Move my cheese. I dare you. Yes, the business curmudgeon is now in residence. National layoffs and shady corporate accounting practices brought on a severe case of arthritis in my funny bone. Consumer debt, anti-mom hiring practices, a computer virus (and hockey playoffs that lasted well into May) just plain shut down my tickle reflex. This curmudgeon admits it recent business news has taken the sunshine out of my earnings forecast. This month, humor me as we look at three books that promise to reactivate the funny bone in any weary road warrior. Let’s just say they will help you bite off a new piece of cheese.
I need daycare Sometimes what ails you at work is what ails you at home. If you have ever worked from home (or thought about it) pick up Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom by Lisa Belkin. She’ll stop you before you do great damage to yourself. Belkin, the author of the witty weekly Life’s Work column in The New York Times, exposes the myths and joys of work, family and the balancing act that almost every woman tries to perform before realizing that it’s all just too much. With humor and happiness, Belkin describes the exacting way her kids and even her dog took all control from her life. They left her with a little time to work at the computer and a lot of time to clean up and make dinner for them. After Life’s Work you’ll never look at life and work the same way again.
Burn your business books The New! New Economy by Tim McEachern and Chris O’Brien is the one book you need to read to stay in business! Or not. A hilarious satire of just about every business book ever written, McEachern and O’Brien team to undermine and ridicule every business practice ever invented, touted or marketed as a “bestseller idea.” Have you ever suffered through the unqualified boredom of a marketing demographics lecture? McEachern and O’Brien have written down what you were really thinking while Consumer Insights Professionals painted a rosy picture of your demographic. (“18-29 year olds? A bunch of overspending baby nut cases. . . . 65 plus? They’re just accessing the bitterness.”) Yeah, this team says what you only thought. Forget Dilbert; he’s too tame. This is the kind of sarcasm you need to face your job day after day.
A dog’s life 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com by Mike Daisey is a memoir of a self-proclaimed dilettante’s life at Amazon.com, a time he remembers as work, play and Jeff. As he describes his first interview at Amazon: “There was a certain inescapable sameness to their responses. They seemed fixated on the words working,’ playing,’ and Jeff.’ Jeff came up constantly. I had no idea who Jeff was.” “Jeff” turns out to be founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and Daisey’s first clue that he was probably not cut out for techie Internet work. But Amazon hired him right away and the next two years of his life were spent bewitched and bedazzled by the Internet craze. Daisey’s tale is one of self-recognition in a business world gone mad. His curious, funny and slightly insane take on business will assure you that life at your office isn’t so bad after all.
