As graduation day arrives for Hello Kitty and her friends, she delivers a speech filled with the thoughts and feelings of those closest to her, reflecting on the past years. Includes a punch-out picture frame. Full color. Consumable.
From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together
CHINA' S SEAMY UNDERSIDEKitty and her teenage friends, squatting in an empty apartment, are looking for gas to cook instant noodles. Bai Song and his wife, who live in the unit across the hallway, have a well-equipped kitchen with all the mod cons. Plus they' re old and retired, meaning they' re ripe for a bit of rough fun, Clockwork Orange-style.China at the turn of the century. Everything is upside down. Respect for your elders? You' ve got be joking. Communism? Yeah right. Cut-throat capitalism is the only way to get ahead. “ To get rich is glorious” .In ten wonderfully surreal stories, Anne Stevenson-Yang conjures up the atmosphere of a society in freefall. China as you' ve never imagined it: a wife who fakes her divorce so she can buy an apartment; neglected teens who tie up an elderly couple so they can use their kitchen; a country girl who poisons a disabled man for a residence permit.Living in China for nearly twenty-five years, Stevenson-Yang became fascinated in the “ muffled violence beneath the placid surface” .
"Half Italian, half Dutch, totally confused and in the wrong country for the right answers." Autobiographic and distinct in its style, "They like it loud!" is a colourful account of daily life in China for a westerner who had never been to Asia before. The book, written in the form of a diary, takes the reader from the early stages of ironic observations, to more in-depth and provocative questions and considerations. Logging the first twelve months in China, the 100-and-something pages are a travel companion, a guide and a school book, either encouraging the reader to visit this economic power or convincing him and her to never even get close.
The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.