Work Daze

Far be it for us to get on the wrong side of the American Management Association. Our managers have already tagged us as utterly useless, and if our negatives as employees weren’t trumped by the negatives we’ve kept from the 2005 Christmas party, we’d have long since entered to the final stage of employee life. A moment of silence, my friend, for the dearly disposable.

Therefore, let me quickly assert that when I devoted a previous column to the new best-selling, blockbuster books coming from Berrett-Koehler Publishing, no way did I mean to diss the better-selling, bigger blockbuster books from the publishing arm of the AMA, Amacom.

Amacom knows exactly what up-and-coming manager types want to read, which proves how hopeless a case I am. Looking at their Fall-Winter 2007 catalog, I must report I’ve never seen a bigger collection of silly, time-wasting hogwash.

Frankly, if this list represents what our bosses will be reading, they’re even dumber than we thought.

As evidence, let me mark this slim volume as exhibit A – Judith Bardwick’s “One Foot Out The Door, How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business.” Now, you know there’s trouble ahead when the cover immediately lets you know that the author is a Ph.D. After all, you don’t need to see that a book is by Danielle Steel, Ph.D. or Stephan King, DDS, to know you’ve got your hands on a juicy read.

Bardwick’s thesis does bear some merit, however, and when she describes workers as “fearful and feeling vulnerable,” I suspect she may have been peeking in our cubicles. How else would she know that you are “merely going through the motions?”

If her diagnosis is correct, her treatment is whack. Ms. Ph.D expects our bosses to “strengthen the bonds of trust and respect between managers and employees.” But if we really do have “one foot out the door,” how is it possible? Of course, our managers could slam the door on our foot, turning our tarsals and metatarsals into peanut butter. But this will mean medical expenses, so a more likely response will probably include a foot on our posterior and a trusting, respectful kick.

Once safely out the door, we can turn our attention to another new Amacom book, “Acing the Interview” by Tony Beshara. This literary paperweight trumpets the inclusion of 450 sample interview questions, the better to “answer the questions that will get you the job.”

This could be helpful. In the time since your last job interview, you may have forgotten how to respond to basic questions, like “Which do you consider most valuable – a high salary, job recognition, or advancement?” [Let me save you $16.95. The correct answer is “Advancement, sir. In fact, I plan to be sitting in your chair in six months and then you can be on the street and see how you like answering stupid questions.”]

If you decide to skip the job hunt altogether, and you were born without a Y chromosome, you’ll want to pick up Susan Wilson Solovic’s “The Girl’s Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business.” Frankly, I thought we were supposed to address “girls” as “women,” at least, that’s what I was told by the chick in HR. Clearly, this book does not pander to political correctness. One of its selling points is a focus on “taking emotions out of the workplace,” a stereotype of the over-emotional female if ever I saw one.

As Ms Wilson Solovic apparently does not understand, there is no one who can throw a tantrum more convincingly than a man, and if you doubt it, try removing the Ho-Ho’s from the office snack machine.

There is one book on the Amacom Fall-Winter list that not only has best-seller written all over it, but also delivers actual management value. “India Arriving” by Rafiq Dossani is a serious study of Indian society and culture. But don’t let that worry you. The power of this volume does not come from reading about the effect of out-sourcing on traditional Indian culture. With this book, all the manager has to do is place it on the corner of their desk. When we worker bees see what the boss is reading, we’ll get our feet out of the door and our butts in gear. Hey, we don’t need an Amacom book to tell us that if don’t get moving, the only thing that will be arriving in India is our job.