This book is based upon the online forum thread titled 'I'm an office worker' located within the alternative music website 'Drowned in Sound'. Written between December 2007 and November 2011 by over 170 online forum users, it is a rare gem of everyday poetry, satire and tragedy, cumulating into a ruthless and candid portrait of our generation's workforce. Reader reviews: 'This is funny, in a mean way.' 'This book is a rich source of gold.' 'It both amuses me and makes me very, very depressed.
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
A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.
Drawing on her 18 years of experience working remotely, plus original interviews with managers, employees, and free agents who've perfected their remote routines, Laura Vanderkam shares strategies for productivity, creativity, and health in the new corner office. How do you do great work while sitting near the same spot where you watch Netflix? How can you be responsive without losing the focus necessary for getting things done? How can you maintain and grow your network when you spend less time face to face? The key is to detach yourself from old ways of working and adopt new habits to match your new environment. Long before public health concerns pushed many of us indoors, some of the most successful people fueled their careers with carefully perfected work-from-home routines. Drawing on those profiles and her own insights, productivity expert and mother of five Laura Vanderkam reveals how to turn "being cooped up" into the ultimate career advantage. Her hacks include: • Manage by task, not time. Going to an office for 8 hours makes you feel like you've done something, even if you haven't. Remote workers should set 3-5 ambitious goals for each day and consider the work day done when these are crossed off. • Get the rhythm right. A well-planned day features time for focused work, interactive work, and rejuvenating breaks. In place of a commute, a consciously chosen shut down ritual keeps work from continuing all night. • Nurture connections. Wise remote workers can build broader and more effective networks than people sitting in the same cubicle five days a week. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, a self-starter or someone who prefers detailed directions, you can do your clearest thinking and deepest work at home--and have more energy left over to achieve personal goals or fuel bigger professional ambitions. In fact, soon you might find it hard to imagine working any other way.
Sometimes life throws us a curveball. Sometimes it throws us a lifeline. Sometimes it throws us both. Sometimes we don’t know the meaning of what life throws us until well after it throws stuff at us. This is a book about self-doubt, friendship, anxiety, and a worldwide pandemic all through the everyday eyes of an office worker.
“This book will challenge you to rethink what it takes to make remote work work—not just for companies, but for people.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife The future isn’t about where we will work, but how. For years we have struggled to balance work and life, with most of us feeling overwhelmed and burned out because our relationship to work is broken. This “isn't just a book about remote work. It's a book that helps us imagine a future where our lives—at the office and home—are happier, more productive, and genuinely meaningful” (Charles Duhigg, best-selling author of The Power of Habit). Out of Office is a book for every office worker – from employees to managers – currently facing the decision about whether, and how, to return to the office. The past two years have shown us that there may be a new path forward, one that doesn’t involve hellish daily commutes and the demands of jam-packed work schedules that no longer make sense. But how can we realize that future in a way that benefits workers and companies alike? Based on groundbreaking reporting and interviews with workers and managers around the world, Out of Office illuminates the key values and questions that should be driving this conversation: trust, fairness, flexibility, inclusive workplaces, equity, and work-life balance. Above all, they argue that companies need to listen to their employees – and that this will promote, rather than impede, productivity and profitability. As a society, we have talked for decades about flexible work arrangements; this book makes clear that we are at an inflection point where this is actually possible for many employees and their companies. Out of Office is about so much more than zoom meetings and hybrid schedules: it aims to reshape our entire relationship to the office.
Comics and the punk movement are inextricably linked--each has a foundational do-it-yourself ethos and a nonconformist spirit defiant of authority. This collection of new essays provides for the first time a thorough analysis of the intersections between comics and punk. The contributors expand the discussion beyond the familiar U.S. and UK scenes to include the influence punk has had on comics produced in other countries, such as Spain and Turkey.
After experiencing an overwhelming distress in her love life, Serah Taylor confines her life to her profession, and her only focus is to make big achievements in the world of computer software. There seems to be no room for love unless she meets Daniel Lewis. Accustomed to living a monotonous business man’s life, Daniel realizes how beautiful it is to experience being in love, and begins to wonder how he lived without Serah all these years? Before the couple has a chance to envision a life together, terrorizing reminders from Serah’s past events begin to emerge. And as the threat of violence begins to shadow in every step, Daniel and Serah will be pushed to a breaking point.
Once upon a time, there was a middle-aged Japanese salaryman, a schoolgirl, and a speed demon of a truck driver. The man tried to rescue the girl from the truck, and... Well, I bet you can guess what happened next. That man was me, by the way—“was” being the operative word, because the next thing I knew, I came to inside the world of my favorite game, Braves and Blades, as Rex Tauren. Rex is the most powerful character in the early stages of BB, a level 50 jack-of-all-trades who’s got tons of class skills and one huge drawback—Rex is only a minor character, so past the tutorial stage, his growth rate tanks and he’s all but useless. In other words, my quest is now to find BB’s true protagonist and dump all of this saving-the-world stuff on them. I just wanna kick back and... Hold up! Why does everyone keep calling me the hero?!
Since the murder of her husband two years prior, all Devin Avery has wanted is normalcy in her life for the sake of her twin daughters. But the feeling of being followed won't go away. When she receives a letter from a mysterious woman claiming to be her husband's first wife, she must take a chance at getting to the bottom of her worries. After doing his sister's dirty bidding and spying on Devin Avery, Spark guiltily befriends her and makes the mistake of falling in love. Now, between a rock and a hard place, he must decide between a family member he despises and a love like he's never known. Should he help Devin get to the truth of her husband's death when it could mean losing her forever?
