The Cubicle Survival Guide: Keeping Your Cool in the Least Hospitable Environment on Earth

Book Description

Help. . . . Cubicle Life Is Killing Me!

Leaving no stone unturned, no ergonomic chair unadjusted, and no leftovers in the communal fridge uneaten, this hilarious guide to cubicle life will be the salvation for the more than forty million Americans stuck in cubicles. By turns uproariously funny and enormously useful, each chapter tackles a different area of cubicle life and includes a “cube tip,” a quiz, illustrations, and examples that will have you laughing out loud. Discover

• how not to disturb colleagues with unwanted sounds and smells, such as the crunch-crunch of your sour-cream-and-onion chips and the unmistakable odor of your spicy Thai shrimp
• how to knock when visiting other cubicles and how to devise politically correct ways of saying “Do not disturb”
• the do’s and definite don’ts of cubicle decoration
• how to set up a security system that will rebuff potential thieves

The Cubicle Survival Guide could very well change your life and set you climbing the corporate ladder to success!*

* Results not guaranteed. Pay raises and promotions are up to your boss, but using this book
couldn’t hurt.

Praise for The Cubicle Survival Guide:

“A spiritual air conditioner for the cubicled soul.”
— Turk Regan, author of Pimp My Cubicle: Take Your Workspace from Boring to Bling!

"James Thompson’s The Cubicle Survival Guide offers the rare, and definitely appreciated, combination of laugh-out-loud humor and sound advice for surviving the jungle that is Corporate America. On some days, there’s nothing more motivating to fresh air-starved cube dwellers than a book that will simply crack them up. This is that book.”
— Alexandra Levit, Author, They Don’t Teach Corporate in College

"If you must work (and I don't recommend it), The Cubicle Survival Guide provides a wonderful way to slack off and stay entertained. You can easily kill two weeks with this book."
— Josh Aiello, Author, 60 People to Avoid at the Water Cooler

“Thompson provides a humorous yet thought-provoking look at what employees in today's large organizations must deal with besides their jobs.”
— Malcolm O. Munro, Author, From Cave to Cubicle

Customer Reviews:

If you like this book you are a nerd, the kind that wears dockers up to your navel and plays D&D until you're well into your 70s.......2007-07-13

I fail to see the humor in this book. I work in an office and I find the book to be perpetuating the same sort of eerily conformist corporate culture that the book jacket claims the book will lampoon. This book is for robots who have given up their humanity and want to pretend to laugh at their own misfortune. It's less "Office Space" and more "Human Resources Instructional Video: Now in Book Form!" Still waiting for the punch line...

An amusing idea that couldn't sustain an entire book.......2007-06-21

This book is like a good SNL skit idea turned into a bad movie. It makes long-winded, ironically intended observations about cubicle life that often left me yawning. If you have never worked before, it might be slightly useful to you. Otherwise, I'd say its practical advice is obvious. And its humor is luke-warm.

good humor.......2007-04-24

Fun book to read, although I was lost towards the last chapters especially when locking things done in your cube, using "Caution - Yellow Police Tape". It would attrack more looks to your area, which counterpoints his claims. Anyway, if someone at your office is out to get you, they will get you. So be aware of your surroundings, and be a good corporate citizend. That is all. And yes, I definitely recommend a Rear View mirror. I have one from a co-worker which was his car's sideview mirror, and it does say "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear". Good book, Mr. Thompson!

Fun book about an unfun place.......2007-03-31

What a fun read! I really enjoyed Thompson's take on life in an office. It's a hoot, but the humor couches some actual-factual advice that readers can truly use. If you've ever worked in an office, there will be more than one passage you wish your current or former co-workers would read and take to heart.

show u care!.......2007-03-27

This was a really funny book that anyone can appreciate. Filled with great "survival" advice, I think it would be a great "cube farm initiation 101" gift for the college graduate entering the corporate world!

The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics

Average customer rating:

Dead-serious anthropology and sociology masquerading as humor
All Bark, No Bite
Review of The Way of the Rat
Reviews in British press

The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics
Joep P. M. Schrijvers
Manufacturer: Cyan Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0954282922

Book Description

In the corporate environment where conspiracy rules, this guide exposes the power games played in the workplace and reveals strategies for not only surviving office politics but thriving. In East Asia, the rat is considered a symbol of resourcefulness, good luck, and wealth, making it an appropriate symbol for those people who have mastered the use of office politics for their own gain. With the rat as a guide, lessons inspire office workers to maneuver the proverbial workplace sewer. Witty, no-holds-barred writing makes this book entertaining and educational for employers and employees alike.

Customer Reviews:

Dead-serious anthropology and sociology masquerading as humor.......2006-09-10

The Way of the Rat is probably the best book on office politics I've ever read. The author, who toiled in the corporate and consulting vineyards for years, writes pungent and mordant observations on the way modern corporations really work. Part satire, part out-and-out parody, and even so, simultaneously a dead-serious work of corporate anthropology and sociology that is more than the sum of its parts.

However: to understand the cultural anthropology of the modern office, you need to understand anthropology in general, preferably with a smattering of evolutionary psychology thrown into the mix. Human beings have built and designed some wonderful things, ranging from flint arrowheads to Michelangelo's David to the Brooklyn Bridge to particle accelerators, but we're still giant hairless apes with swollen forebrains, and despite our carefully constructed facades, that's still how we act much of the time.

And you'll never see better examples of primate dominance hierarchies than you'll find in most "modern" offices.

Thus, I also recommend:

The Naked Ape : A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
(Good general introduction to practical anthropology)
Author: Desmond Morris
ISBN: 0385334303

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are
(Good general introduction to evolutionary psychology)
Author: Steven Pinker
ISBN: 0679763996

And for more general background:

Office Space
(Motion picture, 1999; director, Mike Judge)

Time allowing, it's also not a bad idea to brush up on your Von Clausewitz, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. A little dose of Hobbes and Kant wouldn't hurt either.

All Bark, No Bite.......2006-03-23

This books gets by on cheap shock value. It's full of evil sounding phrases but short on actual instruction.

For example he says "Humiliate and offend in order to achieve your personal aims."

How? The book doesn't say.

Another example, "Blacken your opponent by turning them into the villain while playing the innocent yourself."

Sounds great. Now, how do I accomplish this? Again, the book doesn't say.

It was chapter after chapter of this frustration. He offers no steps on how to carry out a single one of these plans.

He could just have easily have written "Overthrow the government, install a puppet regime, and proceed to rule with an iron fist."

I read it carefully cover to cover, and found nothing I could use. A wasted evening.

Review of The Way of the Rat.......2006-03-02

Schrijvers writes an unflinching, unapologetic, and arguably bleak portrayal of corporate life. What makes Schrijvers book so compelling is that readers, or at least readers with morals and values, should find themselves aghast at what on the surface reads to be an endorsement of abhorrent behavior in the workplace. Even more so if there is a hint of familiarity with which the reader identifies.

At times Schrijver's suggestions seem so outlandish that the reader should find themselves wondering if he could possibly be serious. To further confuse the reader, though written as a how-to manual, Schrijver clearly states that the book should be taken in jest. In the end a reader is left wondering if Schrijver is endorsing "rat" behavior or condemning it? More importantly, a reader should come away asking themselves, have I been a rat and is this really what I want to be?

Schrijver essentially asserts, by way of his "verminicity" test where one has no choice but to be a rat, that anyone working in an office environment has been subjected to and has likely themselves used rat tactics. For those who reject this label, Schrijver categorizes this group as "stupid rats". In other words, you're a rat whether you like it or not but you are just naive enough to miss the signs of verminicity that are apparently all around you.

Though much of what Schrijver writes is probably an accurate portrayal of the characteristics of office politics at many companies, one would have to be a hardened cynic to completely believe that this is true of all office environments. A more likely explanation is that Schrijver, a writer and consultant on personal development, grew dissolusioned. Dissolusioned with the pop-psychology business book-of-the-week, which self-anointed intellectuals and business leaders latch onto, praise, and then before long, begin to look for the next release to trumpet as a breakthrough.

This book strikes one as the anti-thesis of those types of books; a book where the writer grew tired of reading about synergy and shifting paradigms and decided to write a book to tell people how things really work in the real world. Schrijvers may have over shot his mark a bit, but one can hardly argue that he fails to make his point and his no-holds barred approach to writing is refreshing.

In the end, the writer coyly reveals his intended purpose of the book with an epilogue that appears to literally be a page out of a completely different book. While the balance of The Way of the Rat is figuratively a page out of a different book; a book that flies in the face of the ideas, buzzwords, and catch phrases so commonly seen in the genre of self-help business books.

Reviews in British press.......2004-07-20

Here are some reviews of 'The Way Of The Rat: a survival guide to office politics' published in newspapers and magazines in the U.K.

Management Today (June 2004 edition), book review by Professor Cary Cooper:
"I strongly recommend this book for its novel style and words of wisdom... It's not only extremely perceptive of human behaviour at work, but also fun to read."

Daily Telegraph (13 July 2004):
"Schrijver's book speaks frankly, and with an admirable lack of motivational nonsense, about the real dynamics of business success."

Book Description

A pragmatic guide to understanidn and dealing with the hidden world of office politics. It decodes the unwritten rules using case studies tips and anecdotes.

Customer Reviews:

Shows a LOT of promise!.......2000-04-05

Overall, "Office Politics" was very good. It contains a LOT of useful information. Charts, graphs, and self-tests help to explain hard concepts. The overall organization of the book was second to NONE.

However, the book was written in England. The "King's English" is used, and may confuse some readers. Also, a few anecdotes deal with UK politics. Readers unfamiliar with England's political situation may be confused or [worse] draw the wrong conclusions.

If the publisher would make a US edition AND reprint the book, I think they'd have a great business seller!

Average customer rating:

Tell It Like It Is !!

Best "From the Trenches" book I have ever read!

Laugh out loud

A fun bookclub read

Outrageously Truthful

The Official Secretary's Guide to Sanity and Survival
Cindy Hooper
Manufacturer: July Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Workplace | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Business | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Business & Professional | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0970437927

Book Description

A humorous and candid look at the secretarial field from someone who's been there…

If you've ever longed to tell your boss just where to stick it, then here's a book you should definitely read. Cindy tells it like it is as she unveils the real working world of the secretary—a vocation where low pay, no seniority, disrespect, and a lack of appreciation are just part of the job.

Are you working for a tyrant boss? Do you have a nasty co-worker to contend with? And does your job have you wearing more hats than a model in a fashion show? If you find that your work environment has become a living purgatory, then take a long lunch break, sit back, and get ready for some laughs. You might even find something humorous about your own bad job experiences.

Flavored with lots of offbeat humor, this book is a candid look at the eight-hour workday through the eyes of a burned-out, brain-fried secretary. Hide it in your desk drawer and read it when you need a good chuckle or just a moment of inspiration.

Customer Reviews:

Tell It Like It Is !!.......2003-11-05

A Funny Read. Hilarious. I'm not a Secretary, but unfortunately I've worked for those "different type bosses" described. A Secretary's job is no "piece of cake" nor is it just a day to day, nine to five--IT'S A MADHOUSE! Cindy has unveiled the profession and exposed it for what it truely is--

Best "From the Trenches" book I have ever read!.......2003-03-12

I have never laughed so hard in my life! When I began working, I was a secretary and it was like Cindy was transcribing my memories. I had lived many of these moments - I have read other how-to books but this tops all. Especially the interview chapter - talk about the boss from hell, in fact, I think I worked for him!

I thoroughly recommend this to any secretary out there - I know what they go through and this is a funny and saterical look at what they face on a daily basis - a must read. Not for the faint hearted - but should be on every secretarial desk in the world - and in at least 3 other languages. I absolutely loved this book!

Laugh out loud.......2003-03-01

I'm not a secretay, but a good friend of mine told me this was a "must read" book. This author has a down-home rapier wit. Her descriptions of the different "boss" types is dead on the money. If you're a boss you should definitely read this, but be prepared to recognize yourself in a different light.

If you're into Mary Poppins or The Good Ship Lollypop then keep movin' 'cause this ain't for you. If you enjoy the type of humor that hits you like a board-in-the-face then hang on and enjoy the ride.

This author is one lady that's been there, done that, and has the tee shirt. Only somebody whose lived it could write it so well. A good book for anybody who likes to laugh.

C. Burton
Washington, DC

A fun bookclub read.......2003-01-24

My bookclub consists of many temps and office workers and we read the book as a selection. Everyone got a kick out of it because everything that we endure is between these two covers! Cindy hits the nail on the head over and over again--we laughed out loud through the whole book! Sometimes you have to take what they give when your "workin' for a living" and Cindy's book provides us "secretaries" with a bit of humor and dignity in a stressful, underappreciated profession. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy this fun read!

Outrageously Truthful.......2001-12-28

Thank you Cindy for finally puting in words what all of us secretaries have been puting up with "since the dawn of time". This book is for anyone with a sense of humor. Anyone that has had a job or even heard of anyone having a job should get this wickedly hilarious book!!! Can't wait for the next one.

Average customer rating:

A woman's guide to business survival
A. R Head
Manufacturer: PMS Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Success | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Management & Leadership | Women & Business | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006RNSII

Amazon.com

Most books that predict a sky-high stock market make their forecast either by extrapolating the trend line of the market's recent past or by looking at the demographics of the baby boom and the vast amounts of retirement funds chasing stocks. In Dow 36,000, James Glassman and Kevin Hassett see a bright future for stocks, but rather than looking at external factors, the two base their prediction on the intrinsic value of equities and their ability to generate cash.

At the heart of Glassman and Hassett's argument is the idea that stocks have been undervalued for decades and that, for the next few years, investors can expect a dramatic one-time upward adjustment in stock prices. Why? While Wall Street has focused on valuation measures such as P/E ratios, it has virtually ignored how stocks can work as cash engines (the good ones, at least). The authors cite example after example of the growth in dividend income for stocks and how it has consistently beaten the annual payouts of long-term Treasury bonds. One example they cite is Exxon, which you could have bought in 1977 for about $6 when it was paying a dividend of 37 cents, or about 6 percent a share. Twenty years later, the dividend had grown to $1.63 or 27 percent of your initial $6 investment. Compare two $1,000 investments over 20 years in Exxon and 7.5 percent Treasury bonds: payments from the T-bonds would amount to $1,500; the Exxon dividends would add up to $3,585--not to mention that shares in Exxon went from $6 to $61 during that same period. To get to their target of 36,000, the authors project dividend growth of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow and apply a valuation measure that they call PRP ("perfectly reasonable price"). Many will dismiss this kind of thinking as wishful, but they're probably the same Chicken Littles who have been calling the market overpriced for years (think back to January 1993, when the Dow was hovering around 3,300).

In addition to making their case for undervalued stocks, the authors toss off some good investment advice about stock picking, portfolio allocation, and buying mutual funds, and they go to great pains not to bulldoze readers with investing and economic jargon. As you might expect, Glassman, an investing columnist for the Washington Post, and Hassett, a former senior economist with the Federal Reserve, are firmly in the buy-and-hold camp, and make the case for working with a full-service broker as a check against churning, something that's all too easy to do when trading over the Internet. This book is sure to rile some, but no matter where you think stock prices are headed, Dow 36,000 is a provocative read that belongs on the bookshelf of any thoughtful investor. Who knows? We may come to think of these guys as value investors on steroids. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

"Every stock owner should read this book."
-- Allan H. Meltzer, professor of political economy, Carnegie Mellon University

* A radically new way to determine what stocks are really worth
* Why the Dow is still poised to zoom
* Why the financial establishment is wrong
* Why stocks are actually less risky than bonds
* How to build a maximizing portfolio and invest without fear

"One of the hottest business books around. . . . It has wonderfully clear explanations of financial theory [and] excellent advice on general investing approaches."
-- Allan Sloan, Newsweek

"It may sound like headline-grabbing sensationalism, but the scholarly and punctilious authors make a persuasive case . . . the book is highly readable and witty."
-- Arthur M. Louis, San Francisco Chronicle

"Dow 36,000 is a provocative and well-written treatise that cannot be dismissed. . . ."
-- Burton G. Malkiel, Wall Street Journal

"Dow 36,000: Everything you know about stocks is wrong."
-- Jim Jubak, Worth magazine

Customer Reviews:

Worthless Gilder-Laffer-Wanniski supplyside nonsense.......2005-09-07

The major prediction made by Glassman and Hassett in this book,written in 1999,was that"A sensible target date for Dow 36,000 is early 2005,but it could be reached much earlier"(1999,p.140).This fantastic science fiction forecast,like the similar 1999 fiction forecasts of Abby Joseph Cohen, Elias(1999)and Kadlec(1999),was mathematically and economically impossible since the single best predictor of future stock market values is the rate of growth in gdp(gross domestic product).To obtain a Dow of 36,000 by 2005 at the latest would have required continuous quarterly gdp growth rates of 7%-8% from 1999 through 2005.Starting in late 1999(Sept.,1999) through March,2000,the 3 wisemen,Warren Buffett,George Soros,and Peter Lynch,liquidated all of the stocks in their portfolios and exited the market.They transferred their cash to other assets.Unfortunately,far too many financial investors failed to follow them out of all of the stock markets and ended up losing about 8 trillion dollars.The best long treatment of stock market behavior is the 3
rd edition of C.P.Kindleberger's Manias,Panics,and Crashes(1996).His major point was that you automatically have a bubble once you start hearing claims that there is a new economy that represents a complete break with all past market fundamentals.This was precisely the claim made by Gilder,Laffer,Wanniski,Glassman and Hassett,Elias,Kadlec,etc. Paul Samuelson's 1996 prediction-"Sometime in the next five years you may kick yourself for not reading and re-reading Kindleberger's Manias,Panics,and Crashes"-hit the nail on the head.The best short treatment is still chapter 12 of John Maynard Keynes's 1936 The General Theory of Employment,Interest and Money.

Absurd.......2005-04-28

James Glassman should apologize for his stupidity, his arrogance, and this book, which lured in a whole lot of amateur investors just as the stock market was about to go bust.

Paradigm Shifting? Not Yet........2004-01-16

The Dow 36,000 Theory is all about predicting a paradigm shift in current investors' perceptions. Tomorrow's investors are expected to forsake the old paradigm and embrace a new one. Authors James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett present the "discounted dividend" model of the stock market as their reason why stock prices will soar, eventually. In 1999, they said it could happen anytime but put a window on it of 3-5 years. Hasn't happened yet. But this book is important as a look-see into how academic constructs originate and work their way into "commonly accepted stock market wisdom." The P/E was once a kernel of an idea in someone's head. Now, it's the basic way to value stocks. So, conceptions do change over time.
Dividends, say Glassman and Hassett, whether paid out quarterly or totally retained in the company, are the only important way to determine a company's true worth. They call it the PRP (perfectly reasonable price).
To justify lofty expectations, the words "assume" and "assumption" are used dozens of times and lie at the bottom of what, so far, is wrong with this concept. Just because they calculate something as being worth many times what it's selling for today doesn't mean prices will skyrocket tomorrow. It requires acknowledgement and action by investors. We're back to the old high school conundrum of whether a tree makes any noise if it falls in a forest without anybody hearing it. It this case, the question is whether a stock will ever sell at its "true value" if nobody ever bids the price up that far? Obviously not.
Their credo, "Buy anytime, hold forever," as well as the recommended use of index funds is a recipe for never having to admit you're wrong regardless of what happens to your investment account. You never have to confront performance because that far away goal just hasn't been reached yet. Continue to hold. It's an enviable position, if you can get people to take you seriously. But Dow 36,000...is it possible? Sure, anything is possible if the paradigm shifts. It's shifted before and will shift again. The trouble with paradigm shifts is like Greenspan's recognition of a bubble. You won't know about it until it's already happened...and then it's too late,,,

waiting ............2002-11-08

As an addendum to my previous review, where I wrote that one reason I got out of the market was this book, let me add that before I get back into the market I'm waiting for "Dow 36" by Glassman and Hassett.

Authors that later lie about their message........2002-11-07

This book was one of the reasons I got completely out of the stock market in late '99 early 2000. When I read this pustulous piece of putrescent puffery I just knew I had to get out. THANK YOU KEVIN AND JAMES!!!!!

I come to write this review because just for a lark I thought I'd search the internet for Glassman, see what he's pushing today, so I can get out of it for my own safety.

In writing this review I treat the authors' late-90s media appearances and book-related articles all as one whole.

Hassett and Glassman are out there now (Nov 2002) writing (paraphrased) "we never wrote the DOW would be at 36000 soon".

I read the book in fact in winter 99/00 along with some of their articles, and did catch a few of their TV appearances. They definitely did write either in the book or one of the accompanying pieces (Washington Post or The Atlantic) that stocks are in a 'one-time surge' and everyone must GET IN NOW.

Their media appearances were even worse...

"GET IN NOW!!!
DON'T MISS THIS ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY!!!!
YOU'RE FOOLS IF YOU DON'T
MORTGAGE YOUR HOUSE TO BUY STOCK!!"

They used to remind me of that Joe Piscopo SNL salesman character (you remember, the frenzied salesman, "WE MUST BE INSANE!!! OUR PRICES ARE SO LOW WE'LL GO OUT OF BUSINESS YESTERDAY!!!!").

And they are completely unrepentant. I just read a Glassman article (Wash Post - why the ...are they still giving this unrepentant, lying moron/clown a stage?) claiming he was right all along and 36000 is STILL the DOW's fair value. Claiming that Siegel's research supported G&H's conclusions (Siegel, who currently seems bullish said they misconstrued his research. Interesting word, misconstued - is Siegel saying G&H are liars, idiots, or some combination thereof?). Claiming that all investors everywhere should still be fully invested in the stock market for the long term.

Something a lot of the other reviews are not pointing out is that G&H had ideological motives for pushing stocks (Glassman was once publisher of a right wing magazine, I forget which one). Both G&H were[1] republicans and both felt that the more people own stock the more conservative they become, in an attempt to protect their assets.

[1] I don't know their current predilictions.

Average customer rating:
Dow 36,000-The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market

Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HEQ9XQ

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