

Corrupt Corporate Executive: While he isn't much smarter than his underling, PHB, he misuses his power and is much more ambivalent to the state of affairs in the office.
The Faceless: For most of the strip.
Unexplained Recovery:
- He once misunderstood Dogbert's advice to take a poison pill and consumed a literal poison pill, killing himself. He showed up again good as new with no explanation a long time later.
- With Dogbert's sinister encouragement, he has also bungee jumped into a volcano, presumably burning to death, with Dogbert finding his replacement. He reappears later with no explanation.
- Dogbert is hired to assassinate him. He later comes back, once again with no explanation, but it is lampshaded that he came back from the afterlife, and implied that he's a demon.
Wicked Weasel: One strip reveals him to be a weasel passing as human with a rubber mask.
You Have Failed Me: Once tells the PHB these exact words over a blog that was proving an embarrassment to the company.
Your Size May Vary: The size of his gigantic forehead varies from strip to strip, with it being drawn larger in later strips on average.

Finance Trolls

Voiced by: Gilbert Gottfried

The trolls in charge of accounting.

Obstructive Bureaucrat: One of their more common roles, often making it difficult to get things out of them.
Was Once a Man: The trolls were once human up until they worked in accounting. Dilbert once turned into one after breathing the air where they work, and some people are already changing into trolls without knowing it.
Weaksauce Weakness: They tend to be defeated through hilariously mundane means. In their first appearance, Dilbert defeats their leader by erasing the numbers for the accounting department's budget. Later on, Dogbert manages to make an accounting troll's head explode by wearing a baseball cap on backwards, something that their hardwired accounting brains can't handle.
Your Head A-Splode: Their heads have been known to blow up when exposed to something they could not handle, like a backwards hat or some really terrible financial situation.

Robot

The office robot, who first appears to take over Wally's functions.

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: It has on occasion gone rogue due to mistreatment or misuse.
"It" Is Dehumanizing: Inverted. It actually prefers "it" over "him" because, being able to produce more robots without a partner, it feels that gendered pronouns only apply to lesser beings.
Job-Stealing Robot: It first appears as a potential replacement for Wally and frequently gloats to its colleagues that they will soon be replaced by robots.
Kent Brockman News: It is the host of "Robots Read News", a comic Scott Adams occasionally posts to his blog, and often plays this role.
Kill It with Water: Since it's a robot, it's vulnerable to getting shorted out by water. The first time it goes rogue, the PHB tries to kill it by dousing it with a fire hose, so it'll be eligible for a replacement under warranty.
Mind-Reformat Death: Its mind has been erased a few times, and it considers the people responsible to be murderers.
Robosexual: It used to date Alice, though not voluntarily ("Man, I wish I had free will"), and is coparenting a cyborg child with another human ex-girlfriend.
Robotic Psychopath: To demonstrate to the CEO what it would take for a robot to take his job, the robot deactivates its empathy routines.
The Singularity: Dilbert teaches it how to program. Alice points out that the point at which robots can program themselves leads into this trope, rendering humans redundant.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: People care a lot less about its rights due to it not being human.

Topper

One of Dilbert's coworkers, with the annoying habit of trying to outdo everyone at everything.

The Ace: Or so he claims. Whatever anyone else has accomplished, he's supposedly done something orders of magnitude more impressive.
Catchphrase: "That's nothing!"
Flat Character: Whatever someone says, he has to say something more extreme. That appears to be his entire personality.
Inflating Body Gag: When Dilbert tries to increase his "alpha male dominance" by taking up more space in the room, Topper counters by inflating like a pufferfish.
Meaningful Name: His name is Topper, and he has to top everything.
Serial Escalation: Every story you tell, he did it better, even if it seems logically impossible.
Alice: I didn't get much sleep last night.
Topper: That's nothing! I'm part of a secret government test on sleep deprivation. I haven't slept since February.
Smug Smiler: Always wears an annoying, smarmy smirk.
Visual Pun: At one point, Alice removes his head, revealing that he's full of bologna.

Mordac

Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche

The tech guy of the company... in theory. As his name suggests, he goes around making everyone's work just that little bit more difficult.

Bullying a Dragon: Made the mistake of making Catbert's printer a shared device.
Demoted to Extra: Only appeared in one episode of the animated series.
For the Evulz: He shows up and breaks stuff for no real reason.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: One of his schemes to prevent people using information services backfired, when he said employees would get a replacement laptop if he destroyed theirs. Cue the rain of laptops.

Reverse Psychology: Since it's literally his job to give employees the opposite of what they want, Alice once managed to manipulate him into giving her everything by pretending that she didn't want anything.
Those Two Guys: Was accompanied by a sidekick, "Walter the Budget Man", in his sole animated appearance.

Other

Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light

An Odd Job God who rules Heck and punishes minor sins. Also the PHB's brother

Adapted Out: Didn't appear in the cartoon, for whatever reason.
The Artifact: He generally had more to do before office humor took over.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: Has done this to people many times. One of his crueller punishments to people at Dilbert's company is to do nothing whatsoever.
Gosh Dang It to Heck!: "I Darn you to Heck." This is, indeed, distinct from hell in more than just name; while hell is, well, hellish, heck is mildly unpleasant, such as being forced to sit in a mostly empty room with no magazine and a temperature slightly above comfortable. He even wields a spoon instead of a pitchfork.
Odd Job Gods: He's in charge of a realm called Heck and part of his duties involve punishing people for minor misdeeds.
Sadistic Choice: Once tried to force this on Dilbert, making him choose between being poorly paid but appreciated or well-paid but having all his work destroyed at the end of the day. It backfired - Dilbert claimed that both choices were better than his current job.
Satanic Archetype: Parodied, as he mostly comes off as a very tame take on Satan.

The World's Smartest Garbageman

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche

An extremely intelligent man who seems to be something of a mentor to Dilbert.

Almighty Janitor: He's apparently the smartest man in the world, or close to it; when asked why he's a garbageman, his answer is basically "you wouldn't understand, because you're not the smartest man in the world".
Connected All Along: In the animated series, it's revealed that he masqueraded as a doctor into order to diagnose a young Dilbert with The Knack.
Crazy-Prepared: He keeps a sample of Dilbert's DNA around, just in case Dilbert ever gets turned into something.
Happiness in Minimum Wage: Despite his incredible intelligence, he seems totally content with his job as a garbageman; one strip where he was asked why had him answer that people who aren't as smart as him aren't qualified to question his lifestyle choices.
Inexplicably Awesome: Borderline omniscient and always there to lend a helping hand.
Mentor: He appears every time that Dilbert needs some kind of help.

Liz

Dilbert's first and only steady girlfriend, a materials engineer who meets Dilbert at a co-ed soccer game. She appeared in the comic from 1994 to 1996.

Flat Character: The major reason Liz's existence was so short-lived; Adams couldn't figure out quite what to do with her.
Maybe Ever After: In August '94 Adams started a reader poll asking whether Dilbert should go all the way with Liz or not. Female fans were practically unanimous in their voting that Dilbert should do the deed, but male fans were split. Half said he should, while half reported they used Dilbert's luck in relationships as a measurement for their own nerdiness, and they thought "Dilbert shouldn't get lucky before I do." Surprised by the polarized reaction, Adams decided on an ambiguous answer. This strip resulted. The 'down' tie was meant to be a code that Dilbert and Liz had sex, but the way it's presented is that any fan can draw the conclusion they prefer.
Nerds Are Sexy: Liz is a materials engineer who frequently speaks to Dilbert in science jargon.
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Dilbert once claims that their relationship violates the laws of the Universe.

Characters / Dilbert

Dilbert's home

Dilbert

Dogbert

Ratbert

The dinosaurs in general

Bob

Dawn

Rex

Dilmom

Dilbert's company

Pointy-Haired Boss

Wally

Alice

Asok

Catbert

Carol

Loud Howard

Tina

Ted The Generic Guy

The CEO

Finance Trolls

Robot

Topper

Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services

Other

Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light

The World's Smartest Garbageman

Liz

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Index

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Characters / Dilbert

Edit Locked

Dilbert's home

Dilbert

Dogbert

Ratbert

The dinosaurs in general

Bob

Dawn

Rex

Dilmom

Dilbert's company

Pointy-Haired Boss

Wally

Alice

Asok

Catbert

Carol

Loud Howard

Tina

Ted The Generic Guy

The CEO

Finance Trolls

Robot

Topper

Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services

Other

Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light

The World's Smartest Garbageman

Liz

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Index

Next